As I'm sure you're aware, the majority of truly creative types throughout history have been total jerks: Michelangelo? a noted jerk. Shakespeare? didn't even teach his daughter to read and write - what a jerk. This is why, whenever I come across anybody being a jerk I immediately check out their work, just in case they're a budding genius.

With this in mind, I've decided to become (more of) a jerk in an effort to improve my own work and I hope some of you will join me in this bold experiment. Most of all, I'd like to hear any suggestions you may have on how to be a jerk without ruffling too many feathers. Is that possible, or is creating offence the very essence of jerkdom?

Is it possible to be an loveable jerk?

I disagree.

Everyone is a jerk really, it's just that we don't always let it show.
I think the reason a lot of famous creative types were/are known for it is just that they achieved a status and position where they didn't have to be so careful; they could/can just let loose with impunity.
-They don't have anything to lose. Exactly like what happens when you turn into an old fart.

I suppose the ones that stay reasonably nice when they're successful and or older were probably the ones who were genuinely nice to start with and the ones that let it all hang out just because they're old or more successful were always dickheads who were just faking niceness to get ahead. -_-
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That's another perspective on it anyway.
We all have to be free to be dickheads occasionally, but we shouldn't make that our default setting.

Maybe you want all of us to take your advice and become jerks so that our fan base will leave us. This means that all our readers will then move to you, the last person who isn't a jerk.

Well I got news for you, that's a real JERK thing to do!! :D

Also, I think it's coincidence if creative people happen to be jerks. I'm sure we can all compile a list of creative people who aren't jerks. Perhaps there is a conflation of creativity with being famous here.

Ironscarf
With this in mind, I've decided to become (more of) a jerk in an effort to improve my own work and I hope some of you will join me in this bold experiment. Most of all, I'd like to hear any suggestions you may have on how to be a jerk without ruffling too many feathers. Is that possible, or is creating offence the very essence of jerkdom?

Here's a suggestions for you, go fuck yourself.

Ironscarf
Is it possible to be an loveable jerk?

House?

BffSatan
Here's a suggestions for you, go fuck yourself.

Not exactly what I was after, but I'm checking out your comic right away you genius!

Ironscarf
Is it possible to be an loveable jerk?

Most probably.
I myself can never be a jerk to just anyone.
I have to be a jerk to people I like. Any other time and I just feel bad.

….Yeeeep

“Gosh Darnit, Spencer, I thought I told you to stay put!”

Erad
Maybe you want all of us to take your advice and become jerks so that our fan base will leave us.

In my experience, the opposite is true. I can name a number of notable webcomic creators who are regularly jerks to their fans, and their fans just seem to forgive them for it.

Also in my personal experience, the guys who are jerks to their fans are much greater jerks in real life! So perhaps Ironscarf has got something there. He's not quite the gormless stinking slackjaw I took him for.

People who are jerks usually end up as fails rather than successes. That would be the “cool” people in my school who one, think they have friends when they are hated by everyone, and two, do things that make even more people hate them. That's why I try to be nice to everyone…who isn't a jerk. But my comics are sucking in readership right now so maybe I should stop talking nice nice, and start calling you all jack…rabbits.

skoolmunkee
In my experience, the opposite is true. I can name a number of notable webcomic creators who are regularly jerks to their fans, and their fans just seem to forgive them for it.

Also in my personal experience, the guys who are jerks to their fans are much greater jerks in real life! So perhaps Ironscarf has got something there. He's not quite the gormless stinking slackjaw I took him for.

This.

I could name quite a few jerks, none of them have really have been unsuccessful due to rudeness.

You know what they say, no press is bad press.

Being a jerk has worked for me quite fine.

Ironscarf
As I'm sure you're aware, the majority of truly creative types throughout history have been total jerks: Michelangelo? a noted jerk. Shakespeare? didn't even teach his daughter to read and write - what a jerk. This is why, whenever I come across anybody being a jerk I immediately check out their work, just in case they're a budding genius.

With this in mind, I've decided to become (more of) a jerk in an effort to improve my own work and I hope some of you will join me in this bold experiment. Most of all, I'd like to hear any suggestions you may have on how to be a jerk without ruffling too many feathers. Is that possible, or is creating offence the very essence of jerkdom?

Is it possible to be an loveable jerk?

I suggest you work on developing Asperger's instead.

There's a lot of thinking that guys like Michelangelo and so on might have had some sort of mental illness like Asperger's that would allow them to develop the tunnel vision-esque focus a lot of autistic folk's display. I don't know how much evidence there really is to support the theory, but given some of the autistic kids I've met I can see it being quite possible if they got their attention caught on making art or whatever.

My experience is that you just never hear of small-time jerks until they become big. It's not that they hide it, it's just that you never paid attention to them before. The only part I think that changes once a jerk gets famous is that they have less of a problem letting it show in their work itself.

if you're a jerk, you've got two good options:

first: be truly great. no, you dimwit, not be what you think is great. what you think is great is what most people call an embarrassment. you have to be what any person out there (barring a truly massive jerk) would look at and be great. a doctor that saves countless lives, or an artist that lifts the spirits just to look at their art. the good news is if you pull it off, you can be a jerk 24/7 and life friggin' bends over for you.

second: be rich. if you're filthy sticking rich, people will also think you're great. the fact that you can't tie your own damn shoelaces without hurting yourself and probably still think the tooth fairy is real (sorry buttercup, no such thing. and santa died in 1953. the US shot him down and killed him, thinking he was a russian. suck it up) isn't going to slow them down in praising youi over nothing at all.

failing both of these, you can try to be selective in your targets. if you're only a jerk towards even bigger jerks, people tend to think you're a great guy that's defending them. never mind the fact that i only do it because the bigger they are the more fun their crying in shame is, they want to believe you're on their side. suckers. if you can't do that? hell, i dunno go be a monk or something.

