Marred Observations

The John Campbell Thing

I just read another thing about it and was like really? I don’t really read Pictures for Sad Children but I also have nothing against it. I rad his initial thing on kickstarter and got it was satire. Maybe it’s because I read it after I learned that people were butthurt over a joke they didn’t get and I wasn’t planning on getting emotionally invested in the drama or I’m just older than those who read it.

I don’t know. I read like, the first third or half but even there the joke was slowly building. Like a flood started by a dripping ceiling or the edges of waves licking at the coast on a calm night, the absurdity of his statement took the slow way to get over the top.

I can get why puerile would be mad if they didn’t immediately get the joke, but how good are they as fans if they don’t think a minute and then get the joke, or was it an army of Internet Social Crusaders who saw or and they’re not familiar with his work at all.

This makes me think of Oscar Wilde and puerile not getting his satire. Wilde took ridiculousness of the social elite and ridiculed them in farce that they ate up because they were too dense to be angry that he want just presenting them with a mirror of the elite, he was presenting them a funhouse mirror. They ate it up what they thought was a reflection of their life and it was a farce.

This mirrors that I that the audience is so wrapped up in their personal narrative that they too missed the joke because it wasn’t an obvious farce (ex: I wish my lawn was suicidal so it would cut itself). john’s satire was slow building and not a raucous loud affair but I think the silence of what he was saying got lost in the din of emotions when tempers flared. People were so wrapped in their own stories they didn’t see how someone could be making fun of their own personal story, and prescribed the statements of one to many.

I don’t think John was in the wrong, I often think the internet needs to calm down before responding to things and think about it for a moment. What is the person who wrote this like? what have they revealed about their person? if this doesn’t go along with who they usually make themself out to be could this be a joke?

He shouldn’t have to apologize to people who didn’t get the joke and who don’t understand because they don’t understand satire. Maybe he should apologize because feelings were really hurt but not because he made a joke where he was the victim and people didn’t see that. In the end he’ll do whatever he feels like or gets pressured into. I don’t know, I’m not a witch.