Nah, I love the Minions. They have just the right amount of stupidity for my sense of humor. I haven’t seen the newest movie yet, but I have seen clips that seem to indicate the Minions are starting to speak in a slightly clearer way, which is the only thing I don’t care for. Their humor is essentially that of the 3 Stooges, only once removed since they aren’t humans (Stooge humor always leaves me a little sad, since they obviously have special needs and therefore shouldn’t be laughed at).
So they’re essentially a hybrid of Stooges and funny cat videos.
I also like the Rabbids, only not quite as much (they err just a tad on the side of too stupid).
As soon as amazon boxes started showing up covered with minions cross-promotion crap I more or less assumed I’d never want to see said movie, or anything else with that name on it.
As a guy who’s done a bunch of product/package design, the Minions are completely brilliant design-wise, I have to say. They’re just a simple yellow lozenge shape, a white circle, and a black dot. If you can draw that, you can draw a Minion. And anything yellow can become a Minion with just an eyeball added. It takes a pro to even attempt a decent drawing of Mickey or Donald, but anyone can draw a good looking Minion on a cake in about three seconds. That’s the other reason they’re appearing everywhere, their design is simple and appealing.
I like them better than the smurfs. The smurfs are boring, and moralizing. The minions are neutral to sweet and energetic. And, at least in DM1, weren’t around ALL THE TIME. They were like confectioner’s sugar. But a whole movie? That’s drinking a bottle of uncut HFCS.
See, I like minions, but then I realized that I only saw the first movie, and have only encountered the insipidness of the meme once or twice. Having read the article and seen the memes, though, I now understand the ire of the author. Any meme that is prone to having the phrase, “Repost if you…” anywhere on it, deserves to die in a fire.
It’s like someone deliberately created a group of characters from which most children can find a favorite to identify with. They like to have fun but larger people keep making them do things. They do their job, usually with a smile but sometimes with a bit of grump and get back to enjoying life as soon as possible. It’s insidious! Clearly this must be stopped…
Last night I read a small story to my kids that involved skipping a rock into the water an making a wish. I commented how we were going to the beach soon, and could do things like that. My son said he was going to wish for a real-life minion of his own.
The talking ones in the Happy Meals are annoying enough.
