That episode where he plays detective butters and catches his dad meeting with men at a massage parlour or something is still one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
[deleted] ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 12:49:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Haha and his mother tries to kill him and cover up his death
Ike? Kyle has been completely gutted since the boys don't want to hear his stupid monologues. Obviously a sign that Matt and Trey get that they have been a little repetitive and relying heavily on kyle to get there message across.
moeburn ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 07:03:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Stan went all depressed and thought the world was shit and then... just... turned into an asshole.
Stan was a main character (with Kyle being the counterpart, Kenny/Cartmen being friends/nemesis).
Fun facts: Matt Stone has a mother named Sheila and a father named Gerald. Trey Parker has a father named Randy, a mother named Sharon, and an older sister named Shelley.
Kyle and Stan were both main characters as they were stand-ins for Matt and Trey.
And Randy Parker is a fairly renowned geologist. I'm a geology major who has to read his articles fairly often for my classes.
[deleted] ยท 153 points ยท Posted at 07:08:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Thats pretty neat. My girlfriends aunt is the real Wendy, and Kenny is based on another childhood friend of theirs.
All of the women in that family are hot strong brunette feminists who are really smart and all look the same. I cant stop mentally comparing my girlfriend to Wendy
They had a childhood friend who used to miss school all the time and Trey and Matt would joke that he had died. Every week when "Kenny" missed school it was because he had died in some spectacular fashion.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:28:04 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It wasnt phrased how I usually speak but I was really drunk...they were all standing in a tiny kitchen together talking and all of the sudden I was like "holy shit she wasnt lying" and all I could see was a room full of Wendy Tessaburgers arguing about nonsense
I haven't been able to get into the last few seasons, including this one. The original premise of South Park was just "kids acting like they do when adults aren't around," and then they shifted away from that. I think it was a good show up to about season 11, and it's been really hit or miss ever since.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:39:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
What? "Volcano," "Death," "Weight Gain 4000," "Pinkeye," "Damien," "Chickenlover," "Gnomes," "Cow Days" and "Spookyfish" are some of my favorites.
Season 8 was the show's climax, and it's all been slowly downhill from there, crossing less into "the kids do some funny stuff and there's a little bit of biting social commentary" and more into "Matt and Trey are becoming grumpy old men" territory.
There's still a few episodes where the heart of the show is there, like the "Imaginationland" series and "Fatbeard," but it's succumbed to Simpsons syndrome at this point. Randy becoming more of a weird goofball character was funny at first, but the more the show shifts focus to the adults the more it loses what made me like it in the first place.
[deleted] ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 08:26:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Hey everyone, look, it's the Rick who eats shit!
Jerry, you do realize this guy comes from a universe where everyone eats poop, right?
bbrpst ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 09:29:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I agree, allthough they could mix it up a bit more maybe?
Not sure, i love the new season though.
ktappe ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 17:50:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I like both. I'd prefer they had some off-the-wall ones interspersed with some topical ones.
Exactly, I'm fine with having the current event episodes, but not every single episode. I agree with Cartman's voice being better when it was more cartoony but I think that's more with Trey Parker not being able to do that high voice as easily anymore.
Though Trey does the voice, the pitch is altered by the computer.
Source: https://youtu.be/EDqBBkXPCDc
They have changed his voice and mannerisms on their own.
You know what, I agree with this. I can still find the humor in the new episodes, but I used to think the classic ones were so much better. Maybe I was just younger and thought that type of material was funnier at the time, But the show must progress and change was inevitable. The show fails to make me laugh like it used to, or maybe iv just grown up a bit.
[deleted] ยท 29 points ยท Posted at 10:29:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Absolutely!
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 12:16:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:27:21 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ugh i know, which is weird because one of my favourite things used to be that they touched on current events. It's just that now they never do episodes about the boys being boys, they just use the show as a platform to express their opinions on very specific current world events.
Does everything sound like shit to you? That's a pretty surefire way to know you've grown up.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:56:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The show has always been about current events. Less so than the current season, but I think we were all just too young to notice the intricacies of it.
I'm okay with the sweetness being removed in place of cutting satire, even if Trey and Matt's opinions don't align with my own a lot of the time. I think a show like that is needed a lot more right now than the old South Park.
There's a way to tell. Go back and watch some of the earlier stuff. I personally did that and found it dull and childish, even though I loved it as a kid
Thank you, I can't stand how topical the show has become. It's not like they never used what was currently happening at the time in their episodes, but it was a lot more subtle and smart.
The quality fell massively when they decided to crank out episodes faster and faster. There's no longer the same polish to the episodes because they don't put as much time into refining the story line and jokes.
I'm of the view that there was no "main character". Stan, Kyle, and Cartman all held the spotlight in their own ways. Kenny, sadly, falls my the wayside as he has little decipherable dialogue.
They both would. Neither was the main character, rather, they were both one of the main characters. Neither was more the focus than the other. Each had episodes about them, each gave speeches, and each had about equal focus as a whole.
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 08:54:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I think Stan and his family are the focus of more stories, Kyle and Cartman are secondary because both are harder for mainstream audiences to relate with.
It was pretty clear in the first, oh 10 or so seasons that stan and kyle were equally main characters with different but valid viewpoints. They were usually both the voice of reason.
But we can be real, right? Randy is like a non-character. He's a Peter. He does whatever is called for. Most SP characters really only have consistency in archetypal form, because they'll gain and lose certain ideological tendencies within an episode/season.
That's of course less so in a season like the current one where everything is continuous rather than episodic.
I know, South Park is so much more exciting to me with continuity. There's something great about going into a show weekly wondering what callbacks they'll do or what they'll remember from the previous episodes.
I wonder how it'll affect how ridiculous things could become though like how to explain Cartman going hundreds of years in the future. I'm enjoying it so far though
[deleted] ยท 12 points ยท Posted at 08:05:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
We're a season and a half in and there's still something shocking about them calling back to an old episode. It's like a "did they break the fourth wall" kind of shock over and over.
For instance in you're not yelping you see Wendy walking with an Asian girl and talking to her. Later on you see them hanging out in the background setting up the next episode, Craig x Tweek.
[deleted] ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 07:42:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 10:51:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I find that I look forward to the show coming on more when it's a continuous story rather than episodic content.
Sommern ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:17:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The continuity is still weird to me. I guess it's just because I am used to years of seeing South Park blowing up the town and having aliens in the Vatican and whatnot. Strange to see everything so leveled.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:57:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I think it's more impressive now that they keep continuity. I feel like it's gotta be harder for them to write their episodes keeping a storyline, even if it's only in theme, rather than cherry picking whatever they want.
Malgio ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 20:08:07 on November 12, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I kinda enjoyed it at first, but now it seems like it limits subsequent episodes too much.
Malgio ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 20:10:17 on November 12, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I keep flip-flopping on my opinion on Randy. At first it was great, because he is funny and brings up the most current issues. But you are right, he is a Peter (don't tell Trey and Matt I said that), and I don't enjoy him nearly as much as I used to
[deleted] ยท 122 points ยท Posted at 04:09:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The show also went from being mostly fart jokes to being completely genius social and political commentary
[deleted] ยท 28 points ยท Posted at 06:01:04 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's been social commentary for about 15 seasons now.
The commentary has usually been there, just not always the focus. Matt and Trey are masters and taking a subject or individual they believe to be ridiculous and devolving it to an extreme example to illustrate why it was ridiculous in the first place, and they have only gotten better at it with time.
erikoteh ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 05:14:46 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
And more than that. They have a full skillset in knowing how to manipulate GENRE. They are good at story telling which is where the simpsons fell in the latests seasons.
The moods, the music, the humor, everything falls together in every episode.
AeAeR ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:16:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Spontaneous Combustion was a great episode though
[deleted] ยท -12 points ยท Posted at 04:18:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
being completely genius social and political commentary
Not sure if serious.
[deleted] ยท 13 points ยท Posted at 04:30:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Many serious
[deleted] ยท -2 points ยท Posted at 05:12:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Well then you should know that South Park's "social commentary" is lazy at best and dead wrong and dangerous at worst.
Logicor ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:16:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
They generally present a superficial analysis of an oversimplified view of things, which is fine for comedy, but not for substantive social commentary. e.g. In the Underpants Gnomes episodes, they say something along the lines of, "Corporations produce some good things. Therefore, people who don't want Starbucks are idiots.", completely ignoring the nuance on all sides of the argument
Syphon8 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 08:07:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Underpants gnomes was easy before political commentary south park kicked in.
For a great example, see Obama/McCain Danny Oceaning America.
They are masters of reductio ad absurdum, or reducing to the absurd. It's a technique in the evaluation of an idea to test certain levels of validity. In this case, they use it for satirical purposes with an expert level of skill.
I disagree fervently. I feel they make things absurd because it's funny, and are otherwise careless and lazy.
All I can think is a huge amount of racism I heard in college with people just saying "but it's from SouthPark so it's ok!"
Magoonie ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 05:47:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I don't really remember South Park doing anything "hugely racist". They have done things that are crass, one thing comes to mind is the "Shitty Wok" thing. Hell, I even thought SP even handled the concept of white privelage incredibly well.
Did they do an episode about White Privilege? Off the top of my head I don't remember it, but I do remember that fan-made episode where Cartman means about it before they go camping.
Magoonie ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 07:48:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It wasn't really a whole episode on White Privelage but they did address one aspect of it. I'm talking about the "Naggers" episode where Randy goes on Wheel of Fortune and says the N word as the answer. Through the whole episode Stan is trying to either convince Token it's no big deal or saying "I know how you feel because....". Finally at the end of the episode Stan tells Token he doesn't know how it feels. That he'll never know how it feels because he's not black.
I am more interested in those fan made episodes btw. Are they any good?
Let me dial my rhetoric back a bit.
Many people think of them as genius political satirists. I think they know what they're saying quite often, and are funny equally often. I think they or at least theirs fans over look and dismiss times that they further negative or hostile mindsets for a laugh. They, pointedly, make fun of (almost) everyone, which while appearing equal to many, does often cause disproportionate harm to some. Some people only get their political or world information from this kind of media, which is sad and their own fault, but they are numerous and loud. Meaning when the SP guys hit something wrong, or press too hard on a group ill prepared to have slobbering masses quoting "jokes" at them, they do harm.
And you can say they can just get over it, but I'd invite you to think what that really is saying about the issue.
Is SP funny? I guess, lots of folks think so. Do I say they should change or stop? Lord no. Do I think we should hold them as grand examples of what political satire should be without discussing negative effects of it? Absolutely not.
Exactly. They are not masters of political or social satire. They exaggerate and cheapen everything to the point of absurdity. Sure, they are funny, but to call them geniuses or masters is a bit of a stretch. I personally think south park relies on shock value more than actual comedy. Especially with the newer seasons. (Btw, I haven't watched the latest 2 seasons so maybe it has gotten better idk).
Smauler ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 05:12:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Really? I was just watching southpark through the series, and I came to the realisation that Randy was a little like me now in some ways.
Yeah, he's like the me I don't/do want to be, but he's a good character.
Squiblle ยท 27 points ยท Posted at 05:28:00 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Man, that makes the show almost alive. It grows with the people that created it and their perception of the world.
There's a little bit of them in each main character. Obviously, Kyle is the big mouthpiece. This season, we're seeing Kyle give up on trying to fix everything. It seems to be building every week.
He has tried, but only during a particular episode. He basically gave up in episode one this season. I take that as him feeling like there's nothing he CAN do to fix this.
Well, previously it was just a 'I don't want to deal with this disaster. It's only going to cause problems." kinda thing for the episode you're talking about.
However, if you'll go back, Kyle manages to stay out of many of the Cartman-centered episodes. Everyone except Butters seems to manage to keep themselves pretty uninvolved in Cartman's episodes because he often targets people outside the city or at least outside Kyle's group.
I think he knows Cartman situations will usually work themselves out. He does get involved when genocide is on the table though.
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 07:38:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That's true. He was just a lazy geologist in the early seasons. Now he's always doing all kinds of stupid hilarious shit
lettis ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:50:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
but matt and trey would have been like atleast young adults when they started south park...
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:51:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
South Parks really changed from a show about 4 boys to a show about a redneck town. Gives them more stories the and the ability to make badass seasons like the current one.
proxy69 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:31:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That makes so much sense. Randy has been in a ton of episodes last few seasons. He is the best. Now where did I put that fucking creme fraiche!?!
sinni800 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:37:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I still think Randy is batshit crazy and I am like 25 now, though I think Randy is the funniest of them all, somehow.
A similar thing just happened to me when I started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer again from the beginning (my wife had never seen it). I now view it as a show about a perfectly sensible Watcher whose life is constantly interrupted by some annoying teenagers.
SPacific ยท 355 points ยท Posted at 01:44:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Xander, please don't speak Latin in front of the books.
That line was amazing on so many levels. Fitting for the character and super meta, cause, c'mon, latin is magic is such a tired trope.
Also, he doesn't say please. He is giving Xander a command statement in the off chance that someone actually listens to the perfectly sensible watcher.
Magoonie ยท 57 points ยท Posted at 05:40:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Funny, when I used to watch Bewitched, Bewildered and Bothered when it first showed and when I was younger. When Giles rips into Xander I used to think "Geez Giles, lay off, that's a bit harsh". Now at 32, I'm more like "Yeah, Xander's an idiot! Stick a stake in his eye!"
Magoonie ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 07:51:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oh I know, that was kinda the joke. I watched all the episodes when they first aired and have rewatched the series plenty of times. Caleb was awesome by the way.
PS: Since it seems necessary, I mean the one ACTUALLY following a put upon watcher. I've seen Buffy. Repeatedly. What do you people think I am, some sort of heathen?
arrosion ยท 17 points ยท Posted at 04:23:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
My ex introduced me. She had every season on box set and let me borrow them one by one. I needed a new disk every other day. I think I finished in little over a week. That's a lot of Buffy.
ebertek ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 22:04:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
144 episodes *ย 44 minutes = 105.6 hours. That'd be over 13 hours a day for a week.
Nice.
I'm watching right now for the first time. I was entirely uninterested in my teen years (when it was airing) but, Jesus Christmas is it an amazing show.
You can, but it's not really necessary. There really aren't that many crossovers, especially during later seasons when the shows ran on different networks.
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 12:44:44 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
No shit, i never knew they ran on different networks. I was always curious about that. cheers
I watched all of Buffy and then started Angel separately. There's a few references to what happens in Angel in the later series of Buffy but nothing that's impossible to keep up with.
It's not vital really. My girlfriend is the hugest Buffy fan and has watched it probably 15 times through before she did with me. She had us watch all of Buffy first, then go to Angel. I enjoyed that.
ebertek ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 21:59:13 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Me too, but non-HD shows in 4:3 aspect ratio scare me. That's why I haven't started Scrubs either.
[deleted] ยท 243 points ยท Posted at 03:25:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Or how Squidward is the only character worth watching on Spongebob once you're no longer a child.
LowCarbs ยท 285 points ยท Posted at 03:27:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
All of early Spongebob is gold, you take that back
Sadness is like the little brat who goes wandering in the liquor cabinet for the old good stuff. Once he starts downing all the precious bottles, you don't have much good stuff left to take any swigs of.... leaving you empty until you go find a new bottle... and when you truly appreciate that new bottle, you keep it in the back of the cabinet so it's harder to get touched.
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 05:00:22 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Sadness touched the whole final quarter of that movie. Seriously though, good flick.
I stopped watching after they locked Plankton in a jar of mustard gas and laughed at him crying. I guess I don't find Sadam Hussain level war crimes as funny as the creators do
Drafo7 ยท 12 points ยท Posted at 04:46:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I don't remember the name of the episode, and looking up "SpongeBob Plankton mustard jar" on YouTube only got me 50 versions of the "Patrick learns how to open a jar" episode
[deleted] ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 05:27:22 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm envious of people from the future because they have a larger collection of Rick & Morty episodes to cycle through. ...just a confession
Edit: spelling
It's because they think their problems are the biggest thing in the world when they're all old hat to you. Plus all those hormones just magnify everything. They also lack any real life experience and they have no real responsibility.
In the end, you just see a bunch of people complaining about the most minor shit while not having to deal with anything actually hard and floundering and it just feels completely silly. It's as hard for an adult to take seriously as a teenager trying to take a child's imaginary games and the like seriously. You get that from their perspective it's a big deal, but you can't get yourself in that mindset anymore.
I came to it quite a long time after the series ended. And I get that it was never intended to be marathoned that quickly. But even as a teenager I often found the main characters frustrating. I get that it might have been part of the narrative and commentary on being young in general. But I just kept wanting to scream "I get it dude, you think it's dumb that teenagers date monsters. You don't have to keep rehashing it! That isn't deep! I'm sure whoever dumped you when you were 16 is really sorry so can you please just stop and get on with the better storylines!"
In Ducktales I identified with Gyro Gearloose and Scrooge McDuck. In Power Rangers I identified with Zordon. In Karate Kid I identified with Mr. Miyagi. In The Smurfs I identified with Papa Smurf. In Harry Potter I identified with Dumbledore. In LotR I identified with Gandalf. In Naruto I identified with Sarutobi. In HxH I identified with Netero. In Star Trek I identified with Picard. In The Cosby Show I identified with Cliff.
Younger characters always annoyed me. I always hated the immature pricks that do stupid shit all the time. Even when I was a ten year old child. I always identified with characters that think logically and try and stay on top of things while providing useful input to the group.
I never identified with the emotional garbage of the younger characters, the love stories, any of the relationship drama, or complexes, or kid/teenager problems, or impulsive behaviours. That was all annoying and useless shit to me.
The characters who have a proper objective in mind and delegate tasks without wasting time whining about emotions and dilemmas were the people that got all of my involvement. These were the only people who thought properly about shit before acting. These were the characters I always wanted to be like.
Ogarrr ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 12:01:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You must have been a really fun kid to hang out with.
skztr ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 12:19:13 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I never liked watching Goof Troop as a kid. I mean, I watched it, as it was something to do when neither Aladdin nor Duck Tales was on. ie: It was a cartoon, so of course I watched it. But I really never liked it. It just wasn't any good.
Recently re-watched all of it, and it is a whole lot better when viewing it from Goofy's perspective, as opposed to Max's
[deleted] ยท 605 points ยท Posted at 03:24:20 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You either die Bart Simpson or live long enough to see yourself become Homer.
I've got my wife convinced they killed off maggie a few years ago and that's why she isn't in the new episodes. I guess I got lucky she saw a new one with no maggie and asked.
She tells people maggie is dead... I don't know if I should feel bad or not...
Sideshow Bob had "Die Bart Die" tattooed on his chest. He sidestepped it by claiming it was German for "The Bart The" in order to get parol and prove he was over his murderous intent toward Bart. Which of course he wasn't.
I'd honestly rather be grimey. The rest of them are basically stuck in a purgatory. Grimes had a solid story. I mean it was a shitty and painful climb from nothing to where he died. But at least there was movement. At least he got to actually get off that treadmill at some point. I mean his victories meant something. Homer went from casually mentioning that he was in space when meeting Grimes to not even seeming to remember it in the most recent episode.
Better to actually die than to have the various achievements in life constantly erased and retconned.
dtlv5813 ยท 44 points ยท Posted at 04:06:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Leenie ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 16:29:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ralph is the only kid character that kinda acts his age. Him and Lisa are seven or eight, when my kid was eight she told me her cat burped and it smelled like cat biscuits. She essentially told me her cat's breath smelled like cat food.
I also once overheard a boy in her class say to another kid "Once I picked my nose and then it bled!" The doctor said I wouldn't have so many nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of it!
I love Ralph.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:25:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Sometimes I feel like a Ralph. Especially when I'm hanging out with my Lisa-esque friends. (No, I'm not dating any of them. Just sinking the quote-boat).
And 2-9 are all solid too. I was asked to pick a favorite season of Simpsons and had to go through the episodes by title and tally up the good episodes and each one of those had more than six "good" episodes. I ended up going with 4 cuz monorail but it was a toss up. I'm still not sure I got the right season.
"You only move twice" is my favorite episode and Hank Scorpio is my favorite non-recurring character therefore 8 is and forever will be my favorite season
Boro84 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:39:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
yea season 7 and 8 have some of the best episodes in my opinion
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 07:37:53 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The April Fool's shaken up beer can gag is my absolute favorite bit of the simpsons.
[deleted] ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 03:59:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The non-Treehouse of Horror Halloween episode from a few weeks back was genuinely good. Other than that I completely agree.
curtmack ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 04:14:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
They still have their moments, the recent one where Homer tries to become a hipster was pretty good too. But it's got nothing on 2-9.
[deleted] ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 05:13:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I liked that episode too. There was one that came out recently that hit pretty close to home. Marge & Homer gets a divorce, Homer starts seeing a younger girl (drinkin' partyin' and drugs...n') trying to forget, and Marge quickly gets engaged to an older guy who Homer realises is better in every way.
The episode ends with [SPOILER] Homer being depressed as all hell, but then he wakes up and it turns out he just fell asleep in marriage councelling... but then he wakes up again and it turns out he was in bed having a bad dream.
That all sounds like things that the Simpsons have done before... like Homer/Mindy, Marge/the French bowling guy whose name escapes me. Also, Homer being depressed made him nearly jump off a bridge. Though I'm only going by your description, I haven't seen this specific episode. I'll do that ASAP.
My point is, the show has gone on for so long that nothing they come up with is really new. They've done it before, and in most cases, better. I've seen some of the newer episodes that are considered "good enough", but the old ones just seem... more honest? I don't know.
I'm also not a fan of the animation style of the newer episodes, it seems too sterile. That may seem like a minor nitpick, but I think the show lost a lot of its character when they changed to the more modern style.
curtmack ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 14:33:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That's really the big problem, and why Southpark is sort of the exception that proves the rule - most cartoons have to cover general concepts because episodes spend such a long time in production, so eventually the well dries out. Southpark is able to work consistently year after year because it only takes them a week to make each episode, so they're able to actually lampoon current events when they're still relevant, which is a key part of good comedy.
I agree with your animation comment. I enjoyed the more flat/dark tones of older simpsons. It wasn't exactly deep or anything, things looked flat and calmer. Now, everything is insanely vibrant and in your face. It's actually quite annoying and almost too smooth.
I think A. they sort of exhausted a lot, and B. they don't have a great identity anymore. I think between shows like South Park and Family Guy it's sort of lost it's place. It's not as topical as South Park (or as extreme). And it's not as lolsorandom as Family Guy (or American Dad or whatever). It's main niche now is Simpsons Fans and people who want that humor but more pulled back.
[deleted] ยท 49 points ยท Posted at 05:12:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It used to be more like South Park with more subtle social commentary, but the writing went bad and become more like Family Guy with ridiculousness for the sake of ridiculousness.
hellarar ยท 27 points ยท Posted at 07:37:04 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The quality of social satire in The Simpsons never compared to South Park, if we're being honest. That said, without The Simpsons, South Park would never have had the opportunity to see an audience of the size it did, and thus the subtle social commentary in it would never have hit as 'universally' as it did.
[deleted] ยท 34 points ยท Posted at 12:28:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The social satire in South Park is incredibly heavy handed and isn't clever in the slightest, and it's only gotten more aggressive as the seasons have worn on.
The Simpsons, on the other hand, was actually a bit subtle and still a run show while definitely displaying some worthwhile messages.
[deleted] ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 13:47:16 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
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[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:00:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I can't really think of a time it's actually been clever. Its far more crass.
I like South Park, by the way, but clever isn't the britney spears episode, or the PC principal episode, creating heavy handed extremely exaggerated caricatures of political or cultural tropes isn't clever.
Honestly, the first nine or ten seasons of the Simpsons, while funny, are really just a great show about what it's like to grow up and be part of a family. The satire was there and was usually great, but I swear the early seasons of the Simpsons have more heart than almost anything else I've ever seen. It was a genuinely sweet show.
gz33 ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 12:02:46 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
South Park's social commentary has never been subtle.
KR_Axios ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 08:13:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
He's saying the Simpsons are more subtle than South Park as a satire.
erikoteh ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 05:17:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
But, if you see the first seaons (mostly 3/8), a lot of chapters started out of randomish situations...
Anyway what i really liked about the simpsons early seasons was exactly what you are saying it wasnt neither south park nor family guy.
It was a series about "family union" firsts seasons were raw man, there some really depressing chapters, beautiful music.
Serious issues... like homer saying how he hated his own family... etc, etc
I remember my English teacher back in high school explaining how the original concept for The Simpsons was to have the risky, adult and scathing humour South Park would eventually become famous for, however at some point during season one of The Simpsons Rupert Murdoch disapproved of the direction it was taking and ordered the producers to make it more family friendly. My English teacher was also an ex South African army drill sergeant so I never questioned where he got his sources from.
DrPac ยท 114 points ยท Posted at 03:41:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I thought 10 and 11 were alright, not as good as the ones before them though.
sergregor ยท 110 points ยท Posted at 03:48:21 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, 10 and 11 are pretty good for the most part, but you could clearly pinpoint them as the start of the decline.
Rpanich ยท 157 points ยท Posted at 04:04:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
If you watch them in slow motion, you can pin point the exact moment my heart breaks in half
Ralph takes Lisa on a date to watch Krusty and Krusty asks Ralph if that's his GF and he says yes and Lisa takes the mic and says that she can't stand him. And breaks his heart. And it's on Live TV and Bart Replays it
grim77 ยท 72 points ยท Posted at 05:15:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You ch-ch-chose the right answer
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 05:22:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Teacher made me go to principle spinners office cause I was dirty.
The kid on the left (forgot his name) basically says he and Lisa are together on TV and she shuts him down hard, then later the entire family replays it in slowmotion and makes fun of it while Lisa feels bad. Atleast I think so, it's been years since I saw the episode.
pilvy ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 04:45:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I wasn't sober when typing it and I'm not good with names. I just wanted to give context to the guy asking and I've seen the reruns like a billion times growing up.
The Simpsons is, and will forever be, my favorite show of all time (despite not being familiar with seasons 14+). That being said I read an article saying the Frank Grimes episode ("Homer's Enemy" from season 8) was where the Simpsons jumped the shark. It was interesting. Basically we, as the audience, could laugh at Homer because of the ridiculous things he did that seemed totally normal to everyone in his life. He was a relatable guy who did dumb things. The character of Frank Grimes was the only "normal" one who could see just how ridiculous Homer was and treated Homer as nothing more than a walking joke. Homer's antics were also turned up ending with him sleeping at a funeral asking Marge to change the channel on the TV. Everyone laughs and Lenny says "that's our Homer". It's basically saying "this is what he's good for". It becomes ridiculous. For all his faults, Homer was a man who wanted nothing more than to support his loving family and do the right thing. He slowly became nothing more than a vessel for delivering idiocy.
Edit 2: The other accepted belief is that "The Principle and the Pauper" from season 9 is the moment when the Simpsons jumped the shark. I think this is where it became apparently clear that they had jumped, but I think it started with Frank Grimes personally.
Seasons 6 - 12 were the the shows peak. They had David Conen-X, John shwartzwelder, all the best writers, and some of the best episodes like Homer meeting his mom, the Skinner Scandal, Lisa being a vegetarian, Who killed Mr. Burns, the Guatemalan Insanity Peppers/
[deleted] ยท 17 points ยท Posted at 08:55:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
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[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:59:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Armen Tanzarian is a bad ass! but, yes, worst episode ever.
Funnily enough, I know that even the writers hated it, but I quite liked that episode.
Kanadier ยท 28 points ยท Posted at 08:29:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The Skinner/Armin Tamzarian episode was most definitely not among the best episodes. A lot of people consider that one to be a turning point in terms of show quality.
ju2tin ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 08:40:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
No way! Seasons 2-4 were the peak, with Marge vs the Monorail a common choice for best episode of all time. 5-8 were still very good, but with some uneven spots. Then from 9 onward we see the steady decline.
Boro84 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:44:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
season 7-8 were def peak, most of the absolutely best episodes in my opinon, including Homer Versus the Eighteenth Amendment, You Only Move Twice and Hellfish Bonzanza
I agree 2-9 are the best but I feel people don't give enough credit to season one. A lot of people I've talked to about think season 1 was the original animation from the pilot episode, but in my option it has some of the most classic Simpson episodes.
Kite23 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:11:50 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
What was better about those seasons? What got worse? I've only seen whatever was on TV, so I don't know what seasons they're from. But I still enjoy more recent episodes if I happen to come across them.
Season 1 is fine, but even the creators of the show have been honest about the fact that it took them until season 2 to find the show's voice. Don't let these season 1 hipsters break you, man.
A lot of people seem to agree that the show declines after Season 9. Season 10 isn't so bad and maybe the seasons afterwards, but Season 9 seems to be the sweet point people agree on when they talk about it's decline.
It seems that everyone who talks about The Simpsons will mention it's decline. That critique falls on deaf ears, though. The writers and producers don't seem to want the show to improve.
I always wondered why my parents liked Squidward so much...
venterol ยท 106 points ยท Posted at 03:58:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I always felt SpongeBob and Squidward were just two opposites (optimism vs. pessimism) taken to very distant extremes. I'd say Sandy was the only sorta-"grounded" character on the show.
Ilwrath ยท 66 points ยท Posted at 05:13:04 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I saw her as the one with some kind of manic-depressive disorder.
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:11:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I've definitely grown up to identify with him more. Sure, he's a buzzkill, but all he wants is to be left alone and live in peace. He wants to pursue his music and relax, but is constantly interrupted and tortured by his neighbors.
Why did you post this unoriginal comment? Why would you bother? I see it way more times than people would actually think that. If you're not sharing your true thoughts, why fucking bother?
Homer's actually a pretty successful guy, despite how the show paints him.
sergregor ยท 379 points ยท Posted at 00:03:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
But the show directly acknowledges many times - Frank Grimes episode being a great example - that Homer's relative success has absolutely nothing to do with his own actions. Things just fall into his lap for no reason and he succeeds despite being monstrously incompetent and lazy.
