Episode 621 - Live Laugh Love
Feb 6, 2023
Toxic positivity can take all sorts of forms, but I think it's most easily recognised by someone telling you to be happy about something when you just don't feel it. It's a really odd, nasty, weird feeling when a person tells you you're basically not allowed to be grumpy or even neutral, you MUST be happy. How many times have we all been told to “smile” by someone?
Topics and Show Notes
I think it's interesting when it involves pop-culture:
When you're not allowed to criticise things or dislike them. People do this with nationalism, politics, brands, products, cars, celebrities etc, but it's really telling with pop-culture. The whole “Shhh, just let people enjoy things” meme: It has a good side but also quite a big dark side as well. Being relentlessly negative and stomping all over other's enjoyment of things is a real dick move, so yes, let them enjoy the thing. The dark side of that is when people use it to shut down ALL criticism.
I've been in groups where they ban people for saying anything at all bad about certain shows or the characters in them, even as a joke. That's quite a toxic environment. For example, not only must you like every Star Wars movie and not make fun of any of them or any character, you must also like all the TV shows whether it's Lego Star Wars, Clone Wars, or even the games. Disliking any can “ruin someone else's enjoyment” so you get a ban.
Then there are the people who stomp into the middle or of a group happily dedicated to the enjoyment of criticism and use the “…let people enjoy things” line on them, not realising that they're refusing to let those people enjoy what they were into. Yes, people shouldn't be dicks about things, but people shouldn't be super “positive thinking” thought-police either, which is worse because it induces stress and pushes people out of fan communities.
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Succubus - A quiet, contemplative, slightly mournful tune, delicate in piano, is suddenly swamped by a red wave of horror and chaos as the music is ripped asunder and this new sound gouges deep into your ears.
Topics and shownotes
Tantz's Toxic positivity - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jan/27/character-trait-toxic-positivity-toxic-acceptance-part-1/
Featured comic:
She Used To Be Fractal - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jan/30/featured-comic-she-used-to-be-fractal/
Featured music:
Succubus - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Succubus/ - by Coydog and TheDeeMan, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!
Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Episode 620 - losers are human too
Jan 30, 2023
My idea was to talk about social pariah characters, people who it's socially acceptable to laugh at, despise, or even hate. They can be the uncool people, the dorks, the dags, the idiots, the overweight, the ugly, the old, the out of touch, the over the hill… On the extreme end they could be monsters and criminals. Generally they're written pretty two dimensionally as a collection of cliches, but when the writing goes beyond that to lend them humanity is when it goes to the next level.
Episode 619 - Artificial culture
Jan 23, 2023
Talking about AI again but this time our subject is different: Does it have a negative influence on culture? AI creative tools in the hands of an actual skilled creator opens up amazing possibilities. Real creative people will be able to use them as the tools they are, to mix and match with their own knowledge, talents and many different creative sources to produce novel and interesting things!
Episode 612 - Comfort food for the brain
Dec 5, 2022
There are times when you need to give your brain a bit of a break, that's when comfort shows come in handy! Movies and TV shows you can watch again and again- you can appreciate them every time and they don't get old. The tension never gets too much for you because you already know what's going to happen. You can just relax and enjoy the familiar story, revelling in the company of characters you know and visiting their world once more. They're great for creating to as well because you don't have to worry about missing anything important.
Episode 610 - Beauty!
Nov 21, 2022
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, so the saying goes but it's absolutely true. There is a layered subjectivity to it based on personal preference, the cultural standards of your community, the ethnic traits of you and your peers, prevailing global fashions in appearance, the dominant archetypes in the media and so on. All these things combine to form our personal subjective ideas of beauty. You can see this yourself if you look at paintings, statues, masks, frescoes and other artifacts that have been produced by all the diverse cultures on earth over thousands of years: there IS no standard, eternal, objective of beauty.
Episode 602 - It's my turn now bitches!
Sep 26, 2022
What happens when the victim becomes the victor? Most of the time it's like the classic line from The Who “Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss”, typically revolutions (and elections), that promise change don't really deliver, the new people use it as a chance to get revenge on their enemies, take advantage of things the same as the last guys, and do everything they can to cling to power. The true exceptions are rare and special, i.e. Vaclav Havel and the Velvet revolution.
Episode 600 - AI is bad at art
Sep 12, 2022
here's a lot of buzz about so called AI generated art at the moment using programs like Dall-E, Neural blender, Dream studio lite and so on. People use text prompts, i.e. “flying clockwork fish balloon” and the AI generates “art” based upon that. It usually does this by using actual art and photography created by real people, and visually mixing them to create a new image. Some results are much better than others.
Episode 598 - 2D or not 2D!
Aug 29, 2022
What makes a character two dimensional? What makes them three dimensional? Does it matter that they only have two dimensions to them? This was an idea that GeekyGami posed and so we thought we'd explore it in the cast. My own theory is that a character that is purely archetypal, tropeish, or cliche, with everything about them flowing from that archetype, and they never go beyond their archetypal traits- that makes them 2D.
