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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28356 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 11, 2024

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Would you say a majority of people find the linked image amusing, or sad?

I gotta say the cat at the end really bummed me out. Poor little chap

It's that "shit rolls downhill" meme, isn't it? Or that saying was around before memes. I haven't seen the one with the crying cat at the end, but in reality it would probably be the cat killing a mouse or small bird.

Boss unloads on employee, who can't talk back without losing his job. Employee goes home and unloads on wife for small error which is only the excuse for him to blow off steam. Wife does same to kid. Kid does same to cat. Everyone takes it out on the less powerful person because they're unable to stand up to the more powerful person, and this is life, and this is what people are like, and be aware of this the next time you want to blow up in somebody's face after someone unloaded on you and you weren't able to defend yourself.

and be aware of this the next time you want to blow up in somebody's face after someone unloaded on you and you weren't able to defend yourself.

But the only thing "being aware" lets you do is choose between blowing up in somebody's face anyway... or refraining from doing so and making yourself the ultimate receptor of all the shit.

It should let you know if "am I going nuclear over 'you didn't water the pot plant today' because it's really life-or-death that the pot plant gets watered today and not tomorrow, or am I steamed over getting reamed out by the boss who I cannot tell go fuck themselves, and that's why I'm going to take it out on X?"

Nothing says you can't get angry if there's a reason to get angry, but the scale of response may not be in proportion to the offence. "Okay, I am pissed-off that the boss chewed me out, but that's a separate thing to what is going on here with the wife/kid/cat" is the takeaway.

You say that like sparing your wife, children or other wards the undeserved shit is something bad.

I find it sad but also amusing in a dark humor way. And for me, dark humor is a pretty good defense mechanism against things like actually letting myself feel the depth of emotions that I am capable of, and have some reason to feel, but which might consume me for days on end if I allowed myself to truly feel them. The picture of that particular cat with crying-seeming eyes is a very common one used in Internet memes, so it's not like using that picture actually hurts that real cat. I don't know why the cat in the original source of the image looked like that to begin with, maybe some eye infection. I think, having known a number of cats and witnessed to some extent the depths of their various emotions, that cats are probably capable of feeling sadness, but I somewhat doubt that they express it through watery eyes like humans often do. In any case, I don't feel like I am hurting any being by finding the use of the picture amusing.

I'd imagine most people find it funny. It comes down to identification. If you see the characters as people you dislike, it's funny: impotent loser is yelling at me because he doesn't have the stones to yell at his boss. If you identify with the characters you see what you're doing.

Darkly amusing. There's a comic effect to the aesthetic, but it mostly evokes the tidal wave of nastiness that comes from treating people badly.

I certainly find it sad.

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