The show does make it clear that he's a good person who would do anything for his family though.
Anything except, you know, stop physically abusing them.
pilvy ยท 26 points ยท Posted at 04:48:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Pretty sure he only ever choked Bart...never laid a finger on any other family member.
Edit: As /u/atdi2113 mentions, he chokes his dad too.
atdi2113 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 17:33:09 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
As a child Homer actually choked his father.
pilvy ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 18:24:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
True...Didn't he do it because Abe used to choke him?
atdi2113 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:36:41 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I can't remember exactly why. I just remember a flashback from one of the more recent episodes where Homer is at the dinner table and he starts choking Abe. I think it was to show that he's always had anger problems?
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 13:50:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oh well that's alright then
pilvy ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:53:14 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I would just like to apologize for what I have said. What I do is a persona that has gone too far. My personal life is messed up but I am working through that and I would like to ask for your forgiveness.
From what I remember of things back then, the show was controversial because Bart talked back to his parents and said stuff like "Don't have a cow, man". It was different times.
Boro84 ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 14:49:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
this world is a bit too politically correct at this point, it will have successfully killed all satire and sarcasm the day the Simpsons stop using that gag
Ugh I'm so tired of this bullshit PC hysteria.
Do you even watch TV? Because it is raunchier today than it has ever been. Do you really think Archer or It's Always Sunny would have been allowed anywhere near TV in the past? Back then The Simpsons was pretty edgy for TV, now it's just about the most vanilla comedy out there.
Boro84 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 00:01:14 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Can I ask you why youre attacking me here? Thats EXACTLY what Im trying to say, the world we live in today tries to be TOO PC and it's ridiculous, no one can take a joke, point in case, you missing my sarcastic remark about the PC world we live in
Are you sure you're not thinking of Family Guy? Or did both shows do that?
The2500 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 05:57:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Edit: I answered thinking it was replying to a different comment. I remember Homer could play the piano and compose songs for a few episodes. There was nothing before to really establish he had musical talent.
chadalem ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:12:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
There was nothing in Al Capone's vault But it wasn't Heraldo's fault
D'oh!
Homer having musical talent has actually been a surprisingly consistent theme. I think the B-Sharps episode was the first one to esablish his musical talent. Then there's an episode where he write the "I hate Ned Flanders" song and another where he writes songs for Lisa (the two you're probably thinking of) and another one where he plays the bass in a band with other dad's in Springfield. There's also an episode where he becomes an opera singer (discovering he can only sing when lying down), and a flashback one where he's in a 90's grunge band, having invented the genre.
I guess it's kind of implied this is where the kids may get their abilities from:
Bart's also shown to have a surprising drumming ability and also joins a boyband at one stage, and Lisa, is well, the one that is most obvious with her music abilities.
Can't find/think of any instances with Marge having musical talent, she's just an insanely good artist (another consistent (although probably less surprising) theme).
Boro84 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:50:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I mean they do repeatedly make references to his Grammy win
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:12:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
oh my god
I just realized that I'm basically Homer Simpson
Merlord ยท 39 points ยท Posted at 05:20:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Depends on the episode. There was the joke where Homer said "These are dangerous streets for us upper-lower-middle-class types". Sometimes they can't pay the bills, sometimes they take a trip to Brasil, depends on what's convenient for the story.
What the staff during audio commentaries have coined as "rubber band reality."
It was a bit of a running gag how much dispoable income they had in the episode where the original Itchy & Scratchy creator showed up. Several times Bart asks Homer for some amount of money, and even when he asks for close to $1000, Homer just opens his wallet and (almost in that case) hands him the cash.
Homer has gone through so many different personality changes over the years with different writers and producers.
In earlier episodes, when it comes down to it, Homer is sweet and sincere. Financial struggles play a bigger role in these episodes, because Homer making sacrifices to support his family was a key way to demonstrate his sweetness and sincerity. For example, Homer has to work as a mall Santa to pay for Christmas gifts, or gets a job at the Kwik-E-Mart to pay for Lisa's Pony. When Bart gets an Elephant, not being able to afford caring for him is the main conflict, and there is a whole episode based around the cost of paying for surgery for their dog.
Eventually he morphed into "jerkass homer" when he became more of a boorish asshole, and financial concerns were more or less forgotten about. Financial reality limited the zany things he could do. In these episodes you see Homer totaling his car(and the elementary school) driving around on a drunken bender, and other than a quick moment of anger, they don't depict any financial struggle associated with him totaling his car.
TLDR: Homer is as successful as is convenient for what the writers want to do at that moment.
It's one of the things I hate about American media in general. You see someone shown to have fallen into the worst hole in existence. And he'll probably be living somewhere better than 75% of the audience. "Look at this loser, no job and forced to live in a five room apartment in new york due to how little money he has!"
tkdyo ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:40:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
ah yes, the late 80s and early 90s...when being a part of a nuclear plants safety crew was not successful.
at all.
At 80s any salary was successful, today it wouldn't work.
thorlord ยท 285 points ยท Posted at 03:36:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Dude.. Watch Malcom in the middle.
When I was a kid I identified and related to the kids. Now I watch it, And holy shit I understand why the mom was such a bitch. She had to be.
natzo ยท 141 points ยท Posted at 04:34:16 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
There was an episode with baby Francis in which she stops him from starting a fire, I think. She grabs him and tells him she will keep him safe, even if it means having him hate her.
MitM is actually a show I enjoy more as an adult then I did as a kid
blot101 ยท 58 points ยท Posted at 03:58:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This is a show that will never get old for me. I think it is pretty spot on for what families are. or what my family is. interestingly enough, it's the same for the first season or two of the simpsons
simpsons s1 and s2 were definitely more realistic (well, as realistic as the simpsons could be). homer was just a loser, not someone bordering on mental retardation.
andrewpr ยท 30 points ยท Posted at 04:06:48 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Awesome show, I had never thought of it and the Simpsons, but there certainly are comparisons. Hal always stole the show for me, but all the characters are relatable aside from Reece who is a jerk but still a good character.
I'm doing my first watch through of it right now since childhood. Damn is it spot in
[deleted] ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 13:38:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
There is that episode where hal and lois decide who's going to be the baddy and who's going to be the goody for the kids. They may even flip a coin? I can't remember.
It's probably one of my favourite backstorys of the whole series. As far as I remember, they both want to be the goody. It's really sweet.
OMG can I just tell you? I used to think the moms on Malcom in the Middle and Everybody Loves Raymond were so awful! Now I watch them and cheer. I even get a little misty-eyed because I feel like someone understands me!
Joy2b ยท 13 points ยท Posted at 05:34:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Honestly, I never even thought the mom was terrible the first time through. The kids were willing to use tactics that were flat out crazy and outnumbered her, but she wasn't one to turn and run.
I felt the same way when I watched home alone with my daughter. I used to think his parents were so hard on him in the beginning, but he was being a little shit. Of course they should have noticed they left him there. But he should realize his parents are under a lot of stress planning this massive family trip.
Malgio ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 20:12:37 on November 12, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The kids are pretty bad, but Lois is full of issues as well. Chicken and egg.
I remember when I was younger than Lisa. Then when I was her age, Bart's age. Now I'm 30, and realizing I'm only 4 years younger than Homer was in the first season (supposedly he was 34, and he's now 38). Holy crap.
edit: although to be fair, I haven't watched a simpsons episode in probably 15 years, so this just hit me as I was writing this.
If Bart aged like a regular person he would have been 24, old enough to enlist for Operation Iraqi Freedom when it began. He was actually used in pro-war and anti-war propaganda during Desert Storm, the first war with Iraq.
It's strange, I came to the US around the time the show started, and I got a Bartman t-shirt that was day-glo orange. Kids unironically wore neon colors back then. The Simpsons predates MC Hammer, Nickelodeon, and the Dream Team. I always associate it with that '90s style of neon colors and such, but the actual art on the show hasn't changed much, just the merchandise around it.
thfsgn ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 12:00:41 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You got out at the right time.
Boro84 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:03:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's like "Catcher In The Rye." Read it as a teenager, you say 'oh wow, this guy really gets it!' Read it as a 30 year old, and you say 'oh wow, what a whiny little asshole.'
Edit: apparently everyone also thought he was an asshole in high school
Read it as a 20-year-old, and you identify with Holden just enough to get mad at his decisions. Like watching the group split up during a horror movie.
[deleted] ยท 97 points ยท Posted at 04:27:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Fred: Hey gang. Lets split up to cover more ground. Velma, Daphne and I will take the upstairs bedroom. Shaggy and Scooby can go check the basement.
Shaggy: Like, yoinks man. We always have to go to the spooky basement while like, you and the girls always get to go to the bedroom. Can't we like, switch?
Fred: Fucking Christ Shaggy just do as your told while we go bang. Is it so much to ask for you selfish prick.
dackots ยท 33 points ยท Posted at 07:12:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yoinks? What foreign knock-off were you watching?
[deleted] ยท 34 points ยท Posted at 07:33:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's called I've been drinking!
jiso ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 12:03:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Y'know.. that'd probably make an EXCELLENT TV series.... each week, kill off random B-list movie stars via a different monster, just need to build the sets and props once, and you're good.
Zandrick ยท 13 points ยท Posted at 04:00:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I read somewhere that something went wrong while they were making it, but after they finished filming. It's release was delayed a year.
Yeah I had thought the film company went bankrupt and it, along with another movie I cannot remember, were shelved for a year because of that until another company bought LionsGate out
I think it had the problem of surprising a horror audience. I went in not knowing what it was, and fell in love with every moment.
Horror fans in my experience hate their own genre more than any other group. Name any movie, and you will find a large camp of people who hated it.
When a movie like Cabin in the Woods promises a classic, uninspired horror and delivers something else (read: creative) then the people who can't change tracks mid-film, and enjoy the ride don't like it.
tl;dr;
Cabin in the Woods alienated two different audiences. But those left over loved it.
It got meme'd out, like Behind the Mask. People talking about it too much and making a bible out of satire kind of killed discussion of it as an actual movie.
widdersn ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 10:50:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Like watching the group split up during a horror movie.
I yell at the TV all the time when people hear a noise and go investigate...in a dark alley...after they dropped their phone...and the car magically stopped running...JESUS CHRIST JERRY, WHY WOULD YOU GO TOWARDS THE SCARY NOISE?!?!
I've literally never met a single teenager who didn't think he was a whiny douche, and it was mandatory reading in a school of 3000+. EVERYBODY thought he was a douche.
It was actually when I got older that I appreciated it. It's a portrait of angst. And, like a broken clock. Holden has occasional moments of lucidity.
That was my experience as well. Back in high school and the class we read the novel in, we were pretty much all in agreement that he was a whiny douche.
On that note, if there is one book that I now view completely differently in my 30s, it's "The Old Man and the Sea". As a teen, I found it so boring that I couldn't finish it and then picked a different book for my reading assignment. Revisited it a couple of years ago and the story resonated with me.
[deleted] ยท 13 points ยท Posted at 06:04:00 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I can totally get why one would not "get" Old man and the sea as a young person. You need to have experienced life, something very few teenagers has done, to "get" that book
tkdyo ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 13:29:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
my 7th grade teacher made us read old man in the sea. it was ruined for me before we even began because we had to write a one sentance summary for every page in the book. this lead to me writing many lines of "he sits in a boat and fishes" over and over. it was so tedious, the only things i actually remember happening are the fishing line cutting his hand so he used salt water to heal it and his failure to catch the fish.
Joy2b ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 05:28:09 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I really need to try reading that again. After the crash course literature treatment of the book, I'm a bit afraid of it simply being too sad.
Honestly, he might be lucky to have a materially good life, but it sounds like there's no adult in his life who's willing to give him an hour to talk about what's on his mind. People without an advocate are seriously vulnerable to abuse and mental illness. His remarkable discomfort with adults could have a rather unpleasant interpretation.
I think that the way people regard Holden speaks volumes about the reality of how people relate to others. Holden is a lonely, fucked up guy - hires a prostitute just for the company. She's uncomfortable with this, and he can't even buy her affection. He wanders the world like a ghost, spiteful and jaded. Too rough around the edges to interact with, too damaged to fix himself. Fantasizes about a life where he can be a picturesque hero, and everyone around him is a faker.
The fact that his interpersonal struggles do not garner him any sympathy seems starkly apropos in a story that serves as a portrait of a person's mind. People read this and they still hate him. I fully believe that this is one of the intentions of the book: the proof that misanthropic, traumatized Holden is still the enemy to the reader indicates that people are unwilling to extend understanding to those who suffer the most human flaws. The very flaws which prevent all of us from being our best, stemmed from experiences which are universal to the human experience (in Holden's case, his brother's untimely death), are still unforgivable to the readers. The readers refuse to offer sympathy to someone who is just a shade apart from them.
In a sense... I do think that the common reception of Holden as "whiny douche guy" overlaps into his phony theory somewhat. Is Holden a whiny douche? Oh yeah! But to pretend we are so far apart and superior from him... Is to play phony to the quintessential human flaws we share with him. Kinda makes me hang my head each time a sanctimonious, "What a loser!" judgement is made on him. Missing the point entirely.
This is really freaking good. I was the only person in my English class to express any sympathy or sadness for Holden, and people gave me crap for it. I wonder if I could use people's opinions of the book as a way to guess how much empathy for others they have.
I think people just want to distance themselves from the parts of Holden they relate uncomfortably closely to.
Everyone has had that feeling of being alienated, at odds with the world, in a state of confusion over whether there's something wrong with the world or just them. Just because Holden is a bit more like that then most doesn't make him a monster.
Joy2b ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 08:34:22 on November 12, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Thank you. I'm now a bit more tempted to have Holden call out the phony in me.
I'm really tempted to draw parallels with other stories here. This reminds me of Othello and the strange reasons that it's easy to Other someone, and the reasons why the good Samaritan story is a weird and unexpected tale.
I might just take Holden's point that people need to be listened to and sympathized with, and call a few people.
pwneboy ยท 50 points ยท Posted at 04:28:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I liken teenagers calling Holden annoying to the same as when they complain about how everyone in their grade except them is "immature and annoying." Most teenagers aren't going to like what they see when you hold up a mirror in front of them.
Plus, I believe high-school book assignments are incredibly good at making kids hate the book they have to read.
[deleted] ยท 17 points ยท Posted at 04:50:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Let's not blame it being assigned in high school when we could blame the five-paragraph-method.
pwneboy ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 04:56:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, I'm not against reading books in school, but the methods used to teach it can be incredibly boring, and for some students can ruin a great book and possibly even turn them off of reading.
[deleted] ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 05:18:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
[deleted] ยท -6 points ยท Posted at 08:13:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
If you can't reflect on a chapter of a book, you're an idiot. How can you not write a paragraph or two about it? You can't even form an opinion or relate it to your life?
Oh right, teenagers haven't done anything and don't know anything.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:07:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
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[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 18:52:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's an essay-writing method based on five paragraphs, the introduction, the three main points, and the conclusion. It is formulaic, intended not to increase writing skills or facilitate communication, but largely to make grading papers easier on the teacher. "Good writing" is subjective, but "followed instructions" isn't. It's a great way to suck the joy and creativity out of writing and reading.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:59:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
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[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:59:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Where are you from?
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:04:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
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[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:07:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Interesting, where I am we kind of all have the idea that you Scandinavian countries have all of this stuff more or less figured out and don't have to deal with bullshit like that.
As an 18 year old, I LOVED Holden, flaws and all, precisely because I saw myself so vividly reflected in him. The duality of romanticism and cynicism amidst a maelstrom of teen angst that he so perfectly embodies is infuriating, but it's just so brilliantly raw and candid. I don't think either the character or the book would have been as effective if his angst wasn't as alienating to readers as it was. It's that tension between admonishing his faults and shitty attitude, and the uncomfortable subconscious realisation that those faults exist within yourself that makes the story such an indelibly compelling and memorable one.
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:26:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This holy shit people don't under stand literature
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:19:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I don't know about that. I read it as a 15 year old and thought to myself, "oh wow, what a whiny little asshole." Like verbatim, it's like 30 year old you read 15 year old me's mind. That kid had a cushy as fuck life and never thanked anybody for it. Not all of us can be that lucky, but everyone in this world finds something to whine about somehow.
venterol ยท 368 points ยท Posted at 03:54:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Same, as a highschooler I found Holden completely insufferable. Good novel overall, but fuck the main character.
I had a really weird experience reading Catcher in the Rye for the first time in high school. Like, weirdest experience I've ever had with a book. You ever do that thing where you're reading a book and you accidentally skip a pair of pages? You turn two instead of one. But then you see that what you've just started reading doesn't follow from what you just read, so you realize your fingers slipped or the pages stuck, you turn back and it's no big deal, resolved in a second or two.
Well that happened to me early on in Catcher... only without the realization. And I skipped the most important passage of the entire book.
One pair of pages early on ends with Holden sitting down to write an English assignment for someone, about a glove. The page ends with something like "I sat down and got to work writing." Well I flipped the page, and apparently I flipped 2 instead of 1, skipping a pair. Totally basic slip of the fingers - only this time, I didn't realize it, because the next page was the start of a new chapter. Next chapter opened with a scene about the assignment he wrote, so the previous page's end, about sitting down to write, seemed like a decent end, and I kept reading, none the wiser.
...Well, it turns out that on that pair of pages I accidentally skipped, Holden reflects in great detail on his little brother getting sick and dying... which, if you've read the book, you know informs his character in major ways throughout the whole story. It's probably the most crucial passage to understanding anything about how Holden's mind works. Basically his entire character is built upon that backstory, and I didn't read it.
Now here's where it gets even better: the cause of his brother's death is never stated again for the entire rest of the book. But there are references to the death; Holden just doesn't think about it in-depth again - he doesn't even think about the fact that his little bro got sick - because it's such a hard topic for him. So here I am wondering "Whoa, how did Holden's brother die? When are we gonna find that out?" ...when it was already revealed like 40 pages into the fucking book; I just flipped past it like an idiot and didn't realize.
And oh yeah, the very first time Holden thinks about his brother after the backstory is given? The very first time it's referenced again, it's via something like "When my brother died, like I told you about earlier..." - it has a specific reference to Holden having already told us about the death, something I had no idea actually happened. And our teacher had told us before we started the book, "Holden is an unreliable narrator; not everything he thinks about is exactly what happened, so don't take his words at face value." So here I am, thinking, "Holy fuck, I get what she was talking about now! Holden doesn't even remember what parts of the story he's already told? Man, what a great way to introduce the backstory - and I guess Holden's even more unstable than I thought!"
So basically, I got the idea that Holden's brother - who died of a simple illness - had died from something so awful and so exceptionally traumatic that it just nuked Holden's psyche. I mean, if I had been right, if Holden hadn't talked about his brother's death the way he later explicitly reminded us he had? Then clearly it must have been something massive... so naturally, I wanted to know what the heck it was. I wanted to know so badly that I kept reading the entire book nonstop for hours... which meant that I finished it the day I started it - before I could go back to class the next day and hear my teacher discussing the backstory. If I hadn't read through the whole book that day and had stuck with the assigned chapters, I'd have gone to class the next day, the teacher would have said "Okay, so let's talk about Allie's death", I'd be all "Wha?" and realize I'd missed a section, no big deal.
But nope. I read the whole damn thing in a day, just couldn't stop, because I was waiting and waiting for the epic plot twist of "HOW DID ALLIE CAULFIELD DIE?", something that was already revealed like 40 pages in and never explained again. But obviously, I had my own personal theory near the end of the book - and this is where it gets a little weird but I swear to God this is what I believed. Near the end Holden goes to see his sister, but he's not supposed to be there, and she says "Daddy's going to kill you!" She says that sentence, those exact words, like three times, and "kill" is italicized the first time she says it.
...so naturally my jaw dropped as I assumed we'd just discovered that ALLIE CAULFIELD WAS MURDERED BY HIS PARENTS. When it was a fucking basic disease. But it made perfect sense to me: We never see Holden's parents, he doesn't seem to care much about them, he has all these major issues with trust and authority... and Allie died in some fucked-up way that Holden can't even discuss with us yet thinks he's already told us, and now here the sister is with constant references to Daddy killing Holden... It all added up! Holden's dad killed his brother!! What an awesome plot twist!!!
So naturally I went full steam ahead waiting for the official reveal... and I got to the climax of the book... and then things calmed down afterwards... and I started to think it wouldn't be revealed... and then it ended, just like that. Thought to myself "WHAT THE FUCK? That was the weakest shit ever! They never told us how it happened!" So I Googled "how did allie die" to see people's theories, saw every page mentioning the illness with 0 talk of it being a mystery... and gradually realized my mistake.
Made for a pretty fucking entertaining story to tell my teacher the next day.
So yeah, if you're ever reading Catcher in the Rye again? After the passage where Holden thinks about Allie's sickness as he writes the glove assignment, just imagine that that wasn't there. And then imagine how much that would completely freaking uproot the story and change the entire tone of the story from there on.
TL;DR: Accidentally skipped crucial backstory about Holden's brother; ended up thinking Holden had amnesia or schizophrenia or some shit as a result of his father murdering his brother; spent an entire day burning through the book waiting for an epic, shocking plot twist of dramatic murder that didn't exist.
Good book, though.
[deleted] ยท 680 points ยท Posted at 12:39:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
trakmiro ยท 46 points ยท Posted at 21:05:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm a big fan of his work. Y'know, Catcher in the Rye and... others... I want to saaaaaaay...the Hobbit?
[deleted] ยท 37 points ยท Posted at 17:57:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
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[deleted] ยท 18 points ยท Posted at 21:31:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I dunno, man. Once I started to not just read, but really gnaw on, older literary fiction I really started to enjoy some of those authors. A quality academic introduction or foreword is a HUGE boon to understanding not just the work itself, but the author's body of work. I found a copy of Lord Jim in a thrift shop that really enhanced my understanding of the novel and therefore my enjoyment. I also discovered, obliquely, that high schools' insistence on reading Heart of Darkness to meet their white guilt quota is the worst way to do it, since it's actually the middle of a trilogy started by Youth and ended by Lord Jim. That's like watching The Empire Strikes Back and then being required to explain the rebellion's cause! It's absurd.
Charles Dickens still writes shit books, though. Nothing but pot-boiling trash with a precious few high points smattered through his bibliography.
They always pick the worst books for high school reading. I remember hating Shakespeare in high school, because they require Romeo and Juliet and Othello. Then I actually read Shakespeare outside of high school and discovered Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Midsummer Night's Dream. Leading to the question, why the fuck didn't they give us this in english class? This shit's amazing!
Or Dickens. Why assign Great Expectations, an absurdly long novel about absolutely nothing? Why not Oliver Twist, which at least has a point? Or The Mystery of Edwin Drood which ends in the most spectacular, accidental anticlimax in history.
My high school also required only part 1 of Les Miserables, which makes no damn sense. The story doesn't start to pick up until after Hugo's weird aside about the Paris sewer system in part 2. They also only required the first few chapters of Le Mort d'Arthur, which again is really weird, since things get interesting later in the book.
marsepic ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 00:38:45 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I had to read Great Gatsby in tenth grade and hated it because a lot of the themes are about trying to fix old mistakes and living in the past and as a 15 year old suburbanite, I had no pay to live in. Read it again after college and couldn't believe how much it spoke to me.
Read it last year in my early thirties and thought "Jesus, what a bunch of assholes. "
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 00:46:49 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I dunno, I feel like a lot of people hate on high school reading but much of it comes down to how the work is presented and our collective memory of how awful English educational structure is. I definitely enjoyed Heart of Darkness and All the King's Men much more because I read them before the school year started, and I wasn't trying to unpack books rife with meanings, subtext, symbolism, and clever narrative devices as I was reading them. I already knew the surface plot structure and the characters, so I was free to really explore more deeply into the rest of it without feeling like I was a 10-pound sack being stuffed with 20 pounds of literary analysis.
That being said, a lot of the high school reading lists could use a refresher. Even though I hate Dickens, Tale of Two Cities is a HUGE step up in quality from Great Expectations, which is devoid of even the things Dickens did well, like tying up plots neatly and creating convincing characters. I mean, seriously, a woman who's been sitting in the same room since she got stood up on her wedding day? She'd have died of rickets by now or something!
I'd also like to see speculative fiction be given a more serious treatment. Dune is a fantastic political allegory full of philosophical rumination. Shit, Philip K Dick has had more influence as an author on modern Hollywood than anyone else in history, I'm pretty sure. Even just including more modern literary fiction like (and this is a bad example for high schoolers) Cormac McCarthy would do a lot to make the subject more relatable and interesting to young students.
brisk0 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 00:58:44 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
My High School did Macbeth as its requisite Shakespeare. We had an odd book with each two-page split being the script down the one page and modern translations and notes down the other. It also helped that our teacher was a Shakespeare fanatic and so was really enthusiastic about the whole thing and added a whole lot of context to it. (She also firmly believed that the Queen of the Weirds wasn't writted by Shakespeare to the extent that we skipped that act).
Tonkarz ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 11:58:18 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The issue is that many people have had the same experience, except the plays they discover are Romeo and Juliet and Othello because they did Macbeth and Midsummer Night's Dream.
The problem isn't the play itself, but how students react to fun that is treated as work.
ptrst ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 06:42:07 on March 9, 2016 ยท (Permalink)
Honestly, I hated all the Shakespeare I read for classes in high school and loved all that I read outside of class. My real issue was that it was always mandatory that we read it out loud as a group, and people are fucking awful at reading out loud. The fact that Shakespeare has, like, rhythm to it only makes the contrast even worse.
Tonkarz ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:40:27 on March 9, 2016 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, you make a really good point. Shakespeare has to be practiced at least a little to get the rhythm down. Or at least you have to learn to actually use the punctuation, rather than stopping after each line on the page. -_-#
You comment is 4 months late but super relevant.
ptrst ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 17:57:44 on March 9, 2016 ยท (Permalink)
Turns out when you pay people by the word they get very good at providing words, whether they have ideas or not.
bkedelen ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 21:45:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
No argument from me, which is why I said "most".
There are many literary works which I found to be puissant, including Heart of Darkness (I have not read Lord Jim but now I will), Paradise Lost, Mother Night, and recently East of Eden.
Those occupy the minority of my experiences, however. Many of the Transcendentalists and road apples like Kerouac and Salinger have generally put me off the stuff.
[deleted] ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 21:47:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oh, christ. You'll hear no disagreement on Kerouac and Salinger. On the Road just makes me want to travel back in time and punch that hypocritical old alcoholic Catholic right in the navel he can't tear his eyes away from.
docdope ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 22:05:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
upvote for "puissant". i'm shoving that into every conversational hole i can
I almost always find introductions very boring until after I have read the book. Then they usually give me something interesting to chew on. So that's my habit, read the book first.
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 23:15:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I find most introductions boring and uninformative, which is what I found in the Everyman's Library version of Nostromo. But a well-written introduction can be an engaging and illuminating piece unto itself, which is why my beat-up thrift store copy of Lord Jim is something I prize. Clear, concise, and complete.
As a pet peeve aside, the intro to my Everyman's Library copy of Nostromo is packed full of exactly the kind of pompous academic language that I find insufferable, and then the bombastic fuck had the gall to say "comprised of." That really sealed the deal on how shitty that intro was. Like, for real: if you're going to wave your dick around about your vocabulary and grammar structure, at least figure out how to use common operative words correctly. Otherwise, get the fuck out of my high-quality hardback copies of books. I paid 8 dollars for this at a used bookstore. That's a friggin' fortune!
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 23:58:45 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Giraffedata
I'm a technical writer with a huge vocabulary. If I can explain complex concepts without needing to indiscriminately spew esoteric and unusual words, then so can anyone else. I honestly hate most academic writing (especially liberal arts) for precisely this reason.
Mildly unrelated but could you give me the general gist and important themes from Heart of Darkness? I'm about to read it for AP English (lord, help) and even the valedictorian of last year's class said it was impossible to read so yeah, I'm pretty afraid. If not, it's coo
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 02:24:12 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 00:33:17 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Heart of Darkness is hardly even long enough to call a novel. It's more of a novella. It's an easy read if you go in with the understanding that it's an impressionistic work with a lot of descriptions being unreliable/stylized, and that Marlow is an unreliable narrator at times.
Also, try reading it before it gets dissected in class. It's a really quick read if you're not digging deep. I personally found it much easier to understand and even enjoy a novel if I could read the whole thing before the class began, because my reading of the novel's surface details like plot events and characters wouldn't be bogged down by excessive analysis in the process. This works pretty well for any English class, I've found. Novels like Heart of Darkness get bogged down by trying to unpack before you know the entire plotline already.
Haha, thank you! I'm happy people are as entertained by this weird reading experience as I was. I love how darn improbable it all was, how every single piece lines up for me to view it that way, like a perfect storm. I remember Holden wondering where the ducks go during winter; apparently, during perfect storms of misinterpretation, they seek refuge in a faraway land where Allie was killed by his father.
Wow, I did, too. I got three pages in and was like 'WTF, how much longer is he going to go on?' and flipped ahead. I got the point the first few paragraphs, why keep beating a dead horse for another 32 pages?
That ridiculous speech, coupled with the notation on the back that Ayn Rand lives her life in a way that might as well read "...and I mean it!" makes me laugh at her incompetence as a writer, relative to the over-the-top onlycompetence of her characters.
Such ego wanking bullshit. After reading it for a while I looked ahead and it went of for dozens of pages, it's the only time I've sped-read through a passage of a book.
I got the gist of it. Ayn Rand is a nut.
JugglaMD ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 21:06:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Should have skipped the whole book. Rand is not a particularly good author and is an even worse philosopher.
dysprog ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 18:21:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
If you understand that Ayn Rand considers the Inventors and Business Creators to be the real working class, than Atlas Shrugged is basically Socialism: The Novel.
No, Ayn Rand considers "Inventors and Business Creators" the nobility, having come from Russia where the communists killed the Russian nobility, to America where we had ousted them 150 years before. Heck, one of her significant characters was nobility, who she went out of her way to prove didn't need anything to come out on top. In Ann's world, you show up at a mine to dig rock and a year or so later you can own the mine (or steel foundry, or whatever).
