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missroseroseIn case anyone is unaware, I'm a fairly regular reader of Something*Positive, one of the more popular webcomics on the Internet. This particular comic is well known for both its brightly-colored artwork and its consistently snarky and sarcastic sense of humor.
Lately someone wrote up a critique of this comic, calling it "relentlessly mean-spirited". This is hardly a first; throughout the few years it's been online, S*P has garnered more than its share of criticism, mostly aimed at its irreverent, sarcastic, nothing-is-sacred approach to humor. As there is obviously something to the accusations of mean-spiritedness -- in the first comic, one of the main characters sends his ex-girlfriend a coat hanger as a baby shower present -- this got me wondering why, exactly, so many people like this cartoon.
The answer seems to lie entirely in one fundamental fact of life: Dealing with people is frustrating. Sure, we've all filled out job applications where we talk about how we "love working with people", "have excellent people skills", etc., but it all comes down to the same thing - we can deal with people, but we don't necessarily like to. However, human interaction is a part of life, especially on this overcrowded planet, so we learn how to be "politically correct", and we all learn an instinctive code of behavior - what one might call the "rules of nice." It dictates what "nice" people do and don't do, say and don't say, think and don't think.
Unfortunately, we have all been in situations where we aren't as "nice" as we should be. Even hard-core Pollyanna types who honestly believe that there's some good in everyone get frustrated sometimes. We've all dealt with that particularly self-centered customer/relative/neighbor who just makes us want to strangle them. But we don't, because that's not "nice" - and unless we have some particular reason to care about them, we don't say anything, because it's also not "nice" to point out other people's shortcomings. And as a result, many of us feel guilty about the innate hypocrisy - our behavior doesn't match our beliefs. We don't like this person, but we should like this person because a "nice" person accepts everybody, regardless of flaws. We can act decently towards them, and we do because otherwise we couldn't live in a human community - that's what the rules are for. But we feel guilty for not feeling more charitable towards them than we do; and often we don't treat them as well because of how we feel about them. Which, of course, only adds to the guilt.
And all this brings us back to the comic. The author and artist behind Something*Positive, Randy Milholland, has admitted on more than one occasion to being a colonel asshole (think major asshole with a promotion). And while I'm sure that he follows the "rules of nice" to some extent, as do we all, his comic alter-ego, Davan, gets to say and do all the mean, snarky, sarcastic things that he would like to in a given situation (or perhaps actually does - I'm don't know him personally so I can't say for sure). And the rest of us get to live vicariously through him - even though we would never say or do these things, we laugh because more often than not we've thought about doing something similar. It lets us know that it's okay to think these things, that other people do too. It fulfills that great human need, the need for validation. The need to know that we are not alone.
If that's not your kind of thing, then fine - no one's making you read it. But I hope this helps folks out there understand why hundreds of thousands of people read and enjoy this comic - it's precisely because it's mean-spirited and sarcastic. It's an outlet for the part of us that isn't societally acceptable, the part that doesn't want to "play nice" with the other children. The part of us that's just not a nice person.
Of course, rather than promoting understanding, this idea may well scare people even more - after all, the next stop in that train of logic is that, not only are there people out there who are not nice, there are a lot more not-nice people out there than one might think. The comic, after all, does have thousands upon thousands of readers. Do all those people really exist, and are they really not as nice as they act?
To which I answer: Yes. They do. That's humanity, Bub.
Deal with it.
Lately someone wrote up a critique of this comic, calling it "relentlessly mean-spirited". This is hardly a first; throughout the few years it's been online, S*P has garnered more than its share of criticism, mostly aimed at its irreverent, sarcastic, nothing-is-sacred approach to humor. As there is obviously something to the accusations of mean-spiritedness -- in the first comic, one of the main characters sends his ex-girlfriend a coat hanger as a baby shower present -- this got me wondering why, exactly, so many people like this cartoon.
The answer seems to lie entirely in one fundamental fact of life: Dealing with people is frustrating. Sure, we've all filled out job applications where we talk about how we "love working with people", "have excellent people skills", etc., but it all comes down to the same thing - we can deal with people, but we don't necessarily like to. However, human interaction is a part of life, especially on this overcrowded planet, so we learn how to be "politically correct", and we all learn an instinctive code of behavior - what one might call the "rules of nice." It dictates what "nice" people do and don't do, say and don't say, think and don't think.
Unfortunately, we have all been in situations where we aren't as "nice" as we should be. Even hard-core Pollyanna types who honestly believe that there's some good in everyone get frustrated sometimes. We've all dealt with that particularly self-centered customer/relative/neighbor who just makes us want to strangle them. But we don't, because that's not "nice" - and unless we have some particular reason to care about them, we don't say anything, because it's also not "nice" to point out other people's shortcomings. And as a result, many of us feel guilty about the innate hypocrisy - our behavior doesn't match our beliefs. We don't like this person, but we should like this person because a "nice" person accepts everybody, regardless of flaws. We can act decently towards them, and we do because otherwise we couldn't live in a human community - that's what the rules are for. But we feel guilty for not feeling more charitable towards them than we do; and often we don't treat them as well because of how we feel about them. Which, of course, only adds to the guilt.
And all this brings us back to the comic. The author and artist behind Something*Positive, Randy Milholland, has admitted on more than one occasion to being a colonel asshole (think major asshole with a promotion). And while I'm sure that he follows the "rules of nice" to some extent, as do we all, his comic alter-ego, Davan, gets to say and do all the mean, snarky, sarcastic things that he would like to in a given situation (or perhaps actually does - I'm don't know him personally so I can't say for sure). And the rest of us get to live vicariously through him - even though we would never say or do these things, we laugh because more often than not we've thought about doing something similar. It lets us know that it's okay to think these things, that other people do too. It fulfills that great human need, the need for validation. The need to know that we are not alone.
If that's not your kind of thing, then fine - no one's making you read it. But I hope this helps folks out there understand why hundreds of thousands of people read and enjoy this comic - it's precisely because it's mean-spirited and sarcastic. It's an outlet for the part of us that isn't societally acceptable, the part that doesn't want to "play nice" with the other children. The part of us that's just not a nice person.
Of course, rather than promoting understanding, this idea may well scare people even more - after all, the next stop in that train of logic is that, not only are there people out there who are not nice, there are a lot more not-nice people out there than one might think. The comic, after all, does have thousands upon thousands of readers. Do all those people really exist, and are they really not as nice as they act?
To which I answer: Yes. They do. That's humanity, Bub.
Deal with it.
