this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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This is a weird one but the nihilism of Robot Chicken used to really get to me. Just vignettes of characters dying horrible ironic deaths. Its funny I guess in a group setting but alone and stoned in my room, not so much. I think the elephant in the room is South Park. Especially around 2013/14 when they helped bring the term "PC" back into the political zeitgeist, which was the buzz word the right loved before "woke".
Everyone realized South Park's messaging was horrible even back then, but ”that's the joke bro, they're being misanthropic edgelords for the lulz!”, which in itself led to some even worse stuff from South Park poisoned people.
I wish that were the case. I still get into go-nowhere arguments, sometimes, with fans that claim that "Matt and Trey make fun of everything and everyone" and therefore it's also so wholesomely nonpolitical in the balance.
I doubt South Park often makes fun of smug enlightened centrism, apathy as a lazy response to actual political issues that actually affect living people's lives, or for that matter the rich white asshole libertarianism of Matt and Trey.
The Harley f-slur episode did it for me. A couple years prior, my closest friends all got together and agreed to stop using the f-slur. We had no out queer friends (god it took me so long to admit dicks are good actually), and we were just "this is dumb to just use constantly". The word was so ingrained in our lexicon and a bunch of idiot 13 year olds decide amongst themselves that enough was enough. Then like 2 years later that episode came out. Was a quick "well this is dog shit" realization.
They embrace it. There was an ep where Stan starts drinking to accept things. It's literally "caring will make you unfunny, lonely, and lame".
Every time I hear someone claim that entertainment has no effect on people's attitudes, beliefs, or behavior, I can glance back in time at the cultural ripples that occured each time South Park programmed its consumers to do something like, say, dismiss climate change entirely as a concept by getting credulous smug "nonpoliticals" to say "MANBEARPIG LOL" to terminate further thought.
Or that time they popularized redhead hate in the US
I didn't even know redhead hate was a thing or have to hear about it until that episode aired and then it was everywhere around me "as a joke" for a while.
When
got elected, that very biting critique suddenly went silent because Matt and Trey are cowards and always have been.
Watching this is definitely not one of my proudest life phases. I remember it really got to me with neurodivergence and how they chose to depict that. Also it's incredibly violent to fat people, the way Cartman gets portayed and what the supposed reasons are for his behaviour.
Someone posted a Red Sails article here yesterday that goes over the way entertainment conditions us to the status quo. I think South Park is a perfect example of that, in making horrible be supposedly mainstream.
Could you send a link to that? It may be useful the next inevitable time some treat defender chants "entertainment has no effect on people" at me, usually prepackaged with whatever salad bar leftist jargon they add to it.
Here you go: https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
Appreciated!
"What if fun thing that made kids happy... but now characters killed off in cheap and gory ways for a quick giggle?"
That same attitude sums up most of Kurtzman's reign over the Star Trek IP too.
This resonates with me so much.
To this day there's still that persistent belief (largely derived from South Park consumers themselves) that they aren't influenced by the entertainment they consume while parroting what the entertainment taught them anyway.
You how people talk about Rick and Morty? South Park is actually the show they say R&M is. They don't actually have a problem with edgy nihilism.
my mother will not stop loving south park
This and Celebrity Deathmatch were absolutely unwatchable to me. Same with Sons of Butcher. Just poisoned apathy.
I was enthralled with celeb deathmatch and clayfighter
Claymation is just cool, so that's fine
South Park for me has a handful of 10/10 eps and then a septic tank of increasingly frequent steamers. the first 3 or so seasons were funny, but they increasingly felt they needed to Say Something while also running out of having anything to say. the "everyone who cares about this is stupid" default was arrived at because they got through all the things they actually care about.
okay actually i'm gonna check wikipedia to make sure the first 3 were actually funny and i'm not just having a reaction to enjoying like 2 episodes ever bolstered by my memories of being a teenager
No, there are definitely quite good episodes. The beginning, when they were leaning into immaturity and absurdism was definitely when it was the best. Plus, even in later seasons, there are some episodes like that, more about how ridiculous kids can be, which people remember more, like the superhero one, or the Lord of the Rings one, or the one where they get shurikans and bladed weapons.