Her main characters grandfather founded his business on criminal behavior and was likely a murder, but a hero in her mind, because fuck those people who wanted to do their own thing with their own land. Every personal relationship is a disaster, and disowning your wife/family is a noble thing.
I made myself read it because it was getting so much press. Terrible book about terrible people, doing the most bizarre things on all sides. None of it makes any sense.
It's better if you read it like a beach novel. Then all the drama is just sort of juicy and improbable, but you weren't really expecting greatness, just something fun to kill the time.
I re-read it like this, and it gets very entertaining.
After a bit, I basically decided it was a "Steampunk Sci-Fi" novel, which it fits pretty well. Distopia, Trains, fantasy energy from thin air machines, utopian societies, etc.
Even still, chapters long speeches, the repeated "rape, but I enjoyed it so it wasn't rape" thing with the main character, bizarre behaviors (I've spent millions developing this super metal alloy, let me sell it for less than traditional metals; this weird choice drives a lot of the blowback against his metal, if he instead priced it at a premium when introduced and lowered the cost as production scaled and it gained acceptance, much of what drives the novel vanishes). So its better that way, but still not worth the slog in my opinion.
I made myself read it because it was getting so much press. Terrible book about terrible people, doing the most bizarre things on all sides. None of it makes any sense.
Agreed, I did the same. The characters were such two dimensional stereotypes I was sure I was going to turn the page and read the brother villain was templing his fingers or twirling his moustache while laughing maniacally.
Have to admit, after having chugged through nearly 500 pages of that book, I just skimmed the speech to make sure there wasn't anything actually surprising in it. And I can confirm, that if you were paying attention at all for the other 500 pages, you knew everything he was saying and it was painfully redundant.
My advice on the matter to folks who ask me about the book is always the same: just read the speech if all you want is the cliff notes of the philosophy in the book, or read the rest of the book and skip the speech if you're more into the narrative than the philosophy.
Ah, you started an Ayn Rand hate-train! That's awesome! I've seen Reddit do these tricks, but I've never been in a thread where it happened before.
Next, you should try to get them to engage in two lines of clever wordplay followed by 37 gigs of terrible, lazy puns. Or you could make a reference to Doritos or Jolly Ranchers.
Well, you've already done so much. Wouldn't want to strain yourself. Maybe just ask if they have any Grey Poupon, for now, while you rest.
mizu4444 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 00:31:54 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm not your boyfriend either, but I got something out of her work and the circle jerk about it frustrates me too.
Like if you haven't talked to any artist/philosopher they don't go on far to long on one theme....stop taking it personally and take what you can get out of it and leave the rest...just keep reading things!
I got bored with the first chapter of the very first Harry Potter book as a child so I skipped to the next one. So I had no fucking clue what the hell was going when it came to Harry's tragic backstory and being left on a doorstep but I still powered through anyway.
I had never heard of the books before, and someone donated the first few to our class and I got picked in the lottery to take home The Chamber of Secrets. It was confusing but also in a way awesome, because I was just completely dunked into this magical universe without very much explanation. I think it made the world seem all the more wondrous, and I was still very much able to take part in Harry's bewilderment.
Funny thing is, Chamber is actually one of my least favorite books in the series but it still got me hooked.
Back before everything was recorded, there was a really good chance you were going to come into a TV show or movie in the middle, so us old people developed the ability to pick up a story on the fly. A lot of times I feel like stories would be improved by skipping the first chapter....
poke2201 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 00:23:12 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I love In Medias Res beginnings.
Something about the journey to the point is always more interesting to me than the point itself. This also allows me to never be spoiled, which is great for a good amount of reasons.
I love how darn improbable it all was, how every single piece lines up for me to view it that way, like a perfect storm.
This is the beauty of reddit in my opinion. One person has an incredibly improbable experience, and everyone gets to share in it.
The cause of Allie's death being know to me made it impossible for me to even realize that those two pages were the most important in the novel because I didn't realize he never talks about Allie being sick again.
[deleted] ยท 16 points ยท Posted at 15:15:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
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ejramire ยท 14 points ยท Posted at 19:32:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I knew of a person that had had serious conflicts with her parents all of her life. After therapy, the doctor discovered that the root of all her family problems was a fragment of a conversation she heard between her parents where they mentioned they "lost a baby" in the past. She resent her parents for being so careless as to lose her little brother/sister
I have a friend who has been persuaded by a "therapist" that his parents had an adopted child that they got rid of. It's a big source of conflict in his family, since no one else believes it.
The fact that there is no documentation is just proof to him of what lengths they went to to hide the child's existence.
soupit ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 00:34:17 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Why would a therapist do that. I read somewhere else on reddit pretty recently that it's not so rare occurrence where therapists or psychologists purposefully manipulate people with mental disorders for their own entertainment/ego boost/gain. But I'm not sure if it's just a paranoid person finding a rationalization to blame the person who they see often or resentment towards someone they tell personal details to who's supposed to be helping them. Is there a name for either viewpoint of this occurrence?
In this case it's money. There's a network of these people, and they've persuaded him he will abuse his child if he doesn't stay with them, because of the "forgotten" abuse he suffered. They pass him back and forth.
It's like that thing where if you remove Indiana Jones from the story everything would have ended up the same, or better.
M-Thing ยท 19 points ยท Posted at 16:12:50 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Remove Indy from what story? Like the movies?
Raiders - remove Indy and the Nazis would have won
Temple - remove Indy and the evil priest would have won
Last Crusade - remove Indy and the Nazis would have won
In Last Crusade, if memory serves, the Nazis probably wouldn't have gotten past the traps before the grail room. Even if they had Henry, Sr. with them, he most likely would have died before helping them. The only reason Indy went in was because they shot his dad and he needed the grail to heal him.
At least for Raiders, the Nazis might not have found the Well of Souls because they were digging in the wrong place. If they still found it, they probably would have opened it in Berlin in Hitler's presence, killing him and who knows how much of his staff...
Yeah but if Indy hadn't showed up in Mongolia they would have killed the girl and took the pendant so they would have been digging in the right place. They would have then opened the arc and died though so yeah, same ending.
I'm not a huge Indy buff, but basically in Raiders if Indy isn't around the Nazis get the ark, open it up, and get killed by the ark/Angel of Death. In Temple the British show up and kill all the baddies. In Last Crusade they all drink out of the wrong cup and die.
sam28 ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 16:36:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I don't remember it exactly, but the argument was that in Raiders the Nazi's would have taken it to the place they took it and opened it regardless of Indiana Jones' actions.
I like how you don't even mention Crystal Skull. That movie is dead to me.
M-Thing ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 17:02:39 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Hah, yeah. Honestly it didn't even enter into my head. For me, there are 3 Indiana Jones movies. I guess I would group the Crystal Skull in with the Young Indiana Jones TV show, if I had to put it anywhere except the trash :/
curtmack ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 16:19:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It makes me feel old to see the reddit 404 picture drawn by /u/Sure_Ill_Draw_That, and realize he hasn't been on in two years and new redditors have probably never heard of him.
Honestly, it's so easy to find it stupid in hindsight, or having read it past that point in your life but everyone, no matter who you are, has felt the way Holden did. You, and I, were whiny assholes, selfish brats, conceited teenagers and/or young adults who thought, no matter how good we really had it, that there would never be anything that could give us pleasure or satisfaction in this world. The longer you go, and the further you get from that feeling the more you resent the person you were when you felt that way but I seriously can't pretent it's not relatable. I guess, maybe, that's why it is stupid. It makes you want to run away from it all, all the people and institutions and hate them for comforming to the whole scheme of things because conformity is detestable to the individual but those things are also where we find comfort, love and stability and where we all end up, in the end, if we make it that far.
Wylkus ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 17:27:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I know that I for one did not experience the death of my beloved younger sibling during my vulnerable teenage years, so no I have not felt what Holden felt. I felt a much milder version of teenage angst. It really bugs me that everyone criticizes the character for his extreme angst while ignoring the perfectly understandable cause of that angst.
By that logic no one can ever relate to anything unless they've literally experienced the exact circumstances of any one peice of literature. There's a reason the book has hit home for so many people and suggesting my life has to be a perfect parallel for me to say I have, in some sense, felt similarly to Holden Caulfield is pretty silly.
Wylkus ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 18:32:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm not saying we can't relate to it, but we should recognize Holden as taking our more ordinary experience to more of an extreme. That's really how fictional characters function. We all like to imagine how we would be if things were different, particularly if they were different in an extreme fashion. It helps us expand our empathy and better understand our more everyday version of those same problems.
What I'm objecting to is people complaining about how Holden is an insufferable whiner, an extreme version of themselves as teenagers, while ignoring that his circumstances were more extreme than theirs probably were. Every discussion about Catcher in the Rye is dominated by people saying he's just a whiny twerp with almost nobody bringing up the whole dead brother thing. It's like if every discussion about Breaking Bad was dominated by people complaining that Walter White was being too dramatic when he turned to crime to solve his financial problems.
Oh don't get me wrong, I loved it in high school. I just had the same reaction as many other posters here upon re-reading it as an adult. Holden is just too annoying to spend more time with. Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roof Beam are much more to my adult taste.
[deleted] ยท 28 points ยท Posted at 13:20:04 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Dabu what are you doing out of your cage go back to /r/survivor
I was going to make a joke about needing to escape Cochran and Spencer threads, then I go there aaand the very most recent thread is straight-up "Why is Cochran so hated?" I choose to blame you for that.
Interesting experience. There are a lot of references to death and denial in the book and I'm sure those parts stood out to you a lot more when reading this way.
rotj ยท 19 points ยท Posted at 17:13:27 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You ever do that thing where you're reading a book and you accidentally skip a pair of pages? You turn two instead of one.
I did that on the fucking SAT.
tzenrick ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 18:54:34 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Fuck... How'd that work out? Did you retake it?
rotj ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 19:16:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It dropped my reading score by around 100. Took the test again and got perfect reading and 1 question wrong on math.
Whoa. For me the book came into my life at a time when personal computers had green letters on a screen. Growing up pre-Internet means you may see life in two distinct sections.
fischurr ยท 12 points ยท Posted at 16:25:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Not even the published booklet things, just the notes from that weird guy at the library named Cliff. Half of it was stuff about the book, the other half seemed to be a recipe for gumbo and threats against his ex-wife Carol who seems like a total bitch.
And for me I grew up on the Internet, with a NeoPets account at age 5 and some god-awful Proboards forum about Pokemon at age 9. It is interesting when I think about the fact that I've never known a world without the Internet and wondering how much different my perspective would be if I did (and then that typically leads to me appreciating/having my mind blown by what a freaking wonder the Internet is. Like I doubt I'll ever meet any of the people who voted or commented on this post but now thanks to this, I can share this story with them across thousands of miles and they can respond to it instantly; same goes for any other thread on Reddit or anywhere. It's absolutely awe-inspiring that human beings created that, and I try to not take it for granted. Which I guess is a bit of a tangent but oh well.)
I now see that the point I was trying to make was that imagining googling something is part of "Internet world" and applying such thoughts to "pre-Internet world" is shocking.
Sort of like, imagine if you grew up seeing everything in color, and then when you were well into adulthood, the world turned black and white.
Imagine if someone said "What shade of grey were the flowers are your wedding?", when your wedding and the whole world going back forever, had been in beautiful, vivid color. The idea would be shocking, to apply the concept of "black and white reality" to that previous world, the world this person hadn't tasted back when things were so very different.
That's how "I Googled "how did allie die?"" feels to me.
[deleted] ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 15:45:14 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This is like people who play Dark Souls for the first time and, being told how hard it is, end up trying to fight their way through the graveyard, thinking it's the way you're supposed to go in the beginning.
Summoning other players? I don't think that's the expected way to beat bosses, the game, though hard, is balanced for single player.
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 17:15:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You think so? I feel (and am pretty sure the general consensus among players is) that, while the "Trash Mobs" are tuned for solo-play, the boss encounters that have NPC summon options are designed around having an extra hand in the fights. Sure you can solo the entire game (like I said, that's how my first play through ended up going) but I think they put those NPC's in there for a reason.
Nah, there are a lot of ways in DK to make the game easier for you, like using magic or bows, for example. But that doesn't mean that the devs wanted you to pick the path of least resistance, they just gave you more options to play the game in a way that's right for you.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:08:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I did this...
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:19:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Before or after they changed them to give souls when they died?
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:11:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
No idea, this was such a long time ago and I didn't exactly get into the game enough to remember much about my time playing it. All I remember is fighting skeletons for a while in a graveyard before finally heading in the other direction. Ended up dropping the game not long after that, after beating some boss on a rooftop.
There was an English teacher at my high school who always told students to give him the "bold hypothesis." Basically what's the craziest theory you can come up with that is arguably supported by the text? If you could find some way to suggest that Allie didn't really die of an illness or the parents purposely infected Allie with the illness, he would have loved this.
I did a similar thing with a brave new world. My car plays mp3 cds, so i popped in the audio book and listened to it to and from work daily. I didn't understand what was happening from chapter to chapter a bit. Turns out the cd player was on shuffle.
So, yeah, still not sure what went down in that book.
shakdude ยท 12 points ยท Posted at 15:42:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oh wow, I mean at least you read the actual book. I read through the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter) after watching the movie. Stupid me got angry over how different the movie was, until I realized that the book I read was completely fan-fiction. A full novel. Yes.
My wife had a similar experience, only with the film The Matrix, where she dozed off just before Neo came out of the Matrix and woke up shortly after he went back in. Missed some crucial information there.
I don't know how you determined that a woman who falls asleep during the Matrix is wife material but I hope she's like a great cook or really nice or something.
I always thought Holden Caulfield was black. That's just how I imagined him.
Years later, I'm in my twenties and I was taking to some people about the book and mentioned that in a very off-handed way and people were like, "Dude, why in the world do you think he was black? He was a rich white kid at prep school in like the 60s." It has just never occurred to me that he was white. I just for some reason felt like the voice I was reading was black and never had it challenged. Even now I picture him like that.
Haha, I had a similar thing with To Kill A Mockingbird. Going into the book I knew it was about racism, so for like a third of the book or so, I figured Scout/Jem/Atticu were black and I still picture them that way. At one point in class asked "Wait... Scout's white?" and the teacher thought I was joking. (Fortunately not the same teacher. No one teacher had to bear witness to both mistakes.) But that's definitely a little more outlandish with Holden.
Hey, me too! And for the same reason - I knew the story was about race before reading and now in my head I can't see Scout any other way but as a little black girl.
I'm realizing, as I'm reading your comment, that this is exactly what I did 15 years ago, except I never looked into it so I've thought this all these years. I always LOVED the book but hated how it seemed to lack resolution. I wondered why people complained about Holden's weak charachter, thinking to myself that I'd be pretty dang whiney too if I thought my dad might kill me...now it all makes sense.
Ive read it several times including as an adult and find it very enjoyable. It isnt too long either. I wouldnt be put off by the other commentator. Open it and see if you like the authors way of story telling. If you do sick with it.
P_Jamez ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 16:39:50 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
If you are past your teenage years, the protagonist is an annoying little douche who you will despise spending time with
wankman ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 16:44:27 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I somehow missed reading this book in school. I will now read with the deliberate omission you decribed.
Furthermore, I can pass a doctored copy to my girlfriend, who's foreign and has never even heard of the book yet.
NedSnark ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 21:35:16 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Great post. I teach this book, and most students don't even notice that Allie plays any role. It's usually a dead give away that someone was on spark notes: they can tell you all about Allie's role in the novel. So it's especially funny to me that you literally missed those pages while reading.
In a somewhat similar vein, I never learned how to properly beat Ganondorf in the Forest Temple. Basically, you can hit back his attacks with a sword as in Tennis. Easy. However, I never figured it out, and just went through a bunch of fairies while hacking away until victory was achieved.
However, you MUST know this trick to beat the final Ganondorf. So I was getting absolutely crushed. One time, finally, almost out of hearts, Iโm frantically tapping C to drink a potion so I donโt die again. After I drink the potion, Iโm still hitting C, andโฆthe bottle swings, and returns Ganondorfโs fire to him. If it ainโt broke donโt fix it, so I used a bottle to defeat Ganondorf the first time. Oh well.
Haha, I can relate. Sounds like he couldn't handle your strongest potions. I haven't really played LoZ - only one I played was Ocarina of Time and I couldn't get past some tree level near the beginning; my ex gave me shit for this but I'm 99% sure it was literally impossible - but I had a similar thing in the third Ratchet and Clank game, Up Your Arsenal. One late boss is a giiiiiiiant mech controlled by a mercenary, and you're supposed to beat him by standing in these turrets scattered over the map that do a bunch of damage, firing at him as much as you can until he blows up your turret then moving on to the next one. The turrets do an absolutely absurd amount of damage, way more than any of your actual weapons; in other levels they can blow up virtually invulnerable spaceships and whatnot in just one shot. So the fact that the entire boss fight is based around using them means that he has a looooot of health.
...Well I didn't notice the turrets were there, so I very, verrrrry slowly whittled down from full health using my ordinary weapons, which also meant depleting absolutely all of their ammunition. It's basically impossible to beat him with just your weapons, even all of them with maximum ammo, so I had to work around that in a bunch of repetitive ways. I don't remember how much time it took me to beat him but I know it was a hell of a lot.
soupit ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 00:51:06 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I've definitely had experiences like this in video games before. I recall something similsr, for star wars Knights of the old Republic (KOTOR), I was playing the game and wanted to be a completionist, essentially to do 100% of the content I can taking the light path, then play again as the dark path, then if necessary a third time to do anything that I might have missed and just be grey. I got through half the game before opening the guide book I bought, and realizing I had given up talking to some cat Lady on the Dantooine Jedi Academy planet (Jahani?) who got mad easily and just killing her, when in fact shes one of few characters who can join your party and become a playable character throughout the rest of the game. I ended up restarting the game from the beginning and made sure to get her added to my party. Then her side mission glitched on the water planet and i wasn't even able to complete it anyway.
Pro tip: try reading the bible and reimagine god as an extraterrestrial. Best sci-fi book ever
mizu4444 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 00:24:18 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Holy crap! I read that book a dozen times as a kid and loved it and I just found out Allie was a boy??? I've been thinking it was his little sister this entire time!
Haha I had something like that when I read Hitchhiker Guide. There was a few pages where they discussed the issues with time travel, particularly how grammar makes time travel impractical, and I was reading it while walking, so I looked up. And the page flipped back one. And I started reading again and reread that paragraph about time travel grammar. And omg the book made me feel like I had traveled through time!!
Then I searched the last few pages trying to find the original time that paragraph was written, before realizing what happened. Oops.
I had a opposite experience reading The Grapes of Wrath. I wasn't into symbolism at all (thus the opposite experience), and read the book really flatly. My experience of the book was that it was a really sad tale of depression era life punctuated by wierd digressionsa about a turtle trying to cross a road. Unlike you, who was imputing symbolism into the book you read, I didn't see it at all and couldn't answer the test question about what the damn turtle represented.
(*steals convoluted plot device of catcher in the rye with three crucial pages missing, cast screenplay with Leo DiCaprio, but Daniel Day Lewis wins an Oscar that year...camera zooms in for close-up of Leo suppressing real emotions...)
Sort of off the topic, but does anyone else hate it when teachers tell students not to trust the narrators words? That screwed me up so bad as a kid because the whole time I was focusing on whether or not they were lying to us, rather than reading the damn story. Like, you're not SUPPOSED to know the narrator is unreliable until you actually start reading the book. It just drives me insane. It's like telling someone who's watching Sixth Sense for the first time to "pay attention to all the things in red!" No!! Don't do that! Just WATCH THE FILM. anyway, /rant.
You should rewrite the ending the way you expected it to be and omit the 2 pages
zrvwls ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 20:07:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Wow, never read Catcher in the Rye though I'd heard so much about it. This post you made is absolutely awesome, and now I want to experience it the way you did. Definitely going to add it to my list of books to read!
My first read was similar. I started the book, wasn't really reading it 'for real', and missed the whole context of the book.
I missed the whole 'David Copperfield kind of crap' reference, which is on the first page, which is where he is talking about not wanting to waste time telling someone about his childhood. Why? Because the whole book is his first session with a psychiatrist! FFS. And where do all the ducks go in the winter?
Oh, yeah - bonus points for someone who rewrites the above /u/DabuSurvivor post in Holden's voice!
txbob22 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 21:07:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Super cool man. That happened to me with the movie the hangover. I came in at the part were they all woke up!! I kind liked it less when I saw the beginning.
This is such an amazingly different experience than I had. When I had to read the book in high school, I got about 10 pages in, thought "man this shit is boring" and got the cliff notes.
ItsShiny ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:51:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
At least you figured out your mistake before going to class. That would have been a real TIF.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:07:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Admittedly from my limited understanding of the book (having tossed it as trash when I attempted to read it, a first for me) Holden had some serious issues that might have included Amnesia or Schizophrenia.
He was recounting the whole thing from a sanitorium (psychiatric or convalescent care facility, more or less). It's fairly obvious if you read the last page or two carefully and are aware of the time period. (Younger) modern readers usually miss it.
IIRC the causes would have been (I haven't taught the book in a while) - he could have had what used to be termed a "nervous disorder" or "nervous breakdown", though he could have had TB, which seems likely given the dialogue, but it's pushing it if we accord the book a strict internal chronology, given then the book takes place in 1948 at the earliest, after streptomycin (a TB antibiotic) was found.
ciberaj ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:31:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This reminds me of that "France Is Bacon" post from reddit. The confussion and trying to roll with it until the end.
[deleted] ยท -30 points ยท Posted at 06:06:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I accidentally skipped a few paragraphs, and I was waiting for you to explain how you missed this crucial element. Then the end came and it was so weak, man. I had to go back to find my mistake. When you reread this comment, imagine you accidentally look away, and then look back right before the paragraph where the finger slip up is explained, then imagine reading through the whole thing with NO FUCKING CLUE how this mistake happened. I mean, the whole book is detailed and I just kept waiting for the part when it would be revealed and then it just ended and I was like WTF, where is the explanation!
Hiei2k7 ยท -15 points ยท Posted at 13:14:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That was a wonderful post and all, but I'm gonna need about tree fiddy....
You're not really meant to like him... I mean the end of the novel is him basically realizing how fucked he's been in his thinking. That's how I took it. I like Holden a lot. I still do. He's a great character and the fact that his reception changes with age is one of my favorite parts about the book.
I thought the end was him admitting that he wanted to become some sort of messed up Peter Pan and force children to remain children forever, never becoming adults, because he didn't understand how adults function in the slightest?
It was the first book I ever read that I realized that the protagonist doesn't have to be good or likeable. Enjoyed it the second time around much more for that reason.
[deleted] ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 04:28:39 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, high school girlfriend loved him and I hated him.
Aaron215 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:43:41 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It was so insufferable for me that I didn't suffer it. I requested a different book from my teacher and did a different report. I've never really hated anyone, real or imaginary, except for Holden Caulfield.
venterol ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 20:21:14 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Man, you're teacher must've been pretty lenient. We got assigned Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees my sophomore year, from what I gathered from older students and the first few chapters it would be a total slog (it was). I requested a different novel and my English teacher told me "Tough. If I have to suffer through teaching this you have to suffer through learning it."
At least we were on the same page...
Aaron215 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 01:07:20 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
My teacher was pretty cool. She went on to become a principal, then a superintendent. I was a good student too, so when I told her I had no intention of reading the rest of this book, and I was okay with guessing on the tests and making up stuff for any papers, she was more than agreeable to letting me pick another book. I wasn't a jerk about it, so I guess that helped. And I stuck with it for a bit and I knew I'd end up doing extra work, so that helped that I wasn't trying to get out of work.
i don't think you got it if you liked the book otherwise
venterol ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 20:24:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I liked the writing style and themes presented, just not Holden. It was sort of like Neon Genesis for me; despised Shinji, but loved the overall package.
I fucking hate that book. I have no idea why people enjoyed it, it was torture for me having to hear that whiny piece of shit be put on a pedestal... God it bugged me and still does.
Orc_ ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 01:32:01 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted] ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 04:02:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, it came out a few years later, but is much harder to find now. Complete twist ending that changes the whole way you think about the first book. Recommended.
Edit: So many Holdens are going out of their way to prove me incorrect. Is joke.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:09:21 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"Ocean Full of Bowling Balls" is an unreleased short story that I personally find very enlightening to Holden's attitude. It gave me a very different view on Catcher. Salinger willed it to remain unpublished until the '60's of this century, but if you feel intrepid, there's some copies floating around online.
I actually read the one available copy at Princeton's rare books library. IIRC it happens before the events in Catcher. Holden is still at boarding school at the time and comes home at the very end for a brief moment. Also, it isn't exactly canon since it has a bunch of conflicting elements with Catcher. The brother die a different way in it and I think the family structure is different.
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 04:30:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yea, my memory may be fogged up a bit by now. I just remember that reading the first-hand account of the brother's death gave more insight to why Holden is so fixed on saving kids. That fixation never connected to anything else in Catcher to me, the short story clicked it in place.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 17:11:22 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That is EXACTLY what I thought when I read that book in high school. God, what an annoying, self absorbed douchebag.
I feel like people who complain about that are totally missing the point. Yeah, Holden's a whiner and a hypocrite but that makes him kind of tragic. I feel like those kinds of flaws were supposed to reflect on the reader as well. . It's obvious he's been through a couple of traumatic experiences (his brother's death, possible sexual molestation) and is having serious trouble dealing with it.
That being said, had I read the book now opposed to when I was 16, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much.
It really is. It's not about some whiney, first world problems kid. It's about someone trying to protect innocence. Holden's a teenager on the cusp of adulthood, who's deeply afraid of the world before him. He wants to protect children from what he sees as the evils of adulthood, but he's definitely not the best person to do that. He's clearly attracted to adult privileges like sex and drinking, but he's also repulsed by them.
At the end, Holden feels happy for the first time in the novel. He has no idea why, and it doesn't last, but I don't think that matters. He felt it once, and he can feel it again.
So I guess the Catcher has two lessons, for adults and teenagers. For adults, it's no use telling kids they're useless and whiney, and that they need to get there act together. Sometimes all they need is to be listened to, and to be told it's going to be ok. For teenagers, it's going to be ok.
I actually kind of have more respect for the book with that idea in mind. To be fair there are a lot of ways to interpret books in general, and Catcher in the Rye is no exception, but I'd like to think that that was what Salinger was getting at, regardless of whether or not it's correct.
When I read this in high school, I had pretty much the same thought. You read the novel and you just want to punch Holden for whining so much, and punch Salinger for writing such an awful character in the first place.
Ah see, I read it around 15-16, and thought it was a bit of both. He had that teenage angst I could identify with, but I could still watch as he fucked his life up fairly consistently. I had more of the impression that it was pointing out the rediculous in being a "rebel without a cause..." Kinda made me rethink a bit, but not too much. I really enjoyed it.
quigs17 ยท 12 points ยท Posted at 02:42:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Well time to re-read this book now
[deleted] ยท 12 points ยท Posted at 14:57:16 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"Holden is full of shit" is such a tired trope.
An adult reading that book should want to give him a hug and tell him it'll be alright. The child is clearly overwhelmed by a life he can't understand.
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 07:36:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Hold on, you read Catcher in the Rye as a teenager and thought Holden had his shit together? Even at 16 when I first read it, I knew he was fucking up. Still adored the book, but I never thought he "got it." That being said, I think a lot of the things Holden hates about Pencey would drive me fucking mad as well.
I had the opposite response. As a 15 year old I thought "Man, what a whiny asshole." Reading it again at 26 I thought "Oh. He's clinically depressed. I get it now."
I was forced to read it in high school by a guy I considered by best friend. Always talked about how much he loved that book. I just didn't get it man. The kid always came off just like you describe him, a whiny asshole.
dlbear ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 16:08:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I got to the end of Catcher and said "Wow, big fucking deal". Nothing about Holden made me give a shit about him, and I developed no interest whatsoever in any of the characters, least of all Holden. It was one of the most uninteresting novels I've ever read
I couldn't even handle Holden Caulfield in high school. That book gave me anxiety and made me want to rip my hair out. I have always thought he was a whiny asshole.
Uldyr ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 04:59:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I read that book as a teenager and said "Oh wow, what a whiny little phony asshole"
I just read it for the first time as a middle aged man. While I didn't identify with the main character I felt he was extremely well written. The author makes it sound part autobiographical.
I'm going to go against the grain here and say that I agree with you
When I read it in school, I didn't think Holden was really an asshole. Whiny? Sure, and I also thought he was dumb as fuck and really antisocial, but I didn't think he was this huge douchebag that everyone here is making him out to be. He struck me as a young guy suffering from some extreme ennui and feeling like an utter outcast, and wishing he could be living some other life, any other life. Disgruntled and unsatisfied, he took it out on everyone around him, but never once though that maybe he needed to look at himself to change his life and find satisfaction instead of blaming everybody else
Granted, I read the book like 12 years ago, so my memory is foggy
rnw159 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:36:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You've got it backwards. Most kids think he's super whiny and annoying, but when you read it again as a 30 year old you realize that he's just a kid. He's just a kid who tries very very hard to be a good person. You realize that he's is incredible kind and empathetic and his character is actually a lot deeper than just a guy who whines a lot.
XSplain ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:11:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
He came off as a whiny spoiled little shit to me as a teenager.
I think the real lesson in it is how deluded we are to our own failings. Holden was a hypocrite because he hated phony people but he was entirely full of shit whenever he talked to anybody. Assholes don't realize they're assholes, no matter how apparent it is to everyone else.
knitasha ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 20:07:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yes, Catcher In The Rye and also the movie Ghost World.
I identified so strongly with Enid when that movie came out. Re-watching as an adult, all I could think was "Jesus Christ, Enid. Shut up and get a job, you fucking brat!"