Scarfie, I refuse to buy it - you're too charming and sweet to be a jerk. I mean, uh… you're the biggest punkface the world has ever birthed! I'm constantly appalled at your antics!

Erm, I guess my theory is that if enough people SAY you're a jerk, you could just live on the assumption? I should try to be a jerk, too! RAR!

lba
There's a lot of thinking that guys like Michelangelo and so on might have had some sort of mental illness like Asperger's

It's the same sort of thinking as “Egyptians must have had help from aliens or the lost people of Atlantis because the pyramids are just too amazing for normal people to have built”

Those theories are thought of by morons who have a very limited idea of what ordinary people are capable off.




I am a massive jerk when it comes to stuff like that. -_-

I'll reiterate: being successful just gives you the freedom to be a jerk, the same as being old. There's nothing more to it than that. There's no other correlation between a successful “creative” and their bad manners.

Just being a jerk is not an indicator of anything other than your disposition.
-In terms of creative success that is

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Scarf started this thread in fun of course… But I'm too sincere to play well at being jokingly jerkish… I come of as meanly jerkish instead.
It's true. -_-

assburgers is a fake disease for people that spent too much time online and never learned how to socialize

I here that being a jerk doesn't just help with your comic views but in other aspects as well. Like women, I can name a number of relationships where the guy treated her like a jerk and she always goes back to him.

Although in my opinion if you can't find another way to get readers over than treating them like crap then you have a problem ^^ or you're onto something there

Ozoneocean
But I'm too sincere to play well at being jokingly jerkish… I come of as meanly jerkish instead.

I have the opposite problem: if I try to join in a serious discussion, my point usually gets buried under so many layers of irony, I end up looking like a troll. This is a particularly heavy cross to bear, because I'm actually a deeply serious individual. :(

ERasER
Although in my opinion if you can't find another way to get readers over than treating them like crap then you have a problem ^^ or you're onto something there

This thread alone has netted me two pageviews and a fave!
Also a lady should never be treated like a jerk: reminds me of a phone call I had to make once.

Me: Excuse me sir, we're conducting a survey on behalf of your credit card provider; I wonder if I might speak to the lady of the house?

Sir: You can speak to 'er mate, but trust me, she aint no lady!

Tsk tsk.

Ironscarf
Is it possible to be an loveable jerk?

Most of the lovable jerks I've had the pleasure of observing in my life have one thing in common: sympathetic writers. If one could only find a staff of them to manage one's life…

Fuck the talented jerks (unless they're amazingly, supremely talented, I suppose). The pleasant folk are where it's at!

you can't pretend to be a jerk! ya got it or ya don't, Irons.either yer born that way, or ya aquire it outa dealing with morons. if ya just try to copy other artistic assholes, then ya don't know what it means to have the real thing, don't a be poser.

i suppose most of us got it there in one form or another though. i aint so much of an arrogant or cynical jerk as a happy one. i like to make myself laugh at other people's expense. doesn't matter if other people are laughing as long as i am.

There is something you should keep in mind, though: Uwe Boll is a jerk.

I think Payton Manning is a prick.

I like teriyaki beef jerky.
And I enjoyed the movie The Jerk with Steve Martin.
When I think about it, he really wasn't much of a jerk as we define it today but rather mildly retarded.

You shouldn't talk about a black person that way :[

I know far more uncreative and unsuccessful jerks than successful ones. They are really quite plentiful. Do we need more?

Seriously speaking, I personally have never checked out someone's work because he was being a jerk. And I have stopped following the comics of people who behaved that way. Their personalities tainted their work for me.

KademonsterX
I think Payton Manning is a prick.

Hey, man. Them's fightin' words.

You jerk.

I was looking at one comic, and the guy hadn't updated in a while. So in the comments there were people (nicely) asking him when he was going to put another comic up. The creator just blew up at them, said some emo crap about not understanding his life and that they should stop pressuring him. I thought he was an ass and I never went back. I think you should be nice to get people to read your comics, you fantastically sexy people you.

Ironscarf
the majority of truly creative types throughout history have been total jerks

There's probably the same amount of evidence to support this and fight against it. I'm gonna say it's 50/50. I know some really wonderful artists that aren't jerks so…

Pineapple
I was looking at one comic, and the guy hadn't updated in a while. So in the comments there were people (nicely) asking him when he was going to put another comic up. The creator just blew up at them, said some emo crap about not understanding his life and that they should stop pressuring him. I thought he was an ass and I never went back. I think you should be nice to get people to read your comics, you fantastically sexy people you.

Oh wow, link?


…CRAP. ITS WORKING

Skullbie

Pineapple
I was looking at one comic, and the guy hadn't updated in a while. So in the comments there were people (nicely) asking him when he was going to put another comic up. The creator just blew up at them, said some emo crap about not understanding his life and that they should stop pressuring him. I thought he was an ass and I never went back. I think you should be nice to get people to read your comics, you fantastically sexy people you.

Oh wow, link?


…CRAP. ITS WORKING

Im sure that all of you, attractive, intelligent people, don't have time to read my little ol' comic.
http://www.drunkduck.com/God_Damn_It/
You are probably doing more important stuff, like curing cancer, or feeding orphans. Oh, I wish I was just one tenth of the person you are.
sigh

Mmmmm… beef jerky.