MRA Dilbert

boing
1

[Read the post]

4 Likes
2
9 Likes
3

@doctorow beat you … lose to @renke.

7 Likes
4

The longer I live in this world the move convinced I become that liking anyone is a futile effort in eventual disappointment.

10 Likes
5

Sure is, but we move on :). Don’t let aholes get you down for too long.

2 Likes
6

Yep. CisBert. I remember those cartoons.

Good call.

7

It’s easier to like dead people.

3 Likes
8

42 Likes
9

Yes, I read that in Ralph’s voice.

4 Likes
10

I think it’s worth knowing that everyone has flaws, and it’s okay to say ‘Dilbert is funny (at times, if you like it, whatever), but Scott Adams is a dickhole.’. Kanye can be both a brilliant musician and a jackass (and a gay fish).

I worry that our modern view of things is very one-sided: “this guy is a jerk so that invalidates everything he ever did.”. Maybe that’s not modern, but it seems worse with the advent of the internet.

17 Likes
11

Especially because many of Boing Boing’s patron saints have their despicable side: Seuss, Asimov, Dahl, RAW, Hunter Thompson, Einstein, RMS, ESR, Bashki, Bunuel, Hitchcock …

People who are iconoclastic enough to create true cultural touch points also hold unacceptable and controversial POVs outside of the mainstream. Film at 11.

16 Likes
12

So you know, sometimes I feel like maybe I’m a shitty person because I like a lot of problematic stuff.

Then I read things like that and feel a lot better about myself,

2 Likes
13

Yeah, I think that’s a really necessary position to take to enjoy anything. For example, I overall like Game of Thrones even though it has some severely problematic things to it. If I just completely ignored it because it’s a rapity rapefest, I’d miss the genuinely cool intrigue and characters. Rather than one negating the other, I just have to acknowledge that both things are present and run with it.

2 Likes
14

2015 - The Year of Your Fave is Problematic

:wink:

2 Likes
15

I have repeatedly said one must separate the art from the artist.

EVERYONE has negative qualities. Everyone. Even you. Some qualities are deal breakers and some aren’t. You don’t have to be best friends or worship someone to enjoy their work or respect them for something they have accomplished.

3 Likes
16

Heck, I’ll even state on record that I quite enjoyed L Ron Hubbard’s Science Fiction writings as a young teen!

Rolf Harris’s musical stylings or Bill Cosby’s gags are no worse in retrospect despite other issues that have been brought to light, and as I remarked to a friend earlier this year - we don’t think less of the works of Socrates and his ilk when their history of pederasty is brought up.

2 Likes
17

Eh, some do. But yes, we give them a pass because everyone did it. Same as with like the Founding Fathers being the most hippie-dippy “human rights” champions of the era, but some still owned slaves.

1 Like
18

I still groove to Michael Jackson.

Don’t tell anyone.

5 Likes
19

Distance helps, I think. It’s easier to appreciate, say, Wagner now that’s he’s been dead for a long time, or if you aren’t Jewish, I’d imagine.

I can separate the art from the artist, but I can also make a conscious decision not to enable the troublesome behaviour by funding it. So, no Dilbert merchandise, etc until after Adams dies. See also OSC, etc.

To be honest, I stopped looking at Dibert on a daily basis years ago - I don’t know if his attitudes in real life are reflected in his cartoons, I could imagine that it might do.

2 Likes
20

I’m not sure about that. I’m with Mark: “Was it funny in 1969 when Bill Cosby joked about his quest to procure some Spanish Fly to drug women for sex? I don’t know, but it isn’t funny now.”

If that was ever a funny story then the revelations about the storyteller make it an unfunny one.

If it was an unfunny story to begin with then the revelations about the storyteller make it an even-more-horrible one.

4 Likes