I remember feeling puzzled about why people thought he was depressed because everything he was saying seemed normal to me. Turned out I was very depressed and had no idea at the time
I agree wholeheartedly. I never read it as a teenager, and I got around to reading it when I was 31.
The only merit I could see with the novel was that it might be of some historical interest to somebody who wanted to read about contemporary New York night life hotspots.
Edit: I personally feel that JD Salinger is overrated and I can't see what the fuss is about.
I read it as a teenager and couldn't relate to him at all. Holden was just an awful person and the book left me feeling so upset because I just wanted to shake him.
I suspect my experience would be very similar to /u/loptopandbingo 's experience, though. "Hey this is great!" as a teenager, and then "...No it's not" as an adult.
For better or worse, I just jumped to the end result without the intervening period of temporary enjoyment. Such is life.
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 04:10:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Nope. It's not a book for everyone. I never liked it and I read it twice when I was young. 16 and 19
So there's a phenomenon in literature (and probably movies, art, etc. as well) where the first big work to create a new genre gets overshadowed by its later imitators.
Bram Stoker's Dracula is my favorite example - the world's first really popular vampire novel, it was later overshadowed by more polished, modernist takes on it.
This probably was what happened to me with my reading of Catcher. It was the modern world's first truly bestselling work addressing teenage isolation, mental/emotional disturbance, and conflicting fears and desires about sex. But it came out in the 1950s and it spawned an entire genre of works that I encountered much earlier in my life when I was in the target reader demographic (including the superb The Secret History by Donna Tartt, published in 1992).
So I probably came to this novel the wrong way, by first reading up on its literary progeny and then coming to it full of high expectations.
The "ur-example" of a genre is its earliest big, notable work. It's not necessarily its most well-aged or well-executed. I think this applies to Catcher in the Rye. It climbed that mountain first, but its subsequent followers have eclipsed it in craft and workmanship.
Liking or relating to the main character isn't it shouldn't be what makes you appreciate a book.
I think you may have misinterpreted the original comment. I think Holden Caufield is a whiny little bitch, but I think it's quite a good book in style and approach.
Liking or relating to the main character isn't it shouldn't be what makes you appreciate a book.
Whenever somebody says the word "should" in a sentence, especially when the entire sentence is about one person's personal taste, it makes me wonder what basis they're using for this sudden application of an objective rule to subjective preference.
I personally found Mark Twain nothing special. He wasn't unbearable, but I couldn't really connect with his witticisms and so forth.
One much older author that I can't get into at all is Charles Dickens. Everything is so drawn out in the descriptions and he spends so much time with linked sentences just building up momentum. Yes, Mr. Dickens, I get that London is foggy and dirty during the Industrial Revolution. Can we please get on with the story?
Sort of thing.
With Salinger, I couldn't really find myself identifying with Holden's internal emotions and his outlook. This is a big problem because much of the novel takes place in his own head, so if I'm not able to put myself there (through whatever accident of history, personality, or experience) then the rest of the book will be pretty alien to me. That's more or less what happened - I read through the book faithfully but couldn't connect with the central protagonist's struggles, and so the primary feature of the book reverted to its historical epoch in the mid-fifties (or earlier).
Well shit, I guess all the literary critics who have given his books acclaim were confused, or something. Hell, the millions of fans he has must be really confused. I mean, you can shit on whatever you want, by all means do that, but don't pretend like your opinion has some lofty worth that elevates it above all others. If anything, you just come off like a douche.
Looks like this rustled some jimmies. Your mileage may vary, and everything I've written is just my own opinion. It's completely possible that hundreds of thousands of people like something that I don't. And that's okay - nobody's wrong. I should have said "I found JD Salinger to be overrated", maybe that would be clearer.
I've got a few Jaimie's very dear to my heart that rustle without warning. Yeah, I understand that people usually are stating their own opinions, but nobody every clarifies that and yeah. It makes it hard to tell who to take seriously because there are people out there who believe that their opinion is the holy truth, unfortunately.
flybaiz ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 03:51:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Agree with /r/gladvillain. Go yell at a cloud you old fart.
Of course you hate Holden, he has clinical depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and labors under the assumption that all his family and schoolfriends hate his fucking guts. He hates himself a lot more than you hate him.
"whiny little asshole" is pretty much exactly what I thought of him at 15. Made me loathe the book, with a passion, more than any other assigned reading.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:03:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This might explain why I hated the book so much, didn't read it until 28.
dackots ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:11:22 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I read it when I was 14 and almost couldn't finish it because of how much I hated Holden.
Envy121 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:25:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Maybe because I read it during the rise of hipsters but there was never a moment where I thought Holden wasn't a douchebag.
Noodle36 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:21:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Read it as a teenager, you say 'oh wow, this guy really gets it!' Read it as a 30 year old, and you say 'oh wow, what a whiny little asshole.'
[deleted] ยท 67 points ยท Posted at 03:44:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 05:29:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Never taken a hit out on someone, have you?
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 20:49:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
So you're a man with two knives, eh? Sounds pretty great.
sergregor ยท 311 points ยท Posted at 02:30:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
But Lisa is and always has been more of an "adult" than the actual adults... I'll identify with her until the very end. Although as I get older I also am becoming Abe.
It's funny, but that episode had a lot to do with me becoming a vegetarian myself.
I had some feelings brewing about slaughtering animals, but becoming a vegetarian was still something very far fetched. But that show really summed up exactly how I felt, it was eary. It helped me wrap my mind around the fact that eating animals wasn't for me.
Plus, it helped me realise that just because you think something is an injustice, you have to be really carefull with how you present it, otherwise people will mock you. You really don't make friends with salad. You've got halloumi for that ;)
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 07:47:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Lisa is the part of life you go through when you continually learn important lessons and feel enlightened that you have struck the truth which nobody else sees... where in fact everyone with a few years on you has already struck these concepts, done the self examination, lived through some kind of transition as a result, and no longer feels the need to tell you about it, because they understand its a lesson learned through being walked, not being told.
Xenalien ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:18:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That newspaper snippet was used on one of the loading screens for The Simpsons Hit and Run. I never remembered seeing it in the actual show!
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:37:48 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I knew what it was, clicked anyway.
Patomark ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:17:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I remember when I looked up to Lisa like the older sister I never had now I look down on my past self that was like Otto. I can almost relate with Homer.
Bart: "Ugh, these Renaissance Festivals are so boring!!"
Marge: "Oh really? Have you seen the loom?"
[deleted] ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 09:29:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"This is the store where I buy my yarn. But you don't wanna buy your buttons there!" Sounds so much like my mom. I always wondered how people turn into Marges.
I'm not old enough to have that with the Simpsons but when I was a kid spongebob was just starting up and I saw squid ward as some grumpy ass old man. Now I see him as a normal person and spongebob as some super hyper-active annoying little shit.
I remember watching the premiere of sponge bob during the kids choice awards at like 10 years old and the moment Living In The Sunlight kicked in I remember saying to myself "This show won't last a season".
I was happily proven wrong in the fallowing few years.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 23:59:29 on December 17, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Same thing happened with me and The Last Airbender. From the promos, I thought it looked lame.
The show blew my mind.
Rawrplus ยท -2 points ยท Posted at 10:14:42 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah.... You realize that spongebob aired in 1999 right? And I was already a child when that happened. Basic math skills my friend. They come in handy some times.
[deleted] ยท -5 points ยท Posted at 15:14:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You were already a child in 1999? Do you understand what jokes are?
I just rewatched it all the way through. It's funny how now I side with Lorelei and identify with her much more. Also, ditto on the crush.
Boro84 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:06:50 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Alexis Blidel....them eyes doe
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:17:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
My girlfriend has been watching Gilmore Girls on repeat for a long, long time now. At first I came for the pretty cast members, but I stayed because it's... a pretty damn good show.
[deleted] ยท 11 points ยท Posted at 03:25:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Wow never really realized how long I've watched them. I remember watching the Simpsons when they were a short on the Tracey Ulman show...(personally I thought they were the best part of that show... But I was just a whippersnapper)
When I was younger, it was the main motivation for why I watched the Tracey Ulman show. I was extremely shocked the night the Simpson shorts were not included. During their ending cast commentary Tracey mentioned staying tuned for the premier of the Simpsons new stand alone show. I was so thrilled (and a little lucky to be there from the beginning) to see a full length show of the Simpsons.
I have a folder on my laptop called 'Smile Material'. In it I keep pictures that can cheer me up when I'm feeling a little blue. I've got a screen grab of that year book shot in there. It slays me every time.
I'm not sure but I think the show started out focused on Bart and shifted to Homer. Here's something depressing though, everyone who was Bart's age when the show first aired is a year or two away from being Homer's age :(
xrimane ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:51:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Same age, actually. The Simpsons first aired in 1987, and Bart was 10, so born in 1977. He would be 38 today, which is precisely Homers age given in the show.
Homer's age has changed as the series developed; he wasย 36 inย the early episodes,ย 38ย andย 39 in season eight, andย 40 in the eighteenth season, although even in those seasons his age is inconsistent
Rasera ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 04:34:20 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Originally I had a big, long winded post about how the more recent seasons (from the movie onwards) have actually been improving in quality, and that it was basically seasons 13 - 17 that were pretty meh, along with numerous episodes that I would recommend people watch.
But the reddit circle jerk about Simpsons will never die, so here's this comment in place of it.
I haven't seen the show in like ten years but that's mostly because I just haven't watched TV in that long. If The Simpsons was on Netflix or something, I would watch it all the time, and I'd gladly randomize amongst all of the seasons. I'm sure I'd get a lot of bad ones from that, but hey.
As it is, I'm usually too lazy to get out my DVD box sets and put them on, so I just don't see the show anymore.
It's like the general dialog from the top comments is pre-ordained in every Simpsons thread that makes the front page--like watching a bunch of dudes quoting Happy Gilmore at each other until they've performed an entire scene.
I've been hearing whispers and rumors along those lines. Enough so I'm trying to jump back in, even. I'd like to read your long winded comment, if you still wanna write it.
vbnm678 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:17:48 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's a shame too. Whether or not you actually enjoy the newer episodes, you have to admit they've really been pushing the envelope the last few seasons. Too many people are hung up on the way things were to appreciate the way things are.
Malcolm in the Middle does this perfectly. When I was a child I thought their parents (especially the mum) was a demon spawn. Watching it again now I realise it was the kids that were related to the devil.
108claws ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 04:50:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oh and don't even get me started on that Ferris Bueller. What a young rich spoiled brat of a punk.
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 03:29:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Shit, son, I've given up identifying with Homer and I'm now identifying with Abraham.
Boro84 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:09:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Whats IT is strange and scary...it'll happen to you!!!!
[deleted] ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 03:37:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Homer was always the funnier character, over Bart.
DrPac ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 03:42:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"What a time to be alive."
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:31:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"Moon pies"... What a time to be alive."
-Old Man Jasper
jdw625 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 04:52:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
When I was a kid the Homer and Marge flashbacks, when they were highschool sweethearts, always took place in the 70's. I saw an episode a few years ago where they flashed back to 90's instead. From disco to grunge rock lol
The Simpsons has been on the air long enough that it had a flashback episode of young Homer/Marge taking place in the very same decade the show debuted in.
You know the complaint that the writing's gone downhill? That complaint is OLD ENOUGH TO DRIVE.
issc ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 09:41:13 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Skinners the realest character in the show for me =\
The show has changed to a large degree too. In the beginning it was far more Bart centric than it is today. Homer has become the show's main instigator, but the writers manage to spread the love and around to several of the other characters.
the simpsons has been on the air long enough, that it is no longer even worth watching. It is really sad how much it has declined. There is nothing clever or witty about it anymore, and there hasn't been for many years. I say put it out of its misery.
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:21:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.(Info/Contact)
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:26:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm in between at the moment. Dont identify with the kids any more, but at 18, I don't identify with the adults either... Why, Matt? Y u no hav regular teen characters?
Merari01 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:15:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
When Simpsons started airing I was about Barts age. Now I am Homers age.
Holy shites...... I didn't even realize I was doing that.
UPRC ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:35:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's crazy how true this is. If the show keeps going for years yet and they recast characters, eventually we might be saying that we once related to Homer but now relate best with Abe. Or Jasper.
breecher ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:44:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
In the earliest seasons, when they had flashbacks about Homer and Marges college youth, they were set in the 70s, and Homer listened to progrock. They even had a couple of episodes in the early 90s where Homer is trying to be hip with the grunge kids of that time.
In one of the later episodes the flashback about Homer and Marges college youth is set in the 1990s with Homer starting a grungeband.
In a couple of years time such a flashback episode would be set around the turn of the millenium.
The Simpsons has been on the air long enough that literally more than half of its episodes are shit.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:35:09 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The Simpsons very quickly moved away from Bart as being the focus of the show, and went to Homer since he was a more likable character. I'm not sure if it went that way because of all the nonsense about Bart being a bad influence to children, but Homer has been my favorite character since season 5...mostly because my dad wouldn't let me watch the show until then.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:46:27 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
zocc ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:58:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Old fart here. Never could identify with the Simpsons adults.
Too much tree hugging IMHO. It seems like Groening tries to educate us all by putting on characters that are too simply the opposite of what is good. Humor is subtle and jokes mustn't be blatantly clear.
Family guy is more my character. Peter is an absolute nutter and less predictable than a hippo. Perhaps he resembles one in many different ways.
The amount of times the show has been running is irrelevant I re-watch the same few seasons over and over and who I identify within them has changed very gradually.
I've always identified with Maggie. The only sane, smart person in the family, let alone the town, and all I want to do is relax, but when we're needed, we come through and get the job done.
Yes, you could argue Marge is sane, but she's not very smart. Lisa is smart, but not always sane. Talking outside the Simpsons family, Frink is smart though absolutely insane, Hibbert is the same way, though he has brief lapses of sanity. Flanders, though he's quirky, is sane, just not very smart, same way with Reverend Lovejoy. Moe is the true midline, he's not super smart, but he's smart enough to know how to keep a business running (barely), though he is relatively sane, though his depression and lack of human contact outside the bar flys is slowly eroding his psyche.
tk1178 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:25:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Not sure if it's been said in here but I was thinking earlier that you could say that you know that you're starting to feel old when you started watching The Simpsons when you were as old as either one of the kids and now you find yourself as old as Homer or Marge because of the fact the characters hardly age. Although I'm not as old as Homer just yet, (a good 5 years to go before that happens), when The Simpsons first aired it looks like I was probably around Lisa's age.
shim__ ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:41:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Honestly, now I identify more with Lisa than most of the other characters. At first I thought Lisa was just some whiny goody-two-shoes but once I hit 12-13 I started to see her as the voice of reason (albeit with stupid lapses).
When the Simpsons came out, I was Bart's age. Now I'm Homer's. I still identify most with Lisa. Even though I'm superficially more like the other two.
llameht ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 03:17:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Coincidentally watched it on fox tonight for the first time in years. Not funny at all. Family guy still got some chuckles though.
blot101 ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 03:55:53 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
yeah, they seem to follow more of a "south Park" type of thing now, where they change the entire town to make a weird point. I watched it for the first time in a decade about... a week ago. two episodes. one the entire town switched the education system, and the other the entire town started enforcing anti-bullying laws. not even a chuckle. Not one.
Tomusina ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 02:29:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I literally had this thought yesterday!!! So funny to see someone else say it. Completely relate.
Crohhg ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:11:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The Simpsons is absolutely shit now. Unbearable to watch in my opinion
Saved comment
thebrayway ยท 1727 points ยท Posted at 03:25:09 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This is how Matt Stone and Trey Parker felt about South Park as they now identify much more with Randy Marsh and that's why they use him more.
BaKdGoOdZ0203 ยท 749 points ยท Posted at 03:45:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Went from Stan as the "main character" to Randy.
Jakuskrzypk ยท 94 points ยท Posted at 04:48:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
stan gets hardly any show time recently. Its more about Cartman Kyle Ike and Randy.
KHDTX13 ยท 125 points ยท Posted at 05:27:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Replace Ike with Butters
Tuhjik ยท 59 points ยท Posted at 05:38:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yep, I would consider Jimmy to be a bigger character than Ike. You can tell how much the writers love Butters.
[deleted] ยท 151 points ยท Posted at 07:55:09 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
EVERYONE loves butters
PM_ME_UR_SIDEBOOOB ยท 69 points ยท Posted at 10:18:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That's me!
satisfactory-racer ยท 17 points ยท Posted at 12:34:34 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That episode where he plays detective butters and catches his dad meeting with men at a massage parlour or something is still one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
[deleted] ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 12:49:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Haha and his mother tries to kill him and cover up his death
Dustytehcat ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 15:34:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
One of the hardest times I've ever laughed at the show was during this scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSeek1ouq7A
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 08:32:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Butters is awesome
CptAustus ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 09:48:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Butters is an asshole.
ScorpSt ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 15:06:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Found Cartman
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 15:32:53 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Butters is the embodiment of the phrase 'life sure sucks being a kid'.
_From_The_Internet_ ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:42:39 on November 11, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Jimmy is muh muh muh...muhhhhhey favowite character, guys
Jakuskrzypk ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 05:46:34 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
you are right i just finish rewatching season 18 he was quite prominent there but butters is far more so in basically all the recent seasons.
psychoacer ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 05:37:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ike? Kyle has been completely gutted since the boys don't want to hear his stupid monologues. Obviously a sign that Matt and Trey get that they have been a little repetitive and relying heavily on kyle to get there message across.
moeburn ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 07:03:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Stan went all depressed and thought the world was shit and then... just... turned into an asshole.
SubSoldiers ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 14:55:45 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The newest Tweek and Craig episode was a nice change up. Tweek Vs. Craig from season 3 is one of my all-time favorite episodes.
Twitch_Half ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 20:49:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Well he was the focus of a season or two ago wasn't he? They're probably cycling through now.
koobstylz ยท 309 points ยท Posted at 05:02:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Stan was never the main character. Kyle, who would make the final episode speaches was.
forwhateveritsworth4 ยท 513 points ยท Posted at 05:16:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Stan was a main character (with Kyle being the counterpart, Kenny/Cartmen being friends/nemesis).
Fun facts: Matt Stone has a mother named Sheila and a father named Gerald. Trey Parker has a father named Randy, a mother named Sharon, and an older sister named Shelley.
Kyle and Stan were both main characters as they were stand-ins for Matt and Trey.
concrete_isnt_cement ยท 308 points ยท Posted at 05:36:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
And Randy Parker is a fairly renowned geologist. I'm a geology major who has to read his articles fairly often for my classes.
[deleted] ยท 153 points ยท Posted at 07:08:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Thats pretty neat. My girlfriends aunt is the real Wendy, and Kenny is based on another childhood friend of theirs.
All of the women in that family are hot strong brunette feminists who are really smart and all look the same. I cant stop mentally comparing my girlfriend to Wendy
xCoachHines ยท 52 points ยท Posted at 09:39:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
How neat is that?
DeathParagon ยท 16 points ยท Posted at 10:44:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You can tell that it's that, by the way it is. Neat
notaverysmartdog ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:04:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ask the cat in the hat. He knows a lot about that.
Iamloghead ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:50:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Aspen. Aspen is the word you were looking for.
allroy1975A ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 13:30:53 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That's pretty neat.
RoflMunster ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 13:03:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Gotta make sure to pack a gu- pack some heat- pack a gun
TabMuncher2015 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:53:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Is it more neato? Or neato-burrito?
lordcthulhu17 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:46:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
thats pretty neat!
dragon-storyteller ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 14:17:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"friend". They used to bully him.
z500 ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 15:26:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That's crazy, I'm literally a heavyset black chef who gives advice to young men in matters of love, usually in the form of song.
AndHerNameIsSony ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 15:59:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
They had a childhood friend who died on a daily basis, then permanently once, but eventually came back and died less often to become a crime fighter?
iggybiggyblack ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 11:03:16 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
post proof or GTFO
trvpfiend ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 09:37:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Hey it's me your brother
delusion-of-adequacy ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:04:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Boo. Boo /u/touchedbyamallangel's girlfriend. Boo.
blackmarble ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:17:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Do you puke on her whenever she talks to you?
Maximelene ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:19:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Do you puke into her mouth?
Just asking...
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:43:45 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
They had a childhood friend who died every week?
Ganta_kage ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 13:08:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
They had a childhood friend who used to miss school all the time and Trey and Matt would joke that he had died. Every week when "Kenny" missed school it was because he had died in some spectacular fashion.
DreadedBread ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:08:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"There's a girl that I like..."
-/u/touchedbyamallangel
Admiral_Dildozer ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:00:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I hated your comment and I can't figure out why.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:28:04 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It wasnt phrased how I usually speak but I was really drunk...they were all standing in a tiny kitchen together talking and all of the sudden I was like "holy shit she wasnt lying" and all I could see was a room full of Wendy Tessaburgers arguing about nonsense
Derekabutton ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:57:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Is he also a pop sensation?
concrete_isnt_cement ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 12:11:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Well he certainly does rock.
scopeless ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:19:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The governor of their home state of Colorado is also a geologist. I think he was mayor of Denver for a while before he was governor.
Jrummmmy ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:02:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"Rocks for Jocks"
thejesse ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 05:37:45 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
My economics professor co-wrote the textbook that we used with Gerald Stone.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:54:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
And now he makes each class buy one at $250 a drop? Well he did write the book on Economics.
JDRC00 ยท 11 points ยท Posted at 09:26:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Matt Groenings mother is named Margaret, father is Homer and two sisters Lisa and Maggie.
TitoTheMidget ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:58:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Both of them have also said that they're truly probably closer to Cartman. Which kind of explains a lot.
thiosk ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 10:32:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
until they realized that they were both cartman
crazyfingersculture ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:44:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Timah!
Workaphobia ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 16:05:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Wait, but Stone does the voice of Stan and Parker does Kyle.
Googles it
Everything I know about this world is wrong.
[deleted] ยท 186 points ยท Posted at 05:05:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
forwhateveritsworth4 ยท 91 points ยท Posted at 05:18:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's a crush at first--he can't talk to her without vomiting he gets so nervous. Real smooth Stan.
[deleted] ยท 61 points ยท Posted at 05:28:21 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
___forMVP ยท 69 points ยท Posted at 06:59:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It was funny when the animation was still super crappy. Seeing the flying green paper vomit hit and bounce off Wendy was classic. I
binder673 ยท 74 points ยท Posted at 07:13:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Also was funny when every single episode wasn't based on whatever the most current event was and was an original idea.
KingPercyus ยท 71 points ยท Posted at 08:02:46 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I like it better the way it is now.
TitoTheMidget ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 14:00:16 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I haven't been able to get into the last few seasons, including this one. The original premise of South Park was just "kids acting like they do when adults aren't around," and then they shifted away from that. I think it was a good show up to about season 11, and it's been really hit or miss ever since.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:39:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
TitoTheMidget ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 18:49:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
What? "Volcano," "Death," "Weight Gain 4000," "Pinkeye," "Damien," "Chickenlover," "Gnomes," "Cow Days" and "Spookyfish" are some of my favorites.
Season 8 was the show's climax, and it's all been slowly downhill from there, crossing less into "the kids do some funny stuff and there's a little bit of biting social commentary" and more into "Matt and Trey are becoming grumpy old men" territory.
There's still a few episodes where the heart of the show is there, like the "Imaginationland" series and "Fatbeard," but it's succumbed to Simpsons syndrome at this point. Randy becoming more of a weird goofball character was funny at first, but the more the show shifts focus to the adults the more it loses what made me like it in the first place.
[deleted] ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 08:26:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Hey everyone, look, it's the Rick who eats shit!
Jerry, you do realize this guy comes from a universe where everyone eats poop, right?
bbrpst ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 09:29:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I agree, allthough they could mix it up a bit more maybe? Not sure, i love the new season though.
ktappe ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 17:50:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I like both. I'd prefer they had some off-the-wall ones interspersed with some topical ones.
suchalusthropus ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 11:28:16 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This has long been my complaint about the way South Park has turned. I also miss the charm of the low-quality animation.
[deleted] ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 12:14:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
binder673 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:29:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Exactly, I'm fine with having the current event episodes, but not every single episode. I agree with Cartman's voice being better when it was more cartoony but I think that's more with Trey Parker not being able to do that high voice as easily anymore.
BeerOnTap ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:14:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Though Trey does the voice, the pitch is altered by the computer.
Source: https://youtu.be/EDqBBkXPCDc They have changed his voice and mannerisms on their own.
binder673 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:22:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Wow, then yeah that is stupid.
Blacksin01 ยท 17 points ยท Posted at 08:05:45 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You know what, I agree with this. I can still find the humor in the new episodes, but I used to think the classic ones were so much better. Maybe I was just younger and thought that type of material was funnier at the time, But the show must progress and change was inevitable. The show fails to make me laugh like it used to, or maybe iv just grown up a bit.
[deleted] ยท 29 points ยท Posted at 10:29:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Absolutely!
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 12:16:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
HazMatt082 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:12:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
How so?
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:27:21 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ugh i know, which is weird because one of my favourite things used to be that they touched on current events. It's just that now they never do episodes about the boys being boys, they just use the show as a platform to express their opinions on very specific current world events.
megalomaster ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 11:10:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Does everything sound like shit to you? That's a pretty surefire way to know you've grown up.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:56:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The show has always been about current events. Less so than the current season, but I think we were all just too young to notice the intricacies of it.
_From_The_Internet_ ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:41:01 on November 11, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This season sucks so far
ZiggyStarnuts ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 12:52:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I've tried watching the older episodes recently. They don't hold up.
TitoTheMidget ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 14:01:14 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I disagree. The old episodes have a sense of sweetness about them that's lacking in the new ones.
ZiggyStarnuts ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 14:05:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm okay with the sweetness being removed in place of cutting satire, even if Trey and Matt's opinions don't align with my own a lot of the time. I think a show like that is needed a lot more right now than the old South Park.
TitoTheMidget ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 15:44:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That's fine if you prefer the newer ones, but that's a different question than whether the old ones hold up.
Super_Secret_SFW ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 15:05:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
There's a way to tell. Go back and watch some of the earlier stuff. I personally did that and found it dull and childish, even though I loved it as a kid
AVeryWittyUsername ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 08:09:42 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Thank you, I can't stand how topical the show has become. It's not like they never used what was currently happening at the time in their episodes, but it was a lot more subtle and smart.
technofiend ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 10:46:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The quality fell massively when they decided to crank out episodes faster and faster. There's no longer the same polish to the episodes because they don't put as much time into refining the story line and jokes.
ClintonHarvey ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:11:22 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Always funny.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:09:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It was funny for me because I could fucking relate.....
___forMVP ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 07:12:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Aww buddy that's kind a sad/funny. Still puking on your lady friends or did you grow a gut?
lars330 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 07:29:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Nah he threw his guts up
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 20:58:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I don't have one anymore... So idk
The_Pale_Blue_Dot ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 07:41:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm of the view that there was no "main character". Stan, Kyle, and Cartman all held the spotlight in their own ways. Kenny, sadly, falls my the wayside as he has little decipherable dialogue.
TheCrimsonChinchilla ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 08:20:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
He had alot of episodes where he mained though. PSP, mysterion, etc.
My-Names-Jeff ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 10:46:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Kenny as Mysterion is the best.
[deleted] ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 09:46:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
LiquidSilver ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:33:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Princess Kenny was crossplay. Did he defy societal gender norms some other time?
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:09:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Kenny was good recently in the one where the town is gentrifying his neighborhood.
ZaphodBeelzebub ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:35:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That doesn't prove anything...
crazyfingersculture ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:43:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You all have it wrong. It's always been about Timmy. He's the one.
BigSwedenMan ยท 19 points ยท Posted at 07:20:22 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
They both would. Neither was the main character, rather, they were both one of the main characters. Neither was more the focus than the other. Each had episodes about them, each gave speeches, and each had about equal focus as a whole.
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 08:54:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I think Stan and his family are the focus of more stories, Kyle and Cartman are secondary because both are harder for mainstream audiences to relate with.
SubtleMockery ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:09:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Stan and Kyle are... or were, Trey and Matt respectively.
ConebreadIH ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:35:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I believe Stan was Trey and Kyle was Matt
CptAustus ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:46:39 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Weren't they going to kill Kyle though?
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 10:39:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I like to and always imagined that Stan and Kyle were the main characters and they represented Trey & Matt.
Happy__Dad ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:14:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
*speeches
letsbebuns ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:56:20 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It was pretty clear in the first, oh 10 or so seasons that stan and kyle were equally main characters with different but valid viewpoints. They were usually both the voice of reason.
thebrayway ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:45:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Was there a main character? I thought the main characters were just the boys.
And it probably went from Stan to Eric as the main character.
RANDY_MAR5H ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:14:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That's how it should be
CombativeAccount ยท 157 points ยท Posted at 04:04:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
But we can be real, right? Randy is like a non-character. He's a Peter. He does whatever is called for. Most SP characters really only have consistency in archetypal form, because they'll gain and lose certain ideological tendencies within an episode/season.
That's of course less so in a season like the current one where everything is continuous rather than episodic.
twitchedawake ยท 73 points ยท Posted at 04:28:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The last two seasons have been the best episodes since Imagination Land.
thebrayway ยท 55 points ยท Posted at 05:55:48 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I know, South Park is so much more exciting to me with continuity. There's something great about going into a show weekly wondering what callbacks they'll do or what they'll remember from the previous episodes.
Truffles326 ยท 29 points ยท Posted at 07:07:04 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I wonder how it'll affect how ridiculous things could become though like how to explain Cartman going hundreds of years in the future. I'm enjoying it so far though
[deleted] ยท 12 points ยท Posted at 08:05:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
We're a season and a half in and there's still something shocking about them calling back to an old episode. It's like a "did they break the fourth wall" kind of shock over and over.
Drunkhobo101 ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 14:12:53 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
For instance in you're not yelping you see Wendy walking with an Asian girl and talking to her. Later on you see them hanging out in the background setting up the next episode, Craig x Tweek.
[deleted] ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 07:42:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 10:51:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
tubular1845 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:18:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I find that I look forward to the show coming on more when it's a continuous story rather than episodic content.
Sommern ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:17:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The continuity is still weird to me. I guess it's just because I am used to years of seeing South Park blowing up the town and having aliens in the Vatican and whatnot. Strange to see everything so leveled.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:57:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I think it's more impressive now that they keep continuity. I feel like it's gotta be harder for them to write their episodes keeping a storyline, even if it's only in theme, rather than cherry picking whatever they want.
Malgio ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 20:08:07 on November 12, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I kinda enjoyed it at first, but now it seems like it limits subsequent episodes too much.
xScott18x ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 05:10:20 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Haha love those episodes.
goodguysteve ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 12:01:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I think this season has been kinda hit-and-miss so far.
avianexus ยท 32 points ยท Posted at 04:39:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I agree, he's very analogous to Roger from American dad in that regard
suss2it ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 17:03:21 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Roger's inconsistencies are an actual character trait for him tho.
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 05:33:53 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You're kidding! Roger is the last character I'd pick as inconsistent, haha...
ayyyavalanche ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 09:18:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, Roger
sis very consistent in his inconsistency.[deleted] ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 04:40:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
A Peter?
lestranganese ยท 26 points ยท Posted at 04:48:39 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Griffin
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 05:03:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Mmehehheehhe
done_holding_back ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:31:45 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Petrelli
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 12:23:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I kind of disagree, Randy is always misguided in the same way, while Peter is just a pile of smelly Dick water and I hope he dies in a fire.
shadycrop ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 05:13:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Peter is a Randy, get it fuckin' right.
Malgio ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 20:10:17 on November 12, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I keep flip-flopping on my opinion on Randy. At first it was great, because he is funny and brings up the most current issues. But you are right, he is a Peter (don't tell Trey and Matt I said that), and I don't enjoy him nearly as much as I used to
[deleted] ยท 122 points ยท Posted at 04:09:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The show also went from being mostly fart jokes to being completely genius social and political commentary
[deleted] ยท 28 points ยท Posted at 06:01:04 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's been social commentary for about 15 seasons now.
andyzaltzman1 ยท 111 points ยท Posted at 04:13:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ah yes, those 4 early episodes before they invented social commentary.
[deleted] ยท 29 points ยท Posted at 05:04:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Now they've done an episode about actual commentary! With PewDiePie!
_From_The_Internet_ ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:44:08 on November 11, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Cartman brah
Magoonie ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 05:44:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Not even, episode 4 was Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boatride.
RiparianPhoenix ยท 37 points ยท Posted at 05:03:20 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The commentary has usually been there, just not always the focus. Matt and Trey are masters and taking a subject or individual they believe to be ridiculous and devolving it to an extreme example to illustrate why it was ridiculous in the first place, and they have only gotten better at it with time.
Ganta_kage ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 13:17:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Totally agree. In the recent Trump episode I loved what they did with Canada.
tubular1845 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 15:20:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Did I miss an episode?
Ganta_kage ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 16:00:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It was the second episode of the current season called "Where My Country Gone?"
tubular1845 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:05:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Thanks!
timmytucker ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:01:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I prefer the older stuff.
erikoteh ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 05:14:46 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
And more than that. They have a full skillset in knowing how to manipulate GENRE. They are good at story telling which is where the simpsons fell in the latests seasons. The moods, the music, the humor, everything falls together in every episode.
AeAeR ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:16:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Spontaneous Combustion was a great episode though
[deleted] ยท -12 points ยท Posted at 04:18:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Not sure if serious.
[deleted] ยท 13 points ยท Posted at 04:30:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Many serious
[deleted] ยท -2 points ยท Posted at 05:12:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Well then you should know that South Park's "social commentary" is lazy at best and dead wrong and dangerous at worst.
Logicor ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:16:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Can you elaborate?
MaxNanasy ยท 11 points ยท Posted at 05:44:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
They generally present a superficial analysis of an oversimplified view of things, which is fine for comedy, but not for substantive social commentary. e.g. In the Underpants Gnomes episodes, they say something along the lines of, "Corporations produce some good things. Therefore, people who don't want Starbucks are idiots.", completely ignoring the nuance on all sides of the argument
Syphon8 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 08:07:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Underpants gnomes was easy before political commentary south park kicked in.
For a great example, see Obama/McCain Danny Oceaning America.
PsionFrost ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 05:12:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
They are masters of reductio ad absurdum, or reducing to the absurd. It's a technique in the evaluation of an idea to test certain levels of validity. In this case, they use it for satirical purposes with an expert level of skill.
praisethefallen ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:39:39 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I disagree fervently. I feel they make things absurd because it's funny, and are otherwise careless and lazy. All I can think is a huge amount of racism I heard in college with people just saying "but it's from SouthPark so it's ok!"
Magoonie ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 05:47:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I don't really remember South Park doing anything "hugely racist". They have done things that are crass, one thing comes to mind is the "Shitty Wok" thing. Hell, I even thought SP even handled the concept of white privelage incredibly well.
DwarfWoot ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 07:13:20 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Did they do an episode about White Privilege? Off the top of my head I don't remember it, but I do remember that fan-made episode where Cartman means about it before they go camping.
Magoonie ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 07:48:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It wasn't really a whole episode on White Privelage but they did address one aspect of it. I'm talking about the "Naggers" episode where Randy goes on Wheel of Fortune and says the N word as the answer. Through the whole episode Stan is trying to either convince Token it's no big deal or saying "I know how you feel because....". Finally at the end of the episode Stan tells Token he doesn't know how it feels. That he'll never know how it feels because he's not black.
I am more interested in those fan made episodes btw. Are they any good?
DwarfWoot ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:12:00 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ah, I did see that one, just forgot about most of it, haha.
And I don't know about most fan episodes, probably not, however this one was made by another redditor, and I laughed: https://youtu.be/bf6vv2G30Ic
praisethefallen ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 05:58:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Let me dial my rhetoric back a bit. Many people think of them as genius political satirists. I think they know what they're saying quite often, and are funny equally often. I think they or at least theirs fans over look and dismiss times that they further negative or hostile mindsets for a laugh. They, pointedly, make fun of (almost) everyone, which while appearing equal to many, does often cause disproportionate harm to some. Some people only get their political or world information from this kind of media, which is sad and their own fault, but they are numerous and loud. Meaning when the SP guys hit something wrong, or press too hard on a group ill prepared to have slobbering masses quoting "jokes" at them, they do harm.
And you can say they can just get over it, but I'd invite you to think what that really is saying about the issue.
Is SP funny? I guess, lots of folks think so. Do I say they should change or stop? Lord no. Do I think we should hold them as grand examples of what political satire should be without discussing negative effects of it? Absolutely not.
sometimescool ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 09:14:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Exactly. They are not masters of political or social satire. They exaggerate and cheapen everything to the point of absurdity. Sure, they are funny, but to call them geniuses or masters is a bit of a stretch. I personally think south park relies on shock value more than actual comedy. Especially with the newer seasons. (Btw, I haven't watched the latest 2 seasons so maybe it has gotten better idk).
Smauler ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 05:12:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Really? I was just watching southpark through the series, and I came to the realisation that Randy was a little like me now in some ways.
Yeah, he's like the me I don't/do want to be, but he's a good character.
Squiblle ยท 27 points ยท Posted at 05:28:00 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Man, that makes the show almost alive. It grows with the people that created it and their perception of the world.
WaterStoryMark ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 05:21:29 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
There's a little bit of them in each main character. Obviously, Kyle is the big mouthpiece. This season, we're seeing Kyle give up on trying to fix everything. It seems to be building every week.
Shod_Kuribo ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 05:36:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Kyle has tried that several times in previous seasons iirc. He seems to be doing it a lot less now but it's not an entirely new thing for him.
WaterStoryMark ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:59:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
He has tried, but only during a particular episode. He basically gave up in episode one this season. I take that as him feeling like there's nothing he CAN do to fix this.
Shod_Kuribo ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:46:34 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Well, previously it was just a 'I don't want to deal with this disaster. It's only going to cause problems." kinda thing for the episode you're talking about.
However, if you'll go back, Kyle manages to stay out of many of the Cartman-centered episodes. Everyone except Butters seems to manage to keep themselves pretty uninvolved in Cartman's episodes because he often targets people outside the city or at least outside Kyle's group.
WaterStoryMark ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:56:42 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I think he knows Cartman situations will usually work themselves out. He does get involved when genocide is on the table though.
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 07:38:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That's true. He was just a lazy geologist in the early seasons. Now he's always doing all kinds of stupid hilarious shit
lettis ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:50:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
but matt and trey would have been like atleast young adults when they started south park...
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:51:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
South Parks really changed from a show about 4 boys to a show about a redneck town. Gives them more stories the and the ability to make badass seasons like the current one.
proxy69 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:31:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That makes so much sense. Randy has been in a ton of episodes last few seasons. He is the best. Now where did I put that fucking creme fraiche!?!
sinni800 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:37:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I still think Randy is batshit crazy and I am like 25 now, though I think Randy is the funniest of them all, somehow.
I give it like 25 more years...
sligoscout ยท 894 points ยท Posted at 23:39:50 on November 8, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
A similar thing just happened to me when I started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer again from the beginning (my wife had never seen it). I now view it as a show about a perfectly sensible Watcher whose life is constantly interrupted by some annoying teenagers.
SPacific ยท 355 points ยท Posted at 01:44:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Xander, please don't speak Latin in front of the books.
forwhateveritsworth4 ยท 99 points ยท Posted at 05:12:44 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That line was amazing on so many levels. Fitting for the character and super meta, cause, c'mon, latin is magic is such a tired trope.
Also, he doesn't say please. He is giving Xander a command statement in the off chance that someone actually listens to the perfectly sensible watcher.
Magoonie ยท 57 points ยท Posted at 05:40:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Funny, when I used to watch Bewitched, Bewildered and Bothered when it first showed and when I was younger. When Giles rips into Xander I used to think "Geez Giles, lay off, that's a bit harsh". Now at 32, I'm more like "Yeah, Xander's an idiot! Stick a stake in his eye!"
dewyocelot ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 10:49:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Or a thumb...
HuseyinCinar ยท -5 points ยท Posted at 07:14:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Would you like to know what happens to his eye?
Magoonie ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 07:51:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oh I know, that was kinda the joke. I watched all the episodes when they first aired and have rewatched the series plenty of times. Caleb was awesome by the way.
Bureaucromancer ยท 65 points ยท Posted at 04:17:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I really do want to see that series...
PS: Since it seems necessary, I mean the one ACTUALLY following a put upon watcher. I've seen Buffy. Repeatedly. What do you people think I am, some sort of heathen?
arrosion ยท 17 points ยท Posted at 04:23:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Do it. It's a great time suck.
x1xHangmanx1x ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:21:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
My ex introduced me. She had every season on box set and let me borrow them one by one. I needed a new disk every other day. I think I finished in little over a week. That's a lot of Buffy.
ebertek ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 22:04:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
144 episodes *ย 44 minutes = 105.6 hours. That'd be over 13 hours a day for a week.
Nice.
x1xHangmanx1x ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 23:56:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'd believe it. I was just unemployed and in sort of a slump. I just laid around watching them religiously
Aclockworkamber ยท 14 points ยท Posted at 04:26:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm watching right now for the first time. I was entirely uninterested in my teen years (when it was airing) but, Jesus Christmas is it an amazing show.
midas__is__king ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 04:25:22 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Do it! Then watch Angel.
pilvy ยท 17 points ยท Posted at 04:46:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Wait..don't you have to start watching Angel during the middle-near end of Buffy due to the crossover stuff?
deep-space-9mm ยท 12 points ยท Posted at 04:58:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You can, but it's not really necessary. There really aren't that many crossovers, especially during later seasons when the shows ran on different networks.
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 12:44:44 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
No shit, i never knew they ran on different networks. I was always curious about that. cheers
Rowan5215 ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 04:57:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I watched all of Buffy and then started Angel separately. There's a few references to what happens in Angel in the later series of Buffy but nothing that's impossible to keep up with.
myhairsreddit ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:36:21 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I still want to know what the fuck happened when Buffy and Angel had that visit and she came home with the bucket of chicken.....
midas__is__king ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 05:20:27 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's not vital really. My girlfriend is the hugest Buffy fan and has watched it probably 15 times through before she did with me. She had us watch all of Buffy first, then go to Angel. I enjoyed that.
ebertek ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 21:59:13 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Me too, but non-HD shows in 4:3 aspect ratio scare me. That's why I haven't started Scrubs either.
[deleted] ยท 243 points ยท Posted at 03:25:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Or how Squidward is the only character worth watching on Spongebob once you're no longer a child.
LowCarbs ยท 285 points ยท Posted at 03:27:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
All of early Spongebob is gold, you take that back
Morgendorffers ยท 35 points ยท Posted at 04:45:41 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I need....
What?! What do you need?!
..... A tailor. CAUSE I RIPPED MAH PANTS!
IMIndyJones ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:51:20 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ripped pants A LA MODE!
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:11:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
My name is Taylor, so that scene freaked me the hell out when I was a kid. I remember wondering how in the hell Spongebob knew my name...
bhlawrence12 ยท 130 points ยท Posted at 03:51:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Agreed. Everything after the spongebob squarepants movie was garbage (the movie was beautiful though).
Jellyman64 ยท 57 points ยท Posted at 04:00:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
There were a few golden nuggets hidden in the newer episodes (im talking a season or two after the movie), but they all faded away. R.I.P. spongebob
PopcornInMyTeeth ยท 62 points ยท Posted at 04:18:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
He was number one.....
Ellie-okay ยท 51 points ยท Posted at 04:27:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Smitty Webenjagermanjensen. He was #1!!!
KommanderKrebs ยท 35 points ยท Posted at 04:57:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Here lies Squidward's Hopes and Dreams
[deleted] ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 05:03:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
What a baby.
[deleted] ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 04:03:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
CRiMSoNKuSH ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:47:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Sadness is like the little brat who goes wandering in the liquor cabinet for the old good stuff. Once he starts downing all the precious bottles, you don't have much good stuff left to take any swigs of.... leaving you empty until you go find a new bottle... and when you truly appreciate that new bottle, you keep it in the back of the cabinet so it's harder to get touched.
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 05:00:22 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Sadness touched the whole final quarter of that movie. Seriously though, good flick.
IAmAWizard_AMA ยท 37 points ยท Posted at 04:19:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I stopped watching after they locked Plankton in a jar of mustard gas and laughed at him crying. I guess I don't find Sadam Hussain level war crimes as funny as the creators do
Drafo7 ยท 12 points ยท Posted at 04:46:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Link, please?
IAmAWizard_AMA ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 05:04:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I don't remember the name of the episode, and looking up "SpongeBob Plankton mustard jar" on YouTube only got me 50 versions of the "Patrick learns how to open a jar" episode
[deleted] ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 05:27:22 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
something something firmly grasp it
Fgrira-Fpevoare ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 07:16:45 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
What episode is that from? Also: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6xOZVSYUebc I found this searching for the mustard scene:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9SU3Odx0Urs These too: http://imgur.com/g8qBdtF http://imgur.com/I3c3OnZ I've only seen that first couple of season so I have no idea what the hell is going on in this show anymore!
LittleGreenBastard ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 08:57:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The only thing I can find is them locking him in a jar of mustard, as in the condiment.
IAmAWizard_AMA ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 13:48:09 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That might've been it, then
zerosuitsalmon ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:35:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Are you a wizard?
IAmAWizard_AMA ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:02:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
http://i.imgur.com/IRkm7Hd.gifv
zerosuitsalmon ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:08:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oh my god that legitimately made me laugh out loud
IAmAWizard_AMA ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:10:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's one of my favorite gifs
AMasonJar ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:20:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Is there a sub for this sort of thing?
IAmAWizard_AMA ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:36:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, /r/NoNose
Tophurian ยท 11 points ยท Posted at 04:39:16 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm envious of people from the future because they have a larger collection of Rick & Morty episodes to cycle through. ...just a confession Edit: spelling
Fgrira-Fpevoare ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 07:34:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
But they have already watched them probably so they could be envious of us being able to view them for the first time.
Geebz23 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:30:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Nah, there's still a year.. and a half. Or longer until the next season.
[deleted] ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 05:37:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I feel the same about Adventure Time. :3
LinklingMiiverse ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 10:47:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
-the hivemind.
bhlawrence12 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:15:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, you're right. I just never got to those, I stopped watching. I still watch the old ones when they're on though!
stuaker ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:06:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I enjoyed parts of the new movie. "Welcome to the apocalypse Mr squidward, I hope you like leather!"
Jellyman64 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:43:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Never saw the new movie, is it worth watching the whole thing, or should i just find clips on youtube?
pazur13 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:49:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Wasn't the old writer supposed to return?
Justice_Prince ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 04:35:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Wasn't the movie (The first one) meant to be the end of the show?
bhlawrence12 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:30:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I think so, I wish it had been...
Osisofly ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 07:13:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
When people say this they mean the cartoon one not the recent one that's cgi right?
bhlawrence12 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:30:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yes
Bonzi_bill ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 03:57:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
the control
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 05:21:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm a goofy goober
bhlawrence12 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:30:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
God bless
[deleted] ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 08:16:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"7 mile spanking machine"
LowCarbs ยท 11 points ยท Posted at 08:31:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I stand by my statement
Timeyy ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 14:26:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It becomes a completely different show once you realize it's about two guys working a shitty job at McDonald's
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 05:36:22 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I call foul on this one.
[deleted] ยท 11 points ยท Posted at 05:35:34 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Haha, strange how annoying teenagers are when your aren't one yourself anymore...
Sector_Corrupt ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:49:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's because they think their problems are the biggest thing in the world when they're all old hat to you. Plus all those hormones just magnify everything. They also lack any real life experience and they have no real responsibility.
In the end, you just see a bunch of people complaining about the most minor shit while not having to deal with anything actually hard and floundering and it just feels completely silly. It's as hard for an adult to take seriously as a teenager trying to take a child's imaginary games and the like seriously. You get that from their perspective it's a big deal, but you can't get yourself in that mindset anymore.
Captain_Stairs ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 22:48:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
So, to the oldest, all of us are annoying.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 06:46:10 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Explains old people pretty well, I think.
dfontana87 ยท 33 points ยท Posted at 03:57:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
No way, Giles is the one who interrupts Buffy from having a perfectly normal teenage life!...I think I just revealed my age.
christocarlin ยท 18 points ยท Posted at 04:06:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
She's still the slayer without him
2-4601 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 12:50:41 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, that was the point of the pilot. Giles offers her the handbook, she says no, vampires attack and Buffy changes her mind.
myhairsreddit ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:41:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Hey now, Merrick is the one that started it. Giles didn't show up til Buffy hit Sunnydale.
dfontana87 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:58:20 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This is true.
Rowan5215 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:56:45 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The world is definitely doomed
TheseMenArePrawns ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 09:03:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I came to it quite a long time after the series ended. And I get that it was never intended to be marathoned that quickly. But even as a teenager I often found the main characters frustrating. I get that it might have been part of the narrative and commentary on being young in general. But I just kept wanting to scream "I get it dude, you think it's dumb that teenagers date monsters. You don't have to keep rehashing it! That isn't deep! I'm sure whoever dumped you when you were 16 is really sorry so can you please just stop and get on with the better storylines!"
TacticalGiraffe ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 10:29:48 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I always identified with those characters.
In Buffy I identified with Giles.
In Ducktales I identified with Gyro Gearloose and Scrooge McDuck. In Power Rangers I identified with Zordon. In Karate Kid I identified with Mr. Miyagi. In The Smurfs I identified with Papa Smurf. In Harry Potter I identified with Dumbledore. In LotR I identified with Gandalf. In Naruto I identified with Sarutobi. In HxH I identified with Netero. In Star Trek I identified with Picard. In The Cosby Show I identified with Cliff.
Younger characters always annoyed me. I always hated the immature pricks that do stupid shit all the time. Even when I was a ten year old child. I always identified with characters that think logically and try and stay on top of things while providing useful input to the group.
I never identified with the emotional garbage of the younger characters, the love stories, any of the relationship drama, or complexes, or kid/teenager problems, or impulsive behaviours. That was all annoying and useless shit to me.
The characters who have a proper objective in mind and delegate tasks without wasting time whining about emotions and dilemmas were the people that got all of my involvement. These were the only people who thought properly about shit before acting. These were the characters I always wanted to be like.
Ogarrr ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 12:01:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You must have been a really fun kid to hang out with.
TacticalGiraffe ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 12:24:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
No.
skztr ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 12:19:13 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I never liked watching Goof Troop as a kid. I mean, I watched it, as it was something to do when neither Aladdin nor Duck Tales was on. ie: It was a cartoon, so of course I watched it. But I really never liked it. It just wasn't any good.
Recently re-watched all of it, and it is a whole lot better when viewing it from Goofy's perspective, as opposed to Max's
[deleted] ยท 605 points ยท Posted at 03:24:20 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You either die Bart Simpson or live long enough to see yourself become Homer.
tommytraddles ยท 502 points ยท Posted at 03:37:42 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yup. I was Bart's age when the show started, now I'm Homer's age. With two kids.
"We have three children, Homer."
"Marge...the dog doesn't count as a kid."
"No. Maggie..."
"...oh, yeah."
Ellie-Moop ยท 369 points ยท Posted at 04:28:41 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Why can't I have no kids and three money?
firetroll ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 14:11:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I have no kids and $3.50 I can share.
QueequegTheater ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:03:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Looks around nervously for 500-foot-tall crustaceans form the Paleozoic Era
ClassyCraft57 ยท 48 points ยท Posted at 12:19:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"Do you have any kids?"
"No, but we're having fun trying! Hahahahaha. Oh wait, I have three."
DrunkenJagFan ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 14:09:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I've got my wife convinced they killed off maggie a few years ago and that's why she isn't in the new episodes. I guess I got lucky she saw a new one with no maggie and asked.
She tells people maggie is dead... I don't know if I should feel bad or not...
kingof_redlions ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 14:46:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
maggie isnt in the new episodes? i have watched a lot of simpsons but stopped around season 14. where did maggie go?
DrunkenJagFan ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 17:12:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
She died
Eofbfkkwbdb ยท -2 points ยท Posted at 08:37:53 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Why can't I have no kids and three money?
cjdennis29 ยท -4 points ยท Posted at 07:16:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Why can't I have no kids and three money?
[deleted] ยท -5 points ยท Posted at 05:44:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Why can't I have no kids and three money?
xkulp8 ยท 133 points ยท Posted at 03:43:50 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
DIE BART DIE
Clintonlevi ยท 142 points ยท Posted at 03:48:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
No, that's German for THE BART, THE.
dispatch134711 ยท 130 points ยท Posted at 04:01:41 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
No one who speaks German could be an evil man.
Niteloc ยท 29 points ยท Posted at 09:08:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I just got that joke.... I've watched that episode a stupid number of times and I just got that joke...
It's official. I'm a moron.
textposts_only ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 09:13:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ohh German! Nobody who speaks German can be a bad person
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:21:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
thats where I got my username from XD
goatman2112 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:20:44 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
no one who speaks German could be an evil man.
spacepilot_3000 ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 03:47:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The Bart the? I don't get it
darkbreak ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 12:47:16 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Sideshow Bob had "Die Bart Die" tattooed on his chest. He sidestepped it by claiming it was German for "The Bart The" in order to get parol and prove he was over his murderous intent toward Bart. Which of course he wasn't.
spacepilot_3000 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:55:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah. Did you think I just pulled a nonsensical German translation out of my ass?
darkbreak ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 02:15:39 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The way you phrased it made me think you didn't get what they were saying.
spacepilot_3000 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 02:22:22 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xECUrlnXCqk
Tourgott ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 10:28:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"die" is the German article (prefix) for female nouns like "die Blume" (=the flower).
Bureaucromancer ยท 47 points ยท Posted at 04:18:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Or you're Frank Grimes to begin with and it just keeps getting worse.
[deleted] ยท 11 points ยท Posted at 05:25:50 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
And you die.
ShesSimplyThere ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:46:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
R.I.P Grimey pours out a little liquor
skaterrj ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 12:51:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Hey, it's the program from his funeral. Whatever happened to that guy?
TheseMenArePrawns ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 09:07:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'd honestly rather be grimey. The rest of them are basically stuck in a purgatory. Grimes had a solid story. I mean it was a shitty and painful climb from nothing to where he died. But at least there was movement. At least he got to actually get off that treadmill at some point. I mean his victories meant something. Homer went from casually mentioning that he was in space when meeting Grimes to not even seeming to remember it in the most recent episode.
Better to actually die than to have the various achievements in life constantly erased and retconned.
dtlv5813 ยท 44 points ยท Posted at 04:06:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I still identify with Ralph
eleventy4 ยท 41 points ยท Posted at 07:29:14 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm much more of an Otto these days
Leenie ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 16:29:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ralph is the only kid character that kinda acts his age. Him and Lisa are seven or eight, when my kid was eight she told me her cat burped and it smelled like cat biscuits. She essentially told me her cat's breath smelled like cat food.
I also once overheard a boy in her class say to another kid "Once I picked my nose and then it bled!" The doctor said I wouldn't have so many nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of it!
I love Ralph.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:25:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Sometimes I feel like a Ralph. Especially when I'm hanging out with my Lisa-esque friends. (No, I'm not dating any of them. Just sinking the quote-boat).
kingof_redlions ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:49:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"Why do people run from me?" as he pees his pants
spacepilot_3000 ยท 24 points ยท Posted at 04:00:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Or you live too long and become Abe
FlashyMcPeepshow ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 08:43:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm getting there. "I used to be with it. Then they changed what it is. Now what I'm with isn't it. And what it is seems weird and scary."
draw_it_now ยท 11 points ยท Posted at 12:44:14 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
And it'll happen to YOOOUUU
buzzti86 ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 08:22:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I used to be Milhouse and now I'm Moe.
NigerianFootcrab ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:10:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Even as a kid I identified with Homer more than Bart. And not even in "oh I'm old and grumpy" way, just Bart was not that relatable.
UESPA_Sputnik ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 10:04:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Homer, the Greek writer?
[deleted] ยท 1335 points ยท Posted at 23:39:49 on November 8, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
PhoneJazz ยท 196 points ยท Posted at 04:03:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ahh, the early 90's golden years, back when we wore onions on our belts.
undergroundgeek ยท 90 points ยท Posted at 04:19:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It was the style at the time after all.
UnsubstantiatedClaim ยท 61 points ยท Posted at 05:10:16 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Especially after the Kaiser took our word for twenty and made us use dickety.
_Person_ ยท 48 points ยท Posted at 05:39:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I chased that rascal to get it back, but gave up after dickety-six miles.
dillame ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 08:34:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
highly dubious
ju2tin ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 08:42:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
So anyway, I was taking the ferry to Shelbyville.
concussedYmir ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 15:00:00 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I spent ten years on that turlet!
tweezle ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:03:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Help! I think I'm having a stroke!
XSplain ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:10:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I always loved that. It sounds like some sort of mythic legend where the gods would steal abstract concepts from each other.
Phayke ยท 27 points ยท Posted at 07:46:16 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Give me five bees for a quarter, you would say.
FireNexus ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 04:20:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It was the style at the time.
[deleted] ยท -2 points ยท Posted at 04:30:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
bamberjean ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 05:02:46 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Except they posted at the exact same time and you posted 11 minutes later
SlayerInRed ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 07:33:29 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
...is this for real? Onions onions? I got to see this!
heinza1ketchep ยท 65 points ยท Posted at 04:19:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
i went from bart to otto... man i thought otto was an unrealistic lazy stoner when i was a kid.
[deleted] ยท 78 points ยท Posted at 04:32:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 05:15:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Upvote for my recognising this quote. This was a newish episode, right?
characterlimitsuckdi ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 10:51:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Noo, season 3 episode 22 "the otto show"
fpac ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 07:12:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I wanna say it was the episode where he lived in the garage. But I'm not sure
kidgun ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 07:38:14 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It is.
nathanv221 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 14:07:45 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oh look at mister fancy pants over here with his "garage".
ProtoKun7 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 14:34:41 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Garage? Hey fellas, the garage! Well ooh la-de-dah, Mr. French man.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:52:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
MAGIC!
Notjustaprettyface15 ยท 23 points ยท Posted at 04:27:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Whoa! I had Mustard?!!
Geebz23 ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 09:36:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"Let him go Ralph. He knows what he's doin'"
Watched that episode yesterday and never have I ever been so in sync with another character.
PottedUpOnWeed ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 15:59:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
They call them fingers but I've never seen 'em fing... Whoop there they go!
sergregor ยท 455 points ยท Posted at 03:25:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Seasons 2-9 comprise the best show of all time by far. Watching it today is like visiting an old friend who had a frontal lobotomy
edit: OKAY I GET IT YES SEASON ONE IS PRETTY GOOD FUCK
Cthulhuhoop ยท 50 points ยท Posted at 03:57:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
And 2-9 are all solid too. I was asked to pick a favorite season of Simpsons and had to go through the episodes by title and tally up the good episodes and each one of those had more than six "good" episodes. I ended up going with 4 cuz monorail but it was a toss up. I'm still not sure I got the right season.
sergregor ยท 71 points ยท Posted at 03:59:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm assuming you left the computer mid-sentence to go watch The Simpsons
BLEEDING_ANAL_CAVITY ยท 14 points ยท Posted at 04:43:00 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
4 is generally considered the best season by many.
CommunistEnchilada ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 09:20:09 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I have a soft spot for 6 because of the Australian episode, as an Aussie I loved the piss take.
Season 8 has the two best one time characters though.
MilesPower ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 09:23:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Gotta go with 8 as well. Solid the whole way through and with some of the best non-recurring characters.
"In fact, I didn't even give you my coat! "
BookOf_Eli ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 15:17:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"You only move twice" is my favorite episode and Hank Scorpio is my favorite non-recurring character therefore 8 is and forever will be my favorite season
Boro84 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:39:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
yea season 7 and 8 have some of the best episodes in my opinion
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 07:37:53 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The April Fool's shaken up beer can gag is my absolute favorite bit of the simpsons.
[deleted] ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 03:59:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The non-Treehouse of Horror Halloween episode from a few weeks back was genuinely good. Other than that I completely agree.
curtmack ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 04:14:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
They still have their moments, the recent one where Homer tries to become a hipster was pretty good too. But it's got nothing on 2-9.
[deleted] ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 05:13:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I liked that episode too. There was one that came out recently that hit pretty close to home. Marge & Homer gets a divorce, Homer starts seeing a younger girl (drinkin' partyin' and drugs...n') trying to forget, and Marge quickly gets engaged to an older guy who Homer realises is better in every way.
The episode ends with [SPOILER] Homer being depressed as all hell, but then he wakes up and it turns out he just fell asleep in marriage councelling... but then he wakes up again and it turns out he was in bed having a bad dream.
JewWithGardenBeans ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 09:43:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That all sounds like things that the Simpsons have done before... like Homer/Mindy, Marge/the French bowling guy whose name escapes me. Also, Homer being depressed made him nearly jump off a bridge. Though I'm only going by your description, I haven't seen this specific episode. I'll do that ASAP.
My point is, the show has gone on for so long that nothing they come up with is really new. They've done it before, and in most cases, better. I've seen some of the newer episodes that are considered "good enough", but the old ones just seem... more honest? I don't know.
I'm also not a fan of the animation style of the newer episodes, it seems too sterile. That may seem like a minor nitpick, but I think the show lost a lot of its character when they changed to the more modern style.
curtmack ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 14:33:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That's really the big problem, and why Southpark is sort of the exception that proves the rule - most cartoons have to cover general concepts because episodes spend such a long time in production, so eventually the well dries out. Southpark is able to work consistently year after year because it only takes them a week to make each episode, so they're able to actually lampoon current events when they're still relevant, which is a key part of good comedy.
MajorAnubis ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:49:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I agree with your animation comment. I enjoyed the more flat/dark tones of older simpsons. It wasn't exactly deep or anything, things looked flat and calmer. Now, everything is insanely vibrant and in your face. It's actually quite annoying and almost too smooth.
funkykong0 ยท -3 points ยท Posted at 05:00:45 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Your not talking about the premier episode with the cunt from the show 'Girls' are you? That ep was horrible!
Hawthornen ยท 58 points ยท Posted at 04:06:09 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I think A. they sort of exhausted a lot, and B. they don't have a great identity anymore. I think between shows like South Park and Family Guy it's sort of lost it's place. It's not as topical as South Park (or as extreme). And it's not as lolsorandom as Family Guy (or American Dad or whatever). It's main niche now is Simpsons Fans and people who want that humor but more pulled back.
[deleted] ยท 49 points ยท Posted at 05:12:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It used to be more like South Park with more subtle social commentary, but the writing went bad and become more like Family Guy with ridiculousness for the sake of ridiculousness.
hellarar ยท 27 points ยท Posted at 07:37:04 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The quality of social satire in The Simpsons never compared to South Park, if we're being honest. That said, without The Simpsons, South Park would never have had the opportunity to see an audience of the size it did, and thus the subtle social commentary in it would never have hit as 'universally' as it did.
[deleted] ยท 34 points ยท Posted at 12:28:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The social satire in South Park is incredibly heavy handed and isn't clever in the slightest, and it's only gotten more aggressive as the seasons have worn on.
The Simpsons, on the other hand, was actually a bit subtle and still a run show while definitely displaying some worthwhile messages.
[deleted] ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 13:47:16 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:00:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I can't really think of a time it's actually been clever. Its far more crass.
I like South Park, by the way, but clever isn't the britney spears episode, or the PC principal episode, creating heavy handed extremely exaggerated caricatures of political or cultural tropes isn't clever.
CaptainLongshorts ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 13:46:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The satire is South Park isn't subtle but it is clever.
Boro84 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:41:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
you guys realize that in this situation clever =~ subtle right?
Fennek1237 ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 11:45:46 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I think old Simpsons episodes were also displaying deep thought about life e.g. that great episode about Lisa and bleeding gums murphy.
arthur_figgis ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 16:10:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Honestly, the first nine or ten seasons of the Simpsons, while funny, are really just a great show about what it's like to grow up and be part of a family. The satire was there and was usually great, but I swear the early seasons of the Simpsons have more heart than almost anything else I've ever seen. It was a genuinely sweet show.
gz33 ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 12:02:46 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
South Park's social commentary has never been subtle.
MisterHoppy ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 05:44:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
South Park? Subtle?
KR_Axios ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 08:13:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
He's saying the Simpsons are more subtle than South Park as a satire.
erikoteh ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 05:17:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
But, if you see the first seaons (mostly 3/8), a lot of chapters started out of randomish situations...
Anyway what i really liked about the simpsons early seasons was exactly what you are saying it wasnt neither south park nor family guy. It was a series about "family union" firsts seasons were raw man, there some really depressing chapters, beautiful music. Serious issues... like homer saying how he hated his own family... etc, etc
Prettyflyforwiseguy ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 09:26:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I remember my English teacher back in high school explaining how the original concept for The Simpsons was to have the risky, adult and scathing humour South Park would eventually become famous for, however at some point during season one of The Simpsons Rupert Murdoch disapproved of the direction it was taking and ordered the producers to make it more family friendly. My English teacher was also an ex South African army drill sergeant so I never questioned where he got his sources from.
DrPac ยท 114 points ยท Posted at 03:41:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I thought 10 and 11 were alright, not as good as the ones before them though.
sergregor ยท 110 points ยท Posted at 03:48:21 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, 10 and 11 are pretty good for the most part, but you could clearly pinpoint them as the start of the decline.
Rpanich ยท 157 points ยท Posted at 04:04:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
If you watch them in slow motion, you can pin point the exact moment my heart breaks in half
http://thesimpsonsforever.tumblr.com/post/4774802533/alstr-if-you-look-closely-you-can-actually
dpgproductions ยท 22 points ยท Posted at 04:36:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
What happens in this scene?
Death4Free ยท 120 points ยท Posted at 04:39:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ralph takes Lisa on a date to watch Krusty and Krusty asks Ralph if that's his GF and he says yes and Lisa takes the mic and says that she can't stand him. And breaks his heart. And it's on Live TV and Bart Replays it
grim77 ยท 72 points ยท Posted at 05:15:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You ch-ch-chose the right answer
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 05:22:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Teacher made me go to principle spinners office cause I was dirty.
745631258978963214 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 08:16:34 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Let's just bee friends, k?
AeAeR ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:04:04 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
He said Krusty not Dr Rockso.
z500 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:27:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
He ch-ch-chose poorly.
Ludachriz ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 04:38:48 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The kid on the left (forgot his name) basically says he and Lisa are together on TV and she shuts him down hard, then later the entire family replays it in slowmotion and makes fun of it while Lisa feels bad. Atleast I think so, it's been years since I saw the episode.
pilvy ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 04:45:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ralph Wiggum.
killahdillah ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 07:52:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You remember the scene but you forget Ralph's name?
Ludachriz ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 08:09:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I wasn't sober when typing it and I'm not good with names. I just wanted to give context to the guy asking and I've seen the reruns like a billion times growing up.
markowalski ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 04:59:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
ah man nuthin gets chocolate out
DjoeyUnchained ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 09:11:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Does that moment involve Armin Tamzarian?
DrPac ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 03:59:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Exactly.
RichOfTheJungle ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 12:55:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The Simpsons is, and will forever be, my favorite show of all time (despite not being familiar with seasons 14+). That being said I read an article saying the Frank Grimes episode ("Homer's Enemy" from season 8) was where the Simpsons jumped the shark. It was interesting. Basically we, as the audience, could laugh at Homer because of the ridiculous things he did that seemed totally normal to everyone in his life. He was a relatable guy who did dumb things. The character of Frank Grimes was the only "normal" one who could see just how ridiculous Homer was and treated Homer as nothing more than a walking joke. Homer's antics were also turned up ending with him sleeping at a funeral asking Marge to change the channel on the TV. Everyone laughs and Lenny says "that's our Homer". It's basically saying "this is what he's good for". It becomes ridiculous. For all his faults, Homer was a man who wanted nothing more than to support his loving family and do the right thing. He slowly became nothing more than a vessel for delivering idiocy.
Edit: After minimal Googling I easily found the article here: http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/22/6056915/frank-grimes-the-simpsons-jump-the-shark
Edit 2: The other accepted belief is that "The Principle and the Pauper" from season 9 is the moment when the Simpsons jumped the shark. I think this is where it became apparently clear that they had jumped, but I think it started with Frank Grimes personally.
DeusModus ยท 26 points ยท Posted at 04:28:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The first season was good, but the first couple of seasons were basically "The Bart Show".
The following seasons were so fantastic because that's when we got to see development from the rest of the cast.
twitchedawake ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 04:32:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Seasons 6 - 12 were the the shows peak. They had David Conen-X, John shwartzwelder, all the best writers, and some of the best episodes like Homer meeting his mom, the Skinner Scandal, Lisa being a vegetarian, Who killed Mr. Burns, the Guatemalan Insanity Peppers/
[deleted] ยท 17 points ยท Posted at 08:55:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:59:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Armen Tanzarian is a bad ass! but, yes, worst episode ever.
twitchedawake ยท -1 points ยท Posted at 09:36:45 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That is just simple lunacy and you must be a crazy person.
slipstream- ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 11:59:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Funnily enough, I know that even the writers hated it, but I quite liked that episode.
Kanadier ยท 28 points ยท Posted at 08:29:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The Skinner/Armin Tamzarian episode was most definitely not among the best episodes. A lot of people consider that one to be a turning point in terms of show quality.
JewWithGardenBeans ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 09:31:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Even the writers hate that one.
ju2tin ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 08:40:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
No way! Seasons 2-4 were the peak, with Marge vs the Monorail a common choice for best episode of all time. 5-8 were still very good, but with some uneven spots. Then from 9 onward we see the steady decline.
Boro84 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:44:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
season 7-8 were def peak, most of the absolutely best episodes in my opinon, including Homer Versus the Eighteenth Amendment, You Only Move Twice and Hellfish Bonzanza
twitchedawake ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:37:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Decline didnt start until at least 14/15.
RadicalDog ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 09:44:45 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Good lord, you consider season 13 to be part of the show's peak? How do you sleep at night?
twitchedawake ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:48:13 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I said the peak ended at 12.
12-15 was a stagnant limbo of "its on, ill watch it." Maybe 11. After 15 was when i would actively look for something else.
iwazaruu ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 09:49:14 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You have terrible taste in Simpsons seasons
sgtpennypepper ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:52:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You don't make friends with salad!
Analpunch47 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 04:10:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I agree 2-9 are the best but I feel people don't give enough credit to season one. A lot of people I've talked to about think season 1 was the original animation from the pilot episode, but in my option it has some of the most classic Simpson episodes.
Kite23 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:11:50 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You're forgetting season 1
BobbyCock ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 07:24:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
What was better about those seasons? What got worse? I've only seen whatever was on TV, so I don't know what seasons they're from. But I still enjoy more recent episodes if I happen to come across them.
SubtleMockery ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:12:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Season one is weird as fuck, and I wouldn't call it good.
ImperialSympathizer ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:19:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Season 1 is fine, but even the creators of the show have been honest about the fact that it took them until season 2 to find the show's voice. Don't let these season 1 hipsters break you, man.
batsy_of_gotham ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:56:22 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Season one was pretty ground breaking and all around good in it's own right.
themangodess ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:39:34 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
A lot of people seem to agree that the show declines after Season 9. Season 10 isn't so bad and maybe the seasons afterwards, but Season 9 seems to be the sweet point people agree on when they talk about it's decline.
It seems that everyone who talks about The Simpsons will mention it's decline. That critique falls on deaf ears, though. The writers and producers don't seem to want the show to improve.
livinglitch ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:40:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ive been watching it and season 20 hits a real rough patch of not only re-using earlier stuff but doing things completely out of character.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:07:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I actually really like Season 1 as well.
[deleted] ยท -1 points ยท Posted at 08:52:04 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
-RandyMarsh ยท -11 points ยท Posted at 03:33:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This. That. And the other.
sergregor ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 03:48:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oblique Seinfeld reference?
Freqd-with-a-silentQ ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:34:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
But I don't wanna be a pirate!
simozx ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 07:52:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Relevant
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:45:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"strait"?
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:17:42 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:24:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's "straight".
TheseMenArePrawns ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:08:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Season three of anything is always the best.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:23:50 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Except Homeland
BigYama ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:50:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I identify with Raphael, he's sort of is just.... There.
Boro84 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:13:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
seasons 1-12, golden television
seasons 12-15, ok television
seasons 15-27, "what the hell havent we done yet?"
Hunterrose242 ยท 179 points ยท Posted at 03:16:45 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I always wondered why my parents liked Squidward so much...
venterol ยท 106 points ยท Posted at 03:58:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I always felt SpongeBob and Squidward were just two opposites (optimism vs. pessimism) taken to very distant extremes. I'd say Sandy was the only sorta-"grounded" character on the show.
Ilwrath ยท 66 points ยท Posted at 05:13:04 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I saw her as the one with some kind of manic-depressive disorder.
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:11:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Who you callin' pinhead?!
Fennek1237 ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 11:46:48 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
spotted the Texan
venterol ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 19:32:00 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Nope, Chicago. Never even been to the south.
downloadicus ยท 28 points ยท Posted at 05:43:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I've definitely grown up to identify with him more. Sure, he's a buzzkill, but all he wants is to be left alone and live in peace. He wants to pursue his music and relax, but is constantly interrupted and tortured by his neighbors.
iggybiggyblack ยท -23 points ยท Posted at 11:12:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Why did you post this unoriginal comment? Why would you bother? I see it way more times than people would actually think that. If you're not sharing your true thoughts, why fucking bother?
drbluetongue ยท 12 points ยท Posted at 13:29:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Whats your problem dude
edsexhouse ยท 124 points ยท Posted at 03:59:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Am I so out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong.
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 05:33:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ooh, I've picked up on almost every quote mentioned on this thread, and this sounds sooo familiar. Who said it, and when?
edsexhouse ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 05:45:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdozkeNqNQk
Bobby_the_Great ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:47:42 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Perfect Skinner quote.
theone1221 ยท 266 points ยท Posted at 23:43:21 on November 8, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Homer's actually a pretty successful guy, despite how the show paints him.
sergregor ยท 379 points ยท Posted at 00:03:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
But the show directly acknowledges many times - Frank Grimes episode being a great example - that Homer's relative success has absolutely nothing to do with his own actions. Things just fall into his lap for no reason and he succeeds despite being monstrously incompetent and lazy.
The show does make it clear that he's a good person who would do anything for his family though.
HappyTheBunny ยท 75 points ยท Posted at 03:57:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"You... have been to space?"
"Sure! You've never been?"
philosopherfujin ยท 184 points ยท Posted at 02:44:53 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Anything except, you know, stop physically abusing them.
pilvy ยท 26 points ยท Posted at 04:48:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Pretty sure he only ever choked Bart...never laid a finger on any other family member.
Edit: As /u/atdi2113 mentions, he chokes his dad too.
atdi2113 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 17:33:09 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
As a child Homer actually choked his father.
pilvy ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 18:24:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
True...Didn't he do it because Abe used to choke him?
atdi2113 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:36:41 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I can't remember exactly why. I just remember a flashback from one of the more recent episodes where Homer is at the dinner table and he starts choking Abe. I think it was to show that he's always had anger problems?
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 13:50:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oh well that's alright then
pilvy ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:53:14 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I never said it was alright.
Soundbreaking ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:04:50 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
If he never laid a finger on any other family member then how was he able to have kids?
pilvy ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:17:39 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Well...IIRC Bart was conceived before they were married...so technically Marge wouldn't have been a family member at that point..
If you was actually serious, generally it refers to (alleged) violence as opposed to positive touching.
Soundbreaking ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 18:18:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
k
franklintheknot ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 02:26:35 on November 11, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
He abuses men, never women
[deleted] ยท 104 points ยท Posted at 02:50:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Thats semantics, really.
EmergencyCritical ยท 15 points ยท Posted at 03:04:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Can I see Steve Harvey?
[deleted] ยท 53 points ยท Posted at 03:10:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Here you go
Steve Harvey's a dick though, i havent repped him in forever. Fuck that guy. I like you though, you get a picture.
steveharveyAMA ยท 161 points ยท Posted at 03:48:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I would just like to apologize for what I have said. What I do is a persona that has gone too far. My personal life is messed up but I am working through that and I would like to ask for your forgiveness.
Lord_of_Barrington ยท 45 points ยท Posted at 03:50:50 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
309 days - one comment, checks outs
Senzu ยท 24 points ยท Posted at 03:57:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I want to believe.
[deleted] ยท 19 points ยท Posted at 03:53:22 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Well played. Please, enjoy this waste of reddit gold.
JimsanityOSB ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:21:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
What'd you do now?
protagonizer ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 03:10:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Where is Harvey?
karnyboy ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 03:36:46 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I believe in Harvey Dent.
Ultiment ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:45:21 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Meh I wouldn't want him being Gotham's District Attorney, he seems a bit two faced to me.
RidingYourEverything ยท 25 points ยท Posted at 03:55:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"Why you little..."
Seriously though, when I grew up I realized, sure Bart can be a wise-ass but no way he deserved to get choked all the time. That is fucked.
summitorother ยท 54 points ยท Posted at 05:03:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"and that horrific act of child abuse became one of our most beloved running gags."
[deleted] ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 07:49:09 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, turns out it's actually pretty funny.
darkbreak ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 12:48:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
When Behind the Laughter returns...
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 05:48:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
as I kid I just laughed because it was only a silly idea to me.
Then I got older and realized that it does happen... and that ain't funny... but the simpsons get a pass.
0l01o1ol0 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 17:03:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
From what I remember of things back then, the show was controversial because Bart talked back to his parents and said stuff like "Don't have a cow, man". It was different times.
Boro84 ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 14:49:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
this world is a bit too politically correct at this point, it will have successfully killed all satire and sarcasm the day the Simpsons stop using that gag
SocraticMethHead ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 23:46:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ugh I'm so tired of this bullshit PC hysteria. Do you even watch TV? Because it is raunchier today than it has ever been. Do you really think Archer or It's Always Sunny would have been allowed anywhere near TV in the past? Back then The Simpsons was pretty edgy for TV, now it's just about the most vanilla comedy out there.
Boro84 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 00:01:14 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Can I ask you why youre attacking me here? Thats EXACTLY what Im trying to say, the world we live in today tries to be TOO PC and it's ridiculous, no one can take a joke, point in case, you missing my sarcastic remark about the PC world we live in
SocraticMethHead ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 01:16:14 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm not attacking you, I'm disagreeing
If we are so terribly PC and can't take a joke today, why are our TV shows far more offensive than they used to be?
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 07:05:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Or stop drinking.
sprynklz ยท 15 points ยท Posted at 03:01:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Change the channel, Marge!
goatman2112 ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 04:19:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
that's our homer!
thewoodendesk ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 05:26:44 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Also known as pulling a Homer.
sunnyjum ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 04:28:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Or Grimey as he liked to be called
The2500 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:33:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Sometimes they make him randomly talented though. All of a sudden he was pretty good at playing the piano. And the piani.
MaxNanasy ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 05:53:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Are you sure you're not thinking of Family Guy? Or did both shows do that?
The2500 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 05:57:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Edit: I answered thinking it was replying to a different comment. I remember Homer could play the piano and compose songs for a few episodes. There was nothing before to really establish he had musical talent.
chadalem ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:12:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
There was nothing in Al Capone's vault
But it wasn't Heraldo's fault
D'oh!
clap2times ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:35:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Homer having musical talent has actually been a surprisingly consistent theme. I think the B-Sharps episode was the first one to esablish his musical talent. Then there's an episode where he write the "I hate Ned Flanders" song and another where he writes songs for Lisa (the two you're probably thinking of) and another one where he plays the bass in a band with other dad's in Springfield. There's also an episode where he becomes an opera singer (discovering he can only sing when lying down), and a flashback one where he's in a 90's grunge band, having invented the genre.
I guess it's kind of implied this is where the kids may get their abilities from:
Bart's also shown to have a surprising drumming ability and also joins a boyband at one stage, and Lisa, is well, the one that is most obvious with her music abilities.
Can't find/think of any instances with Marge having musical talent, she's just an insanely good artist (another consistent (although probably less surprising) theme).
Boro84 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:50:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I mean they do repeatedly make references to his Grammy win
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:12:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
oh my god
I just realized that I'm basically Homer Simpson
Merlord ยท 39 points ยท Posted at 05:20:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Depends on the episode. There was the joke where Homer said "These are dangerous streets for us upper-lower-middle-class types". Sometimes they can't pay the bills, sometimes they take a trip to Brasil, depends on what's convenient for the story.
Shod_Kuribo ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 05:44:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
A lot of people with pretty good incomes end up wasting money and accumulate correspondingly large debts (bills).
DoctorWaluigiTime ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 16:26:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
What the staff during audio commentaries have coined as "rubber band reality."
It was a bit of a running gag how much dispoable income they had in the episode where the original Itchy & Scratchy creator showed up. Several times Bart asks Homer for some amount of money, and even when he asks for close to $1000, Homer just opens his wallet and (almost in that case) hands him the cash.
Born_Ruff ยท 23 points ยท Posted at 09:22:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Homer has gone through so many different personality changes over the years with different writers and producers.
In earlier episodes, when it comes down to it, Homer is sweet and sincere. Financial struggles play a bigger role in these episodes, because Homer making sacrifices to support his family was a key way to demonstrate his sweetness and sincerity. For example, Homer has to work as a mall Santa to pay for Christmas gifts, or gets a job at the Kwik-E-Mart to pay for Lisa's Pony. When Bart gets an Elephant, not being able to afford caring for him is the main conflict, and there is a whole episode based around the cost of paying for surgery for their dog.
Eventually he morphed into "jerkass homer" when he became more of a boorish asshole, and financial concerns were more or less forgotten about. Financial reality limited the zany things he could do. In these episodes you see Homer totaling his car(and the elementary school) driving around on a drunken bender, and other than a quick moment of anger, they don't depict any financial struggle associated with him totaling his car.
TLDR: Homer is as successful as is convenient for what the writers want to do at that moment.
TheseMenArePrawns ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 09:27:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's one of the things I hate about American media in general. You see someone shown to have fallen into the worst hole in existence. And he'll probably be living somewhere better than 75% of the audience. "Look at this loser, no job and forced to live in a five room apartment in new york due to how little money he has!"
tkdyo ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:40:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
ah yes, the late 80s and early 90s...when being a part of a nuclear plants safety crew was not successful. at all.
firetroll ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:10:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I know right, reminds me of married with children. You would assume they are poor, and how homers intelligence would land him a min wage job at least.
sheilzy ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:36:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
He's quit and/or been fired from the same company and always gets rehired.
Like, how?
zaturama015 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:40:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
At 80s any salary was successful, today it wouldn't work.
thorlord ยท 285 points ยท Posted at 03:36:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Dude.. Watch Malcom in the middle.
When I was a kid I identified and related to the kids. Now I watch it, And holy shit I understand why the mom was such a bitch. She had to be.
natzo ยท 141 points ยท Posted at 04:34:16 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
There was an episode with baby Francis in which she stops him from starting a fire, I think. She grabs him and tells him she will keep him safe, even if it means having him hate her.
Bacon_Bitz ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 13:58:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yep, I love that episode.
tubular1845 ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 15:24:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
MitM is actually a show I enjoy more as an adult then I did as a kid
blot101 ยท 58 points ยท Posted at 03:58:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This is a show that will never get old for me. I think it is pretty spot on for what families are. or what my family is. interestingly enough, it's the same for the first season or two of the simpsons
loptopandbingo ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 17:46:50 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
simpsons s1 and s2 were definitely more realistic (well, as realistic as the simpsons could be). homer was just a loser, not someone bordering on mental retardation.
andrewpr ยท 30 points ยท Posted at 04:06:48 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Awesome show, I had never thought of it and the Simpsons, but there certainly are comparisons. Hal always stole the show for me, but all the characters are relatable aside from Reece who is a jerk but still a good character.
Fishing_Dude ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 07:52:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm doing my first watch through of it right now since childhood. Damn is it spot in
[deleted] ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 13:38:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
There is that episode where hal and lois decide who's going to be the baddy and who's going to be the goody for the kids. They may even flip a coin? I can't remember.
It's probably one of my favourite backstorys of the whole series. As far as I remember, they both want to be the goody. It's really sweet.
hilarymeggin ยท 16 points ยท Posted at 04:55:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
OMG can I just tell you? I used to think the moms on Malcom in the Middle and Everybody Loves Raymond were so awful! Now I watch them and cheer. I even get a little misty-eyed because I feel like someone understands me!
Joy2b ยท 13 points ยท Posted at 05:34:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Honestly, I never even thought the mom was terrible the first time through. The kids were willing to use tactics that were flat out crazy and outnumbered her, but she wasn't one to turn and run.
Bacon_Bitz ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 13:59:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You need to watch The Middle. Same actress as ELR and its so dead on!
chumothy ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 13:58:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oh man, I hated Everybody Loves Raymond, but there's an episode where she hands over the household budget to him and it hits so close to home!
SecondIntermission ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 14:35:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I felt the same way when I watched home alone with my daughter. I used to think his parents were so hard on him in the beginning, but he was being a little shit. Of course they should have noticed they left him there. But he should realize his parents are under a lot of stress planning this massive family trip.
Malgio ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 20:12:37 on November 12, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The kids are pretty bad, but Lois is full of issues as well. Chicken and egg.
peanutismint ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 10:30:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This is one of the greatest/most underrated TV shows of them all.
/r/malcolminthemiddle
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:39:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Underrated? topkek.
WriterDavidChristian ยท -15 points ยท Posted at 04:03:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Please, for the love of God, don't have children.
ThreeHourRiverMan ยท 37 points ยท Posted at 03:43:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I remember when I was younger than Lisa. Then when I was her age, Bart's age. Now I'm 30, and realizing I'm only 4 years younger than Homer was in the first season (supposedly he was 34, and he's now 38). Holy crap.
edit: although to be fair, I haven't watched a simpsons episode in probably 15 years, so this just hit me as I was writing this.
0l01o1ol0 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 17:26:48 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
If Bart aged like a regular person he would have been 24, old enough to enlist for Operation Iraqi Freedom when it began. He was actually used in pro-war and anti-war propaganda during Desert Storm, the first war with Iraq.
It's strange, I came to the US around the time the show started, and I got a Bartman t-shirt that was day-glo orange. Kids unironically wore neon colors back then. The Simpsons predates MC Hammer, Nickelodeon, and the Dream Team. I always associate it with that '90s style of neon colors and such, but the actual art on the show hasn't changed much, just the merchandise around it.
thfsgn ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 12:00:41 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You got out at the right time.
Boro84 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:03:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"Homer, youre 39..." - Marge
loptopandbingo ยท 1072 points ยท Posted at 00:22:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's like "Catcher In The Rye." Read it as a teenager, you say 'oh wow, this guy really gets it!' Read it as a 30 year old, and you say 'oh wow, what a whiny little asshole.'
Edit: apparently everyone also thought he was an asshole in high school
WellIGaveItAShot ยท 210 points ยท Posted at 02:56:09 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Read it as a 20-year-old, and you identify with Holden just enough to get mad at his decisions. Like watching the group split up during a horror movie.
[deleted] ยท 97 points ยท Posted at 04:27:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Fred: Hey gang. Lets split up to cover more ground. Velma, Daphne and I will take the upstairs bedroom. Shaggy and Scooby can go check the basement.
Shaggy: Like, yoinks man. We always have to go to the spooky basement while like, you and the girls always get to go to the bedroom. Can't we like, switch?
Fred: Fucking Christ Shaggy just do as your told while we go bang. Is it so much to ask for you selfish prick.
dackots ยท 33 points ยท Posted at 07:12:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yoinks? What foreign knock-off were you watching?
[deleted] ยท 34 points ยท Posted at 07:33:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's called I've been drinking!
jiso ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 12:03:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You should drink more often!
J_the_Assassin ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 05:59:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Shaggy doesn't do much shaggin
Vindexus ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 07:40:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
you're
[deleted] ยท -1 points ยท Posted at 07:50:13 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You need to calm down, or fuck off. Don't you know I'm piss drunk?
Vindexus ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:07:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
No to all of that.
BornOnFeb2nd ยท 86 points ยท Posted at 03:27:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
If you haven't seen it yet, watch Cabin In The Woods.
[deleted] ยท 46 points ยท Posted at 03:48:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
BornOnFeb2nd ยท 67 points ยท Posted at 03:53:27 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I had the joy of going in completely oblivious. It was a treat, after the initial "whut?!" moments, of course. :)
Envy121 ยท 15 points ยท Posted at 07:25:04 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The amazing thing is how people weren't dicks about spoiling it.
JangSaverem ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 05:21:44 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I guess I went In negatively knowing it's game.
I thought it was a Shit your pants horror. Watched it alone inn a whim one lonely Sunday...ide never been more impressed and happy about being duped
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 01:48:30 on November 11, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
BornOnFeb2nd ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 22:23:25 on November 11, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Y'know.. that'd probably make an EXCELLENT TV series.... each week, kill off random B-list movie stars via a different monster, just need to build the sets and props once, and you're good.
Zandrick ยท 13 points ยท Posted at 04:00:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I read somewhere that something went wrong while they were making it, but after they finished filming. It's release was delayed a year.
Vasilevskilooksi ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 04:30:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah I had thought the film company went bankrupt and it, along with another movie I cannot remember, were shelved for a year because of that until another company bought LionsGate out
DarthCluck ยท 11 points ยท Posted at 05:13:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I think it had the problem of surprising a horror audience. I went in not knowing what it was, and fell in love with every moment.
Horror fans in my experience hate their own genre more than any other group. Name any movie, and you will find a large camp of people who hated it.
When a movie like Cabin in the Woods promises a classic, uninspired horror and delivers something else (read: creative) then the people who can't change tracks mid-film, and enjoy the ride don't like it.
tl;dr; Cabin in the Woods alienated two different audiences. But those left over loved it.
TheseMenArePrawns ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 09:21:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It got meme'd out, like Behind the Mask. People talking about it too much and making a bible out of satire kind of killed discussion of it as an actual movie.
widdersn ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 10:50:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
you must not frequent /r/movies
Boro84 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 15:01:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
fantastic movie
awry_lynx ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 05:40:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
that moment where they're like "let's never split up, we have to stay together!" I was like YES and then... yeah.
Sandlight ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:25:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That's it. Read it in my mid twenties, as a young friend and I often trade books. When talking it over we pulled much different things from it.
Edit- autocorrect and grammar
Sinai ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:56:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Is that even dyslexia?
bamberjean ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:10:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
No! It's something else completely! /r/commentgore?
Sandlight ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 05:30:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Worse, it's autocorrect mixed with alcohol!
bamberjean ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 05:10:44 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like
EngineerSib ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:50:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I yell at the TV all the time when people hear a noise and go investigate...in a dark alley...after they dropped their phone...and the car magically stopped running...JESUS CHRIST JERRY, WHY WOULD YOU GO TOWARDS THE SCARY NOISE?!?!
CombativeAccount ยท 106 points ยท Posted at 04:02:00 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I've literally never met a single teenager who didn't think he was a whiny douche, and it was mandatory reading in a school of 3000+. EVERYBODY thought he was a douche.
It was actually when I got older that I appreciated it. It's a portrait of angst. And, like a broken clock. Holden has occasional moments of lucidity.
Dark_Irish_Beard ยท 16 points ยท Posted at 05:09:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That was my experience as well. Back in high school and the class we read the novel in, we were pretty much all in agreement that he was a whiny douche.
On that note, if there is one book that I now view completely differently in my 30s, it's "The Old Man and the Sea". As a teen, I found it so boring that I couldn't finish it and then picked a different book for my reading assignment. Revisited it a couple of years ago and the story resonated with me.
[deleted] ยท 13 points ยท Posted at 06:04:00 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I can totally get why one would not "get" Old man and the sea as a young person. You need to have experienced life, something very few teenagers has done, to "get" that book
tkdyo ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 13:29:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
my 7th grade teacher made us read old man in the sea. it was ruined for me before we even began because we had to write a one sentance summary for every page in the book. this lead to me writing many lines of "he sits in a boat and fishes" over and over. it was so tedious, the only things i actually remember happening are the fishing line cutting his hand so he used salt water to heal it and his failure to catch the fish.
Joy2b ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 05:28:09 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I really need to try reading that again. After the crash course literature treatment of the book, I'm a bit afraid of it simply being too sad.
Honestly, he might be lucky to have a materially good life, but it sounds like there's no adult in his life who's willing to give him an hour to talk about what's on his mind. People without an advocate are seriously vulnerable to abuse and mental illness. His remarkable discomfort with adults could have a rather unpleasant interpretation.
CombativeAccount ยท 45 points ยท Posted at 05:42:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I think that the way people regard Holden speaks volumes about the reality of how people relate to others. Holden is a lonely, fucked up guy - hires a prostitute just for the company. She's uncomfortable with this, and he can't even buy her affection. He wanders the world like a ghost, spiteful and jaded. Too rough around the edges to interact with, too damaged to fix himself. Fantasizes about a life where he can be a picturesque hero, and everyone around him is a faker.
The fact that his interpersonal struggles do not garner him any sympathy seems starkly apropos in a story that serves as a portrait of a person's mind. People read this and they still hate him. I fully believe that this is one of the intentions of the book: the proof that misanthropic, traumatized Holden is still the enemy to the reader indicates that people are unwilling to extend understanding to those who suffer the most human flaws. The very flaws which prevent all of us from being our best, stemmed from experiences which are universal to the human experience (in Holden's case, his brother's untimely death), are still unforgivable to the readers. The readers refuse to offer sympathy to someone who is just a shade apart from them.
In a sense... I do think that the common reception of Holden as "whiny douche guy" overlaps into his phony theory somewhat. Is Holden a whiny douche? Oh yeah! But to pretend we are so far apart and superior from him... Is to play phony to the quintessential human flaws we share with him. Kinda makes me hang my head each time a sanctimonious, "What a loser!" judgement is made on him. Missing the point entirely.
chaosmosis ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 16:44:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This is really freaking good. I was the only person in my English class to express any sympathy or sadness for Holden, and people gave me crap for it. I wonder if I could use people's opinions of the book as a way to guess how much empathy for others they have.
thebeginningistheend ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 08:38:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I think people just want to distance themselves from the parts of Holden they relate uncomfortably closely to.
Everyone has had that feeling of being alienated, at odds with the world, in a state of confusion over whether there's something wrong with the world or just them. Just because Holden is a bit more like that then most doesn't make him a monster.
Joy2b ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 08:34:22 on November 12, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Thank you. I'm now a bit more tempted to have Holden call out the phony in me.
I'm really tempted to draw parallels with other stories here. This reminds me of Othello and the strange reasons that it's easy to Other someone, and the reasons why the good Samaritan story is a weird and unexpected tale.
I might just take Holden's point that people need to be listened to and sympathized with, and call a few people.
pwneboy ยท 50 points ยท Posted at 04:28:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I liken teenagers calling Holden annoying to the same as when they complain about how everyone in their grade except them is "immature and annoying." Most teenagers aren't going to like what they see when you hold up a mirror in front of them.
Plus, I believe high-school book assignments are incredibly good at making kids hate the book they have to read.
[deleted] ยท 17 points ยท Posted at 04:50:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Let's not blame it being assigned in high school when we could blame the five-paragraph-method.
pwneboy ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 04:56:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, I'm not against reading books in school, but the methods used to teach it can be incredibly boring, and for some students can ruin a great book and possibly even turn them off of reading.
[deleted] ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 05:18:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
[deleted] ยท -6 points ยท Posted at 08:13:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
If you can't reflect on a chapter of a book, you're an idiot. How can you not write a paragraph or two about it? You can't even form an opinion or relate it to your life?
Oh right, teenagers haven't done anything and don't know anything.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:07:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 18:52:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's an essay-writing method based on five paragraphs, the introduction, the three main points, and the conclusion. It is formulaic, intended not to increase writing skills or facilitate communication, but largely to make grading papers easier on the teacher. "Good writing" is subjective, but "followed instructions" isn't. It's a great way to suck the joy and creativity out of writing and reading.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:59:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:59:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Where are you from?
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:04:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:07:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Interesting, where I am we kind of all have the idea that you Scandinavian countries have all of this stuff more or less figured out and don't have to deal with bullshit like that.
weekend-wars ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 14:03:21 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
As an 18 year old, I LOVED Holden, flaws and all, precisely because I saw myself so vividly reflected in him. The duality of romanticism and cynicism amidst a maelstrom of teen angst that he so perfectly embodies is infuriating, but it's just so brilliantly raw and candid. I don't think either the character or the book would have been as effective if his angst wasn't as alienating to readers as it was. It's that tension between admonishing his faults and shitty attitude, and the uncomfortable subconscious realisation that those faults exist within yourself that makes the story such an indelibly compelling and memorable one.
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:26:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This holy shit people don't under stand literature
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:19:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You can never have enough irony in your diet!
cleanshot911 ยท 595 points ยท Posted at 03:18:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I don't know about that. I read it as a 15 year old and thought to myself, "oh wow, what a whiny little asshole." Like verbatim, it's like 30 year old you read 15 year old me's mind. That kid had a cushy as fuck life and never thanked anybody for it. Not all of us can be that lucky, but everyone in this world finds something to whine about somehow.
venterol ยท 368 points ยท Posted at 03:54:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Same, as a highschooler I found Holden completely insufferable. Good novel overall, but fuck the main character.
DabuSurvivor ยท 4411 points ยท Posted at 05:07:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I had a really weird experience reading Catcher in the Rye for the first time in high school. Like, weirdest experience I've ever had with a book. You ever do that thing where you're reading a book and you accidentally skip a pair of pages? You turn two instead of one. But then you see that what you've just started reading doesn't follow from what you just read, so you realize your fingers slipped or the pages stuck, you turn back and it's no big deal, resolved in a second or two.
Well that happened to me early on in Catcher... only without the realization. And I skipped the most important passage of the entire book.
One pair of pages early on ends with Holden sitting down to write an English assignment for someone, about a glove. The page ends with something like "I sat down and got to work writing." Well I flipped the page, and apparently I flipped 2 instead of 1, skipping a pair. Totally basic slip of the fingers - only this time, I didn't realize it, because the next page was the start of a new chapter. Next chapter opened with a scene about the assignment he wrote, so the previous page's end, about sitting down to write, seemed like a decent end, and I kept reading, none the wiser.
...Well, it turns out that on that pair of pages I accidentally skipped, Holden reflects in great detail on his little brother getting sick and dying... which, if you've read the book, you know informs his character in major ways throughout the whole story. It's probably the most crucial passage to understanding anything about how Holden's mind works. Basically his entire character is built upon that backstory, and I didn't read it.
Now here's where it gets even better: the cause of his brother's death is never stated again for the entire rest of the book. But there are references to the death; Holden just doesn't think about it in-depth again - he doesn't even think about the fact that his little bro got sick - because it's such a hard topic for him. So here I am wondering "Whoa, how did Holden's brother die? When are we gonna find that out?" ...when it was already revealed like 40 pages into the fucking book; I just flipped past it like an idiot and didn't realize.
And oh yeah, the very first time Holden thinks about his brother after the backstory is given? The very first time it's referenced again, it's via something like "When my brother died, like I told you about earlier..." - it has a specific reference to Holden having already told us about the death, something I had no idea actually happened. And our teacher had told us before we started the book, "Holden is an unreliable narrator; not everything he thinks about is exactly what happened, so don't take his words at face value." So here I am, thinking, "Holy fuck, I get what she was talking about now! Holden doesn't even remember what parts of the story he's already told? Man, what a great way to introduce the backstory - and I guess Holden's even more unstable than I thought!"
So basically, I got the idea that Holden's brother - who died of a simple illness - had died from something so awful and so exceptionally traumatic that it just nuked Holden's psyche. I mean, if I had been right, if Holden hadn't talked about his brother's death the way he later explicitly reminded us he had? Then clearly it must have been something massive... so naturally, I wanted to know what the heck it was. I wanted to know so badly that I kept reading the entire book nonstop for hours... which meant that I finished it the day I started it - before I could go back to class the next day and hear my teacher discussing the backstory. If I hadn't read through the whole book that day and had stuck with the assigned chapters, I'd have gone to class the next day, the teacher would have said "Okay, so let's talk about Allie's death", I'd be all "Wha?" and realize I'd missed a section, no big deal.
But nope. I read the whole damn thing in a day, just couldn't stop, because I was waiting and waiting for the epic plot twist of "HOW DID ALLIE CAULFIELD DIE?", something that was already revealed like 40 pages in and never explained again. But obviously, I had my own personal theory near the end of the book - and this is where it gets a little weird but I swear to God this is what I believed. Near the end Holden goes to see his sister, but he's not supposed to be there, and she says "Daddy's going to kill you!" She says that sentence, those exact words, like three times, and "kill" is italicized the first time she says it.
...so naturally my jaw dropped as I assumed we'd just discovered that ALLIE CAULFIELD WAS MURDERED BY HIS PARENTS. When it was a fucking basic disease. But it made perfect sense to me: We never see Holden's parents, he doesn't seem to care much about them, he has all these major issues with trust and authority... and Allie died in some fucked-up way that Holden can't even discuss with us yet thinks he's already told us, and now here the sister is with constant references to Daddy killing Holden... It all added up! Holden's dad killed his brother!! What an awesome plot twist!!!
So naturally I went full steam ahead waiting for the official reveal... and I got to the climax of the book... and then things calmed down afterwards... and I started to think it wouldn't be revealed... and then it ended, just like that. Thought to myself "WHAT THE FUCK? That was the weakest shit ever! They never told us how it happened!" So I Googled "how did allie die" to see people's theories, saw every page mentioning the illness with 0 talk of it being a mystery... and gradually realized my mistake.
Made for a pretty fucking entertaining story to tell my teacher the next day.
So yeah, if you're ever reading Catcher in the Rye again? After the passage where Holden thinks about Allie's sickness as he writes the glove assignment, just imagine that that wasn't there. And then imagine how much that would completely freaking uproot the story and change the entire tone of the story from there on.
TL;DR: Accidentally skipped crucial backstory about Holden's brother; ended up thinking Holden had amnesia or schizophrenia or some shit as a result of his father murdering his brother; spent an entire day burning through the book waiting for an epic, shocking plot twist of dramatic murder that didn't exist.
Good book, though.
[deleted] ยท 680 points ยท Posted at 12:39:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
MAGIC!
Publius82 ยท 66 points ยท Posted at 18:24:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
On a long enough timeline...
FeastOfChildren ยท 20 points ยท Posted at 22:11:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The survival rate of Palahniuk becomes Salinger.
ciociosanvstar ยท 45 points ยท Posted at 19:03:46 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
J goddamn D goddamn Salinger
trakmiro ยท 46 points ยท Posted at 21:05:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm a big fan of his work. Y'know, Catcher in the Rye and... others... I want to saaaaaaay...the Hobbit?
[deleted] ยท 37 points ยท Posted at 17:57:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
[deleted] ยท 18 points ยท Posted at 21:31:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I dunno, man. Once I started to not just read, but really gnaw on, older literary fiction I really started to enjoy some of those authors. A quality academic introduction or foreword is a HUGE boon to understanding not just the work itself, but the author's body of work. I found a copy of Lord Jim in a thrift shop that really enhanced my understanding of the novel and therefore my enjoyment. I also discovered, obliquely, that high schools' insistence on reading Heart of Darkness to meet their white guilt quota is the worst way to do it, since it's actually the middle of a trilogy started by Youth and ended by Lord Jim. That's like watching The Empire Strikes Back and then being required to explain the rebellion's cause! It's absurd.
Charles Dickens still writes shit books, though. Nothing but pot-boiling trash with a precious few high points smattered through his bibliography.
Lt_Rooney ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 00:19:45 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
They always pick the worst books for high school reading. I remember hating Shakespeare in high school, because they require Romeo and Juliet and Othello. Then I actually read Shakespeare outside of high school and discovered Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Midsummer Night's Dream. Leading to the question, why the fuck didn't they give us this in english class? This shit's amazing!
Or Dickens. Why assign Great Expectations, an absurdly long novel about absolutely nothing? Why not Oliver Twist, which at least has a point? Or The Mystery of Edwin Drood which ends in the most spectacular, accidental anticlimax in history.
My high school also required only part 1 of Les Miserables, which makes no damn sense. The story doesn't start to pick up until after Hugo's weird aside about the Paris sewer system in part 2. They also only required the first few chapters of Le Mort d'Arthur, which again is really weird, since things get interesting later in the book.
marsepic ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 00:38:45 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I had to read Great Gatsby in tenth grade and hated it because a lot of the themes are about trying to fix old mistakes and living in the past and as a 15 year old suburbanite, I had no pay to live in. Read it again after college and couldn't believe how much it spoke to me.
Read it last year in my early thirties and thought "Jesus, what a bunch of assholes. "
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 00:46:49 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I dunno, I feel like a lot of people hate on high school reading but much of it comes down to how the work is presented and our collective memory of how awful English educational structure is. I definitely enjoyed Heart of Darkness and All the King's Men much more because I read them before the school year started, and I wasn't trying to unpack books rife with meanings, subtext, symbolism, and clever narrative devices as I was reading them. I already knew the surface plot structure and the characters, so I was free to really explore more deeply into the rest of it without feeling like I was a 10-pound sack being stuffed with 20 pounds of literary analysis.
That being said, a lot of the high school reading lists could use a refresher. Even though I hate Dickens, Tale of Two Cities is a HUGE step up in quality from Great Expectations, which is devoid of even the things Dickens did well, like tying up plots neatly and creating convincing characters. I mean, seriously, a woman who's been sitting in the same room since she got stood up on her wedding day? She'd have died of rickets by now or something!
I'd also like to see speculative fiction be given a more serious treatment. Dune is a fantastic political allegory full of philosophical rumination. Shit, Philip K Dick has had more influence as an author on modern Hollywood than anyone else in history, I'm pretty sure. Even just including more modern literary fiction like (and this is a bad example for high schoolers) Cormac McCarthy would do a lot to make the subject more relatable and interesting to young students.
brisk0 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 00:58:44 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
My High School did Macbeth as its requisite Shakespeare. We had an odd book with each two-page split being the script down the one page and modern translations and notes down the other. It also helped that our teacher was a Shakespeare fanatic and so was really enthusiastic about the whole thing and added a whole lot of context to it. (She also firmly believed that the Queen of the Weirds wasn't writted by Shakespeare to the extent that we skipped that act).
Tonkarz ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 11:58:18 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The issue is that many people have had the same experience, except the plays they discover are Romeo and Juliet and Othello because they did Macbeth and Midsummer Night's Dream.
The problem isn't the play itself, but how students react to fun that is treated as work.
ptrst ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 06:42:07 on March 9, 2016 ยท (Permalink)
Honestly, I hated all the Shakespeare I read for classes in high school and loved all that I read outside of class. My real issue was that it was always mandatory that we read it out loud as a group, and people are fucking awful at reading out loud. The fact that Shakespeare has, like, rhythm to it only makes the contrast even worse.
Tonkarz ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:40:27 on March 9, 2016 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, you make a really good point. Shakespeare has to be practiced at least a little to get the rhythm down. Or at least you have to learn to actually use the punctuation, rather than stopping after each line on the page. -_-#
You comment is 4 months late but super relevant.
ptrst ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 17:57:44 on March 9, 2016 ยท (Permalink)
Lol yeah, I got linked but didn't check the date.
ThirdFloorGreg ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 23:07:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Turns out when you pay people by the word they get very good at providing words, whether they have ideas or not.
bkedelen ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 21:45:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
No argument from me, which is why I said "most".
There are many literary works which I found to be puissant, including Heart of Darkness (I have not read Lord Jim but now I will), Paradise Lost, Mother Night, and recently East of Eden.
Those occupy the minority of my experiences, however. Many of the Transcendentalists and road apples like Kerouac and Salinger have generally put me off the stuff.
[deleted] ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 21:47:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oh, christ. You'll hear no disagreement on Kerouac and Salinger. On the Road just makes me want to travel back in time and punch that hypocritical old alcoholic Catholic right in the navel he can't tear his eyes away from.
docdope ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 22:05:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
upvote for "puissant". i'm shoving that into every conversational hole i can
Fuego_Fiero ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 22:20:21 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Keep on filling that puissant hole.
grandmagangbang ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 10:28:26 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
please don't
JimmyHavok ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 23:08:27 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I almost always find introductions very boring until after I have read the book. Then they usually give me something interesting to chew on. So that's my habit, read the book first.
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 23:15:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I find most introductions boring and uninformative, which is what I found in the Everyman's Library version of Nostromo. But a well-written introduction can be an engaging and illuminating piece unto itself, which is why my beat-up thrift store copy of Lord Jim is something I prize. Clear, concise, and complete.
As a pet peeve aside, the intro to my Everyman's Library copy of Nostromo is packed full of exactly the kind of pompous academic language that I find insufferable, and then the bombastic fuck had the gall to say "comprised of." That really sealed the deal on how shitty that intro was. Like, for real: if you're going to wave your dick around about your vocabulary and grammar structure, at least figure out how to use common operative words correctly. Otherwise, get the fuck out of my high-quality hardback copies of books. I paid 8 dollars for this at a used bookstore. That's a friggin' fortune!
Nerdy314159265 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 23:38:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I've found Giraffedata's reddit account
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 23:58:45 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm a technical writer with a huge vocabulary. If I can explain complex concepts without needing to indiscriminately spew esoteric and unusual words, then so can anyone else. I honestly hate most academic writing (especially liberal arts) for precisely this reason.
Nerdy314159265 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 00:57:54 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That comment was specifically aimed at the complaint about the use of "comprised of".
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 01:02:20 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I know. He's the guy that obsessively corrects Wiki articles.
But I'll be damned if I get off my soapbox until someone yanks me from it!
SJ_RED ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 01:04:02 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
*grabs lasso*
Don't mind me, just passing through :P
Nerdy314159265 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 01:15:53 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
:P We all have our little niggles. I personally think that "consisted of" is fine and proper English but I can understand where you are coming from.
ajago12598 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 00:16:57 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Mildly unrelated but could you give me the general gist and important themes from Heart of Darkness? I'm about to read it for AP English (lord, help) and even the valedictorian of last year's class said it was impossible to read so yeah, I'm pretty afraid. If not, it's coo
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 02:24:12 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[removed]
ajago12598 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 02:29:35 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Thank you so much oh my god
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 00:33:17 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Heart of Darkness is hardly even long enough to call a novel. It's more of a novella. It's an easy read if you go in with the understanding that it's an impressionistic work with a lot of descriptions being unreliable/stylized, and that Marlow is an unreliable narrator at times.
Also, try reading it before it gets dissected in class. It's a really quick read if you're not digging deep. I personally found it much easier to understand and even enjoy a novel if I could read the whole thing before the class began, because my reading of the novel's surface details like plot events and characters wouldn't be bogged down by excessive analysis in the process. This works pretty well for any English class, I've found. Novels like Heart of Darkness get bogged down by trying to unpack before you know the entire plotline already.
ajago12598 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 02:30:21 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Thanks! Will do. I was confused because it is so short. How could it possibly be that bad, right? I guess we'll see
[deleted] ยท 11 points ยท Posted at 18:40:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
OP was also hoping for Bret Easton Ellis.
This confession has meant nothing.
snoharm ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 21:21:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
OP was kind of hoping for JD Salinger, if you've read his other work.
HAL9000000 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 19:54:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
So he was hoping for a J.D. Salinger phony.
OctoberNoir ยท 750 points ยท Posted at 05:35:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I laughed. I cried. Gotta say: this is one of my favourite reddit posts
DabuSurvivor ยท 297 points ยท Posted at 09:58:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Haha, thank you! I'm happy people are as entertained by this weird reading experience as I was. I love how darn improbable it all was, how every single piece lines up for me to view it that way, like a perfect storm. I remember Holden wondering where the ducks go during winter; apparently, during perfect storms of misinterpretation, they seek refuge in a faraway land where Allie was killed by his father.
hostViz0r ยท 57 points ยท Posted at 13:08:34 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That would be an interesting idea for a book/writing prompt.
Introduce a new theory if a passage/page is left unincluded.
allwein ยท 27 points ยท Posted at 15:48:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I don't know, I skipped the entire John Galt radio speech in Atlas Shrugged and I don't think it changed a damn thing.
...Of course now I'm waiting for someone to tell me that halfway through the speech John Galt revealed himself as a socialist...
sleepwalker77 ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 16:59:27 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I counted. That fucking speech is 33 pages long.
Tintinabulation ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 02:00:43 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Wow, I did, too. I got three pages in and was like 'WTF, how much longer is he going to go on?' and flipped ahead. I got the point the first few paragraphs, why keep beating a dead horse for another 32 pages?
hobbycollector ยท 22 points ยท Posted at 15:56:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That ridiculous speech, coupled with the notation on the back that Ayn Rand lives her life in a way that might as well read "...and I mean it!" makes me laugh at her incompetence as a writer, relative to the over-the-top onlycompetence of her characters.
DownYourRabbitHole ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 23:04:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The best part about "Objectivism" is that it's incredibly subjective.
DefinitelyNotYourBF ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 21:38:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Can I buy a copy of your novel?
hobbycollector ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:35:04 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Come on, it's only the 10th.
somewhat_pragmatic ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 17:17:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I read 10 pages of the speech getting increasingly frustrated about him repeating the same ideas until I skipped to the end of the speech.
OceanRacoon ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 18:09:13 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Such ego wanking bullshit. After reading it for a while I looked ahead and it went of for dozens of pages, it's the only time I've sped-read through a passage of a book.
I got the gist of it. Ayn Rand is a nut.
JugglaMD ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 21:06:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Should have skipped the whole book. Rand is not a particularly good author and is an even worse philosopher.
dysprog ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 18:21:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
If you understand that Ayn Rand considers the Inventors and Business Creators to be the real working class, than Atlas Shrugged is basically Socialism: The Novel.
pizzahedron ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 20:27:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
oh yeah, the kind of socialism where the means of production are owned by... the business owners?
Blog_Pope ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 20:42:22 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
No, Ayn Rand considers "Inventors and Business Creators" the nobility, having come from Russia where the communists killed the Russian nobility, to America where we had ousted them 150 years before. Heck, one of her significant characters was nobility, who she went out of her way to prove didn't need anything to come out on top. In Ann's world, you show up at a mine to dig rock and a year or so later you can own the mine (or steel foundry, or whatever).
Her main characters grandfather founded his business on criminal behavior and was likely a murder, but a hero in her mind, because fuck those people who wanted to do their own thing with their own land. Every personal relationship is a disaster, and disowning your wife/family is a noble thing.
I made myself read it because it was getting so much press. Terrible book about terrible people, doing the most bizarre things on all sides. None of it makes any sense.
Tintinabulation ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 02:02:29 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's better if you read it like a beach novel. Then all the drama is just sort of juicy and improbable, but you weren't really expecting greatness, just something fun to kill the time.
I re-read it like this, and it gets very entertaining.
Blog_Pope ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:22:28 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
After a bit, I basically decided it was a "Steampunk Sci-Fi" novel, which it fits pretty well. Distopia, Trains, fantasy energy from thin air machines, utopian societies, etc.
Even still, chapters long speeches, the repeated "rape, but I enjoyed it so it wasn't rape" thing with the main character, bizarre behaviors (I've spent millions developing this super metal alloy, let me sell it for less than traditional metals; this weird choice drives a lot of the blowback against his metal, if he instead priced it at a premium when introduced and lowered the cost as production scaled and it gained acceptance, much of what drives the novel vanishes). So its better that way, but still not worth the slog in my opinion.
somewhat_pragmatic ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 03:24:16 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Agreed, I did the same. The characters were such two dimensional stereotypes I was sure I was going to turn the page and read the brother villain was templing his fingers or twirling his moustache while laughing maniacally.
icepickjones ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 00:07:27 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Nope, it was just a 100 page recap of the previous 700 pages you just read.
Just to really make sure you were paying attention and didn't miss all that subtle messaging she was dropping at your feet.
SiliconLovechild ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 00:59:51 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Have to admit, after having chugged through nearly 500 pages of that book, I just skimmed the speech to make sure there wasn't anything actually surprising in it. And I can confirm, that if you were paying attention at all for the other 500 pages, you knew everything he was saying and it was painfully redundant.
My advice on the matter to folks who ask me about the book is always the same: just read the speech if all you want is the cliff notes of the philosophy in the book, or read the rest of the book and skip the speech if you're more into the narrative than the philosophy.
DefinitelyNotYourBF ยท -8 points ยท Posted at 21:41:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ah, you started an Ayn Rand hate-train! That's awesome! I've seen Reddit do these tricks, but I've never been in a thread where it happened before.
Next, you should try to get them to engage in two lines of clever wordplay followed by 37 gigs of terrible, lazy puns. Or you could make a reference to Doritos or Jolly Ranchers.
Well, you've already done so much. Wouldn't want to strain yourself. Maybe just ask if they have any Grey Poupon, for now, while you rest.
mizu4444 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 00:31:54 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm not your boyfriend either, but I got something out of her work and the circle jerk about it frustrates me too. Like if you haven't talked to any artist/philosopher they don't go on far to long on one theme....stop taking it personally and take what you can get out of it and leave the rest...just keep reading things!
thisshortenough ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 16:23:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I got bored with the first chapter of the very first Harry Potter book as a child so I skipped to the next one. So I had no fucking clue what the hell was going when it came to Harry's tragic backstory and being left on a doorstep but I still powered through anyway.
MediocreAtJokes ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 22:31:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I had never heard of the books before, and someone donated the first few to our class and I got picked in the lottery to take home The Chamber of Secrets. It was confusing but also in a way awesome, because I was just completely dunked into this magical universe without very much explanation. I think it made the world seem all the more wondrous, and I was still very much able to take part in Harry's bewilderment.
Funny thing is, Chamber is actually one of my least favorite books in the series but it still got me hooked.
JimmyHavok ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 23:15:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Back before everything was recorded, there was a really good chance you were going to come into a TV show or movie in the middle, so us old people developed the ability to pick up a story on the fly. A lot of times I feel like stories would be improved by skipping the first chapter....
poke2201 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 00:23:12 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I love In Medias Res beginnings.
Something about the journey to the point is always more interesting to me than the point itself. This also allows me to never be spoiled, which is great for a good amount of reasons.
fridge_logic ยท 93 points ยท Posted at 14:39:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This is the beauty of reddit in my opinion. One person has an incredibly improbable experience, and everyone gets to share in it.
The cause of Allie's death being know to me made it impossible for me to even realize that those two pages were the most important in the novel because I didn't realize he never talks about Allie being sick again.
[deleted] ยท 16 points ยท Posted at 15:15:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
ejramire ยท 14 points ยท Posted at 19:32:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I knew of a person that had had serious conflicts with her parents all of her life. After therapy, the doctor discovered that the root of all her family problems was a fragment of a conversation she heard between her parents where they mentioned they "lost a baby" in the past. She resent her parents for being so careless as to lose her little brother/sister
JimmyHavok ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 23:19:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I have a friend who has been persuaded by a "therapist" that his parents had an adopted child that they got rid of. It's a big source of conflict in his family, since no one else believes it.
The fact that there is no documentation is just proof to him of what lengths they went to to hide the child's existence.
soupit ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 00:34:17 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Why would a therapist do that. I read somewhere else on reddit pretty recently that it's not so rare occurrence where therapists or psychologists purposefully manipulate people with mental disorders for their own entertainment/ego boost/gain. But I'm not sure if it's just a paranoid person finding a rationalization to blame the person who they see often or resentment towards someone they tell personal details to who's supposed to be helping them. Is there a name for either viewpoint of this occurrence?
JimmyHavok ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 02:33:33 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
In this case it's money. There's a network of these people, and they've persuaded him he will abuse his child if he doesn't stay with them, because of the "forgotten" abuse he suffered. They pass him back and forth.
your_mind_aches ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:52:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Haha it's a really entertaining story!
aeshleyrose ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 17:04:41 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Do you read much Wally Lamb? Your use of italics really reminded me of his writing style.
DabuSurvivor ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 21:40:39 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Nope, I'm not familiar with him.
m4n031 ยท 82 points ยท Posted at 07:51:44 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Make a subreddit or something to compile which books improve by removing some small part of them
-_-o_o ยท 132 points ยท Posted at 08:32:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
/r/WhoKilledAllieCaulfield
Ephemeris ยท 47 points ยท Posted at 15:01:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's like that thing where if you remove Indiana Jones from the story everything would have ended up the same, or better.
M-Thing ยท 19 points ยท Posted at 16:12:50 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Remove Indy from what story? Like the movies?
Raiders - remove Indy and the Nazis would have won
Temple - remove Indy and the evil priest would have won
Last Crusade - remove Indy and the Nazis would have won
How is it the same or better if Indy is removed??
TacoRedneck ยท 54 points ยท Posted at 16:31:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
If indy wasn't there, the Nazis would still have opened the arc and had all their faces meltified.
Don't remember much about Temple
If indy wasnโt there, the Nazis still wouldn't have been able to take the holy grail across the seal.
The russian bitch still would have had her mind exploded.
CABuendia ยท 30 points ยท Posted at 17:42:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
For Raiders, not only that but they might have opened it in front of Hitler first, possibly preventing WW2 and the Holocaust.
thinkpadius ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 21:33:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
So what you're saying is that Indiana Jones is partly responsible for the holocaust. Did I understand that right?
M-Thing ยท 18 points ยท Posted at 16:42:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Wow, I guess that's pretty correct.
JedLeland ยท 17 points ยท Posted at 17:07:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
In Last Crusade, if memory serves, the Nazis probably wouldn't have gotten past the traps before the grail room. Even if they had Henry, Sr. with them, he most likely would have died before helping them. The only reason Indy went in was because they shot his dad and he needed the grail to heal him.
atreides78723 ยท 18 points ยท Posted at 16:34:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
At least for Raiders, the Nazis might not have found the Well of Souls because they were digging in the wrong place. If they still found it, they probably would have opened it in Berlin in Hitler's presence, killing him and who knows how much of his staff...
Ephemeris ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 16:54:34 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah but if Indy hadn't showed up in Mongolia they would have killed the girl and took the pendant so they would have been digging in the right place. They would have then opened the arc and died though so yeah, same ending.
niceville ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 16:36:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm not a huge Indy buff, but basically in Raiders if Indy isn't around the Nazis get the ark, open it up, and get killed by the ark/Angel of Death. In Temple the British show up and kill all the baddies. In Last Crusade they all drink out of the wrong cup and die.
sam28 ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 16:36:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I don't remember it exactly, but the argument was that in Raiders the Nazi's would have taken it to the place they took it and opened it regardless of Indiana Jones' actions.
ApplesBananasRhinoc ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 16:59:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I like how you don't even mention Crystal Skull. That movie is dead to me.
M-Thing ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 17:02:39 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Hah, yeah. Honestly it didn't even enter into my head. For me, there are 3 Indiana Jones movies. I guess I would group the Crystal Skull in with the Young Indiana Jones TV show, if I had to put it anywhere except the trash :/
ApplesBananasRhinoc ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 17:58:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I loved young Indiana Jones, but mostly because it introduced me to a young Sean Patrick Flanery. :)
Jellodyne ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 20:45:04 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Crystal Skull - Remove Indy and the movie is never made.
A0220R ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 16:38:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Apparently this was a Big Bang Theory reference, and apparently they were referring to Raiders.
The idea is that, with or without Indy, the Nazis would still find Marion, still get the Ark, and still open it and all die.
ThirdFloorGreg ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 23:13:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
TBBT is hardly the first place it was pointed out how inconsequential Indiana Jones is.
A0220R ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 23:40:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I wouldn't know. I googled it after I read Ephemeris' comment and only skimmed the first couple results.
TurnPunchKick ยท 12 points ยท Posted at 15:42:46 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
/r/DarthJarJar all over again.
curtmack ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 16:19:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It makes me feel old to see the reddit 404 picture drawn by /u/Sure_Ill_Draw_That, and realize he hasn't been on in two years and new redditors have probably never heard of him.
DabuSurvivor ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:49:41 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I am so down with that name.
WeHateSand ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 21:10:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
https://www.reddit.com/r/WhoKilledAllie/ HAS BEEN CREATED!
TheOfficialNoop ยท 146 points ยท Posted at 07:00:46 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Your version of the story is way more entertaining.
[deleted] ยท 54 points ยท Posted at 13:22:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
Reneeisme ยท 12 points ยท Posted at 15:19:44 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The first time in decades I've had any urge to re-read that stupid book
dragonofthwest ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 15:50:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Why stupid?
Ellie-Moop ยท 14 points ยท Posted at 16:02:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Honestly, it's so easy to find it stupid in hindsight, or having read it past that point in your life but everyone, no matter who you are, has felt the way Holden did. You, and I, were whiny assholes, selfish brats, conceited teenagers and/or young adults who thought, no matter how good we really had it, that there would never be anything that could give us pleasure or satisfaction in this world. The longer you go, and the further you get from that feeling the more you resent the person you were when you felt that way but I seriously can't pretent it's not relatable. I guess, maybe, that's why it is stupid. It makes you want to run away from it all, all the people and institutions and hate them for comforming to the whole scheme of things because conformity is detestable to the individual but those things are also where we find comfort, love and stability and where we all end up, in the end, if we make it that far.
Wylkus ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 17:27:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I know that I for one did not experience the death of my beloved younger sibling during my vulnerable teenage years, so no I have not felt what Holden felt. I felt a much milder version of teenage angst. It really bugs me that everyone criticizes the character for his extreme angst while ignoring the perfectly understandable cause of that angst.
Ellie-Moop ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:06:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
By that logic no one can ever relate to anything unless they've literally experienced the exact circumstances of any one peice of literature. There's a reason the book has hit home for so many people and suggesting my life has to be a perfect parallel for me to say I have, in some sense, felt similarly to Holden Caulfield is pretty silly.
Wylkus ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 18:32:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm not saying we can't relate to it, but we should recognize Holden as taking our more ordinary experience to more of an extreme. That's really how fictional characters function. We all like to imagine how we would be if things were different, particularly if they were different in an extreme fashion. It helps us expand our empathy and better understand our more everyday version of those same problems.
What I'm objecting to is people complaining about how Holden is an insufferable whiner, an extreme version of themselves as teenagers, while ignoring that his circumstances were more extreme than theirs probably were. Every discussion about Catcher in the Rye is dominated by people saying he's just a whiny twerp with almost nobody bringing up the whole dead brother thing. It's like if every discussion about Breaking Bad was dominated by people complaining that Walter White was being too dramatic when he turned to crime to solve his financial problems.
yrrosimyarin ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 19:01:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Everyone who likes this book says this... but no, I never have. Ever.
I felt some angst about not having girls like me... but that's about it.
I mean, that's great that it speaks to so many people, but it's not a universal part of development.
Yummy_Chinese_Food ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 20:37:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Same here.
Reneeisme ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 16:12:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oh don't get me wrong, I loved it in high school. I just had the same reaction as many other posters here upon re-reading it as an adult. Holden is just too annoying to spend more time with. Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roof Beam are much more to my adult taste.
[deleted] ยท 28 points ยท Posted at 13:20:04 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Dabu what are you doing out of your cage go back to /r/survivor
DabuSurvivor ยท 14 points ยท Posted at 16:50:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I was going to make a joke about needing to escape Cochran and Spencer threads, then I go there aaand the very most recent thread is straight-up "Why is Cochran so hated?" I choose to blame you for that.
Soanvalcke ยท 22 points ยท Posted at 05:43:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Interesting experience. There are a lot of references to death and denial in the book and I'm sure those parts stood out to you a lot more when reading this way.
rotj ยท 19 points ยท Posted at 17:13:27 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I did that on the fucking SAT.
tzenrick ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 18:54:34 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Fuck... How'd that work out? Did you retake it?
rotj ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 19:16:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It dropped my reading score by around 100. Took the test again and got perfect reading and 1 question wrong on math.
TathagataDM ยท 14 points ยท Posted at 06:41:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I fucking love this.
natbumpo ยท 13 points ยท Posted at 15:39:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
So by skipping one page, Catcher turns into a Vonnegut book.
throwaway_holla ยท 19 points ยท Posted at 15:00:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Whoa. For me the book came into my life at a time when personal computers had green letters on a screen. Growing up pre-Internet means you may see life in two distinct sections.
hobbycollector ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 15:58:13 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
In my day, we had Cliff's Notes!
fischurr ยท 12 points ยท Posted at 16:25:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Not even the published booklet things, just the notes from that weird guy at the library named Cliff. Half of it was stuff about the book, the other half seemed to be a recipe for gumbo and threats against his ex-wife Carol who seems like a total bitch.
hobbycollector ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 16:30:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Sounds like The Princess Bride book.
[deleted] ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 17:42:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
throwaway_holla ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 18:20:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Haha! Indeed.
DabuSurvivor ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 17:03:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
And for me I grew up on the Internet, with a NeoPets account at age 5 and some god-awful Proboards forum about Pokemon at age 9. It is interesting when I think about the fact that I've never known a world without the Internet and wondering how much different my perspective would be if I did (and then that typically leads to me appreciating/having my mind blown by what a freaking wonder the Internet is. Like I doubt I'll ever meet any of the people who voted or commented on this post but now thanks to this, I can share this story with them across thousands of miles and they can respond to it instantly; same goes for any other thread on Reddit or anywhere. It's absolutely awe-inspiring that human beings created that, and I try to not take it for granted. Which I guess is a bit of a tangent but oh well.)
throwaway_holla ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 18:26:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Indeed.
I now see that the point I was trying to make was that imagining googling something is part of "Internet world" and applying such thoughts to "pre-Internet world" is shocking.
Sort of like, imagine if you grew up seeing everything in color, and then when you were well into adulthood, the world turned black and white.
Imagine if someone said "What shade of grey were the flowers are your wedding?", when your wedding and the whole world going back forever, had been in beautiful, vivid color. The idea would be shocking, to apply the concept of "black and white reality" to that previous world, the world this person hadn't tasted back when things were so very different.
That's how "I Googled "how did allie die?"" feels to me.
[deleted] ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 15:45:14 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This is like people who play Dark Souls for the first time and, being told how hard it is, end up trying to fight their way through the graveyard, thinking it's the way you're supposed to go in the beginning.
Relevant_Elephants ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 15:55:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oh yeah man I would kill those 4 skeletons, reset at bonfire and repeat till I was strong enough. Realized wayyy too late there was another way
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 16:20:27 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Back at launch you didn't get souls for killing them.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:56:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I did my entire 1st run through without knowing about summoning. S&O took me 6 hours.
terminal157 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 17:08:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Summoning other players? I don't think that's the expected way to beat bosses, the game, though hard, is balanced for single player.
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 17:15:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You think so? I feel (and am pretty sure the general consensus among players is) that, while the "Trash Mobs" are tuned for solo-play, the boss encounters that have NPC summon options are designed around having an extra hand in the fights. Sure you can solo the entire game (like I said, that's how my first play through ended up going) but I think they put those NPC's in there for a reason.
WandererTau ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 19:59:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Nah, there are a lot of ways in DK to make the game easier for you, like using magic or bows, for example. But that doesn't mean that the devs wanted you to pick the path of least resistance, they just gave you more options to play the game in a way that's right for you.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:08:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I did this...
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:19:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Before or after they changed them to give souls when they died?
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:11:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
No idea, this was such a long time ago and I didn't exactly get into the game enough to remember much about my time playing it. All I remember is fighting skeletons for a while in a graveyard before finally heading in the other direction. Ended up dropping the game not long after that, after beating some boss on a rooftop.
ReKaYaKeR ยท 15 points ยท Posted at 14:47:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
yo spoilers wtf
DabuSurvivor ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 17:11:29 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Spoiler: There is no filicide. (Apparently.)
crow_baby ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 15:34:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Seriously? It's a 64 year old book that has thousands upon thousands of references and reviews out there.
ReKaYaKeR ยท 13 points ยท Posted at 15:35:09 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
i was joking </3
polynomials ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 17:06:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
There was an English teacher at my high school who always told students to give him the "bold hypothesis." Basically what's the craziest theory you can come up with that is arguably supported by the text? If you could find some way to suggest that Allie didn't really die of an illness or the parents purposely infected Allie with the illness, he would have loved this.
AintNothinbutaGFring ยท 17 points ยท Posted at 05:53:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
/r/bestof material right here
kingofkyrgyzstan ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 00:24:24 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I did a similar thing with a brave new world. My car plays mp3 cds, so i popped in the audio book and listened to it to and from work daily. I didn't understand what was happening from chapter to chapter a bit. Turns out the cd player was on shuffle.
So, yeah, still not sure what went down in that book.
shakdude ยท 12 points ยท Posted at 15:42:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oh wow, I mean at least you read the actual book. I read through the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter) after watching the movie. Stupid me got angry over how different the movie was, until I realized that the book I read was completely fan-fiction. A full novel. Yes.
Mr_Meeseeks_01 ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 06:08:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This is amazing.
ADampDevil ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 15:53:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
My wife had a similar experience, only with the film The Matrix, where she dozed off just before Neo came out of the Matrix and woke up shortly after he went back in. Missed some crucial information there.
CryoBrown ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 16:22:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I don't know how you determined that a woman who falls asleep during the Matrix is wife material but I hope she's like a great cook or really nice or something.
juiceboxzero ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 18:39:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'll do you one better. My wife has never seen the Star Wars trilogy, and she has never seen the LOTR trilogy.
It's shameful really, but she's cute, so I let it slide. :)
formerfatboys ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 16:37:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I always thought Holden Caulfield was black. That's just how I imagined him.
Years later, I'm in my twenties and I was taking to some people about the book and mentioned that in a very off-handed way and people were like, "Dude, why in the world do you think he was black? He was a rich white kid at prep school in like the 60s." It has just never occurred to me that he was white. I just for some reason felt like the voice I was reading was black and never had it challenged. Even now I picture him like that.
DabuSurvivor ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 16:41:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Haha, I had a similar thing with To Kill A Mockingbird. Going into the book I knew it was about racism, so for like a third of the book or so, I figured Scout/Jem/Atticu were black and I still picture them that way. At one point in class asked "Wait... Scout's white?" and the teacher thought I was joking. (Fortunately not the same teacher. No one teacher had to bear witness to both mistakes.) But that's definitely a little more outlandish with Holden.
likeadcriss- ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 23:56:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Hey, me too! And for the same reason - I knew the story was about race before reading and now in my head I can't see Scout any other way but as a little black girl.
Shwanna85 ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 17:44:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm realizing, as I'm reading your comment, that this is exactly what I did 15 years ago, except I never looked into it so I've thought this all these years. I always LOVED the book but hated how it seemed to lack resolution. I wondered why people complained about Holden's weak charachter, thinking to myself that I'd be pretty dang whiney too if I thought my dad might kill me...now it all makes sense.
DabuSurvivor ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 17:49:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
We should start a support group.
Jayke1981 ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 14:42:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I've never read Catcher In the Rye - but I'm thinking I may have to now!!!
suroundnpound ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 23:17:13 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ive read it several times including as an adult and find it very enjoyable. It isnt too long either. I wouldnt be put off by the other commentator. Open it and see if you like the authors way of story telling. If you do sick with it.
Jayke1981 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 23:35:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
thanks for the tip
P_Jamez ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 16:39:50 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
If you are past your teenage years, the protagonist is an annoying little douche who you will despise spending time with
wankman ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 16:44:27 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I somehow missed reading this book in school. I will now read with the deliberate omission you decribed.
Furthermore, I can pass a doctored copy to my girlfriend, who's foreign and has never even heard of the book yet.
NedSnark ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 21:35:16 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Great post. I teach this book, and most students don't even notice that Allie plays any role. It's usually a dead give away that someone was on spark notes: they can tell you all about Allie's role in the novel. So it's especially funny to me that you literally missed those pages while reading.
yinoryang ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 22:23:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
In a somewhat similar vein, I never learned how to properly beat Ganondorf in the Forest Temple. Basically, you can hit back his attacks with a sword as in Tennis. Easy. However, I never figured it out, and just went through a bunch of fairies while hacking away until victory was achieved.
However, you MUST know this trick to beat the final Ganondorf. So I was getting absolutely crushed. One time, finally, almost out of hearts, Iโm frantically tapping C to drink a potion so I donโt die again. After I drink the potion, Iโm still hitting C, andโฆthe bottle swings, and returns Ganondorfโs fire to him. If it ainโt broke donโt fix it, so I used a bottle to defeat Ganondorf the first time. Oh well.
DabuSurvivor ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 22:49:21 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Haha, I can relate. Sounds like he couldn't handle your strongest potions. I haven't really played LoZ - only one I played was Ocarina of Time and I couldn't get past some tree level near the beginning; my ex gave me shit for this but I'm 99% sure it was literally impossible - but I had a similar thing in the third Ratchet and Clank game, Up Your Arsenal. One late boss is a giiiiiiiant mech controlled by a mercenary, and you're supposed to beat him by standing in these turrets scattered over the map that do a bunch of damage, firing at him as much as you can until he blows up your turret then moving on to the next one. The turrets do an absolutely absurd amount of damage, way more than any of your actual weapons; in other levels they can blow up virtually invulnerable spaceships and whatnot in just one shot. So the fact that the entire boss fight is based around using them means that he has a looooot of health.
...Well I didn't notice the turrets were there, so I very, verrrrry slowly whittled down from full health using my ordinary weapons, which also meant depleting absolutely all of their ammunition. It's basically impossible to beat him with just your weapons, even all of them with maximum ammo, so I had to work around that in a bunch of repetitive ways. I don't remember how much time it took me to beat him but I know it was a hell of a lot.
soupit ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 00:51:06 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I've definitely had experiences like this in video games before. I recall something similsr, for star wars Knights of the old Republic (KOTOR), I was playing the game and wanted to be a completionist, essentially to do 100% of the content I can taking the light path, then play again as the dark path, then if necessary a third time to do anything that I might have missed and just be grey. I got through half the game before opening the guide book I bought, and realizing I had given up talking to some cat Lady on the Dantooine Jedi Academy planet (Jahani?) who got mad easily and just killing her, when in fact shes one of few characters who can join your party and become a playable character throughout the rest of the game. I ended up restarting the game from the beginning and made sure to get her added to my party. Then her side mission glitched on the water planet and i wasn't even able to complete it anyway.
RemmiDami ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 23:49:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Pro tip: try reading the bible and reimagine god as an extraterrestrial. Best sci-fi book ever
mizu4444 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 00:24:18 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Holy crap! I read that book a dozen times as a kid and loved it and I just found out Allie was a boy??? I've been thinking it was his little sister this entire time!
k9centipede ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 00:28:55 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Haha I had something like that when I read Hitchhiker Guide. There was a few pages where they discussed the issues with time travel, particularly how grammar makes time travel impractical, and I was reading it while walking, so I looked up. And the page flipped back one. And I started reading again and reread that paragraph about time travel grammar. And omg the book made me feel like I had traveled through time!!
Then I searched the last few pages trying to find the original time that paragraph was written, before realizing what happened. Oops.
PM_ME_UR_STEAM_CODEZ ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 15:03:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I wish somebody would write a book exactly like this.
sathirtythree ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 15:19:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I've never read that book, but now I really want to, your way.
hobbycollector ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 15:54:14 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Still a better story than Catcher in the Rye.
linnth ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 16:05:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I just found one awesome technique to read books. Thanks dude.
Edit : book to books
Robotlollipops ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 16:13:53 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Honestly, your story is way more gripping...
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 16:18:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This is why we internet, folks.
DrCrappyPants ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 16:31:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I had a opposite experience reading The Grapes of Wrath. I wasn't into symbolism at all (thus the opposite experience), and read the book really flatly. My experience of the book was that it was a really sad tale of depression era life punctuated by wierd digressionsa about a turtle trying to cross a road. Unlike you, who was imputing symbolism into the book you read, I didn't see it at all and couldn't answer the test question about what the damn turtle represented.
Doggy_In_The_Window ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 17:25:48 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
With this reading in mind, can we get a re write of this book?
Periljoe ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 17:31:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Bestof material right here
series_hybrid ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 17:34:41 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
(*steals convoluted plot device of catcher in the rye with three crucial pages missing, cast screenplay with Leo DiCaprio, but Daniel Day Lewis wins an Oscar that year...camera zooms in for close-up of Leo suppressing real emotions...)
Earthness2000 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 17:37:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Sort of off the topic, but does anyone else hate it when teachers tell students not to trust the narrators words? That screwed me up so bad as a kid because the whole time I was focusing on whether or not they were lying to us, rather than reading the damn story. Like, you're not SUPPOSED to know the narrator is unreliable until you actually start reading the book. It just drives me insane. It's like telling someone who's watching Sixth Sense for the first time to "pay attention to all the things in red!" No!! Don't do that! Just WATCH THE FILM. anyway, /rant.
hewhoamareismyself ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 18:01:39 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This greatly improves my Catcher in the Rye experience about 4 years later and I thank you for that.
Cagg ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 18:26:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You should read RANT
Tentaclarm ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 18:35:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Like most people, the first time I met Buster Casey was after he died.
earthlingHuman ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 19:53:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You should rewrite the ending the way you expected it to be and omit the 2 pages
zrvwls ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 20:07:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Wow, never read Catcher in the Rye though I'd heard so much about it. This post you made is absolutely awesome, and now I want to experience it the way you did. Definitely going to add it to my list of books to read!
CatOfGrey ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 21:05:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
My first read was similar. I started the book, wasn't really reading it 'for real', and missed the whole context of the book.
I missed the whole 'David Copperfield kind of crap' reference, which is on the first page, which is where he is talking about not wanting to waste time telling someone about his childhood. Why? Because the whole book is his first session with a psychiatrist! FFS. And where do all the ducks go in the winter?
Oh, yeah - bonus points for someone who rewrites the above /u/DabuSurvivor post in Holden's voice!
txbob22 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 21:07:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Super cool man. That happened to me with the movie the hangover. I came in at the part were they all woke up!! I kind liked it less when I saw the beginning.
shrimcentral ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 22:19:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Someone should make a bootleg remake of the book, skipping that part and leaving the rest, and adding more allusions to it throughout the book.
But actually, that is my favorite book
Soccadude123 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 23:00:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Sweetest of all keks
AlvisDBridges ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 23:16:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
WOW. Maybe I would have been able to actually enjoy that shit-tier novel if I read your version...
Jeezy12 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 23:34:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Good thing you had Google
Drunkenaviator ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 00:02:41 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This is such an amazingly different experience than I had. When I had to read the book in high school, I got about 10 pages in, thought "man this shit is boring" and got the cliff notes.
ItsShiny ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:51:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
At least you figured out your mistake before going to class. That would have been a real TIF.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:07:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Admittedly from my limited understanding of the book (having tossed it as trash when I attempted to read it, a first for me) Holden had some serious issues that might have included Amnesia or Schizophrenia.
BigRonnieRon ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 20:18:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
He was recounting the whole thing from a sanitorium (psychiatric or convalescent care facility, more or less). It's fairly obvious if you read the last page or two carefully and are aware of the time period. (Younger) modern readers usually miss it.
IIRC the causes would have been (I haven't taught the book in a while) - he could have had what used to be termed a "nervous disorder" or "nervous breakdown", though he could have had TB, which seems likely given the dialogue, but it's pushing it if we accord the book a strict internal chronology, given then the book takes place in 1948 at the earliest, after streptomycin (a TB antibiotic) was found.
ciberaj ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:31:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This reminds me of that "France Is Bacon" post from reddit. The confussion and trying to roll with it until the end.
BardsApprentice ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:00:04 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
just a giant 'fuck you'
marsaya ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 22:21:39 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That book fucking sucks tho
tasty-fish-bits ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 22:33:48 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'd watch this movie.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 01:10:28 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Best Reddit comment of all time.
feedingmydreams ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 01:13:45 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Wow, that would make for a much better book.
[deleted] ยท -30 points ยท Posted at 06:06:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I accidentally skipped a few paragraphs, and I was waiting for you to explain how you missed this crucial element. Then the end came and it was so weak, man. I had to go back to find my mistake. When you reread this comment, imagine you accidentally look away, and then look back right before the paragraph where the finger slip up is explained, then imagine reading through the whole thing with NO FUCKING CLUE how this mistake happened. I mean, the whole book is detailed and I just kept waiting for the part when it would be revealed and then it just ended and I was like WTF, where is the explanation!
Hiei2k7 ยท -15 points ยท Posted at 13:14:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That was a wonderful post and all, but I'm gonna need about tree fiddy....
jesus_sold_weed ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 04:48:50 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You're not really meant to like him... I mean the end of the novel is him basically realizing how fucked he's been in his thinking. That's how I took it. I like Holden a lot. I still do. He's a great character and the fact that his reception changes with age is one of my favorite parts about the book.
CrystalElyse ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 12:04:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I thought the end was him admitting that he wanted to become some sort of messed up Peter Pan and force children to remain children forever, never becoming adults, because he didn't understand how adults function in the slightest?
jesus_sold_weed ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 12:33:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
No, as he watches his sister on the carousel he realizes all of that is impossible.
CrystalElyse ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:13:00 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ah, I must have forgotten that bit.
ChardIsSoHard ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 05:16:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It was the first book I ever read that I realized that the protagonist doesn't have to be good or likeable. Enjoyed it the second time around much more for that reason.
[deleted] ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 04:28:39 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, high school girlfriend loved him and I hated him.
Aaron215 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:43:41 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It was so insufferable for me that I didn't suffer it. I requested a different book from my teacher and did a different report. I've never really hated anyone, real or imaginary, except for Holden Caulfield.
venterol ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 20:21:14 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Man, you're teacher must've been pretty lenient. We got assigned Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees my sophomore year, from what I gathered from older students and the first few chapters it would be a total slog (it was). I requested a different novel and my English teacher told me "Tough. If I have to suffer through teaching this you have to suffer through learning it."
At least we were on the same page...
Aaron215 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 01:07:20 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
My teacher was pretty cool. She went on to become a principal, then a superintendent. I was a good student too, so when I told her I had no intention of reading the rest of this book, and I was okay with guessing on the tests and making up stuff for any papers, she was more than agreeable to letting me pick another book. I wasn't a jerk about it, so I guess that helped. And I stuck with it for a bit and I knew I'd end up doing extra work, so that helped that I wasn't trying to get out of work.
getting2birdsstoned ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 15:09:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
i don't think you got it if you liked the book otherwise
venterol ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 20:24:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I liked the writing style and themes presented, just not Holden. It was sort of like Neon Genesis for me; despised Shinji, but loved the overall package.
recoverybelow ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 18:27:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yes that's the point I think
AlvisDBridges ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 23:16:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I fucking hate that book. I have no idea why people enjoyed it, it was torture for me having to hear that whiny piece of shit be put on a pedestal... God it bugged me and still does.
Orc_ ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 01:32:01 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
woah
LOLingMAO ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:34:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Same read it in 7th grade, and I finished it and the whole thing was annoying, Holden is a real whiny bitch.
-JustShy- ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 15:44:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, I hated it when I read it in high school. Holden was just too angsty.
HeloRising ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 16:50:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This was one of the primary reasons I hated that book when we had to read it. The teacher insisted that "No, no, no you guys will love it!"
Nope. Holden just came off as self-absorbed and irritating.
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 03:36:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You should read the sequel, it puts everything in context.
Roller_ball ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 04:00:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
sequel?
[deleted] ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 04:02:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, it came out a few years later, but is much harder to find now. Complete twist ending that changes the whole way you think about the first book. Recommended.
Edit: So many Holdens are going out of their way to prove me incorrect. Is joke.
Roller_ball ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 04:07:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Are you referring to that book some dude with no associate to Salinger wrote? That one is as much of a sequel as Hamlet 2: Ophelia's Revenge
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 04:39:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
There's only one Hamlet 2 and it's this one
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 04:09:00 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You mean this one not written by Salinger?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6470270-60-years-later
GLaDOSexe ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:11:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I can't find anything about a sequel on Google
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:09:21 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"Ocean Full of Bowling Balls" is an unreleased short story that I personally find very enlightening to Holden's attitude. It gave me a very different view on Catcher. Salinger willed it to remain unpublished until the '60's of this century, but if you feel intrepid, there's some copies floating around online.
Roller_ball ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:15:04 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I actually read the one available copy at Princeton's rare books library. IIRC it happens before the events in Catcher. Holden is still at boarding school at the time and comes home at the very end for a brief moment. Also, it isn't exactly canon since it has a bunch of conflicting elements with Catcher. The brother die a different way in it and I think the family structure is different.
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 04:30:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yea, my memory may be fogged up a bit by now. I just remember that reading the first-hand account of the brother's death gave more insight to why Holden is so fixed on saving kids. That fixation never connected to anything else in Catcher to me, the short story clicked it in place.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 17:11:22 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That is EXACTLY what I thought when I read that book in high school. God, what an annoying, self absorbed douchebag.
eren_kesef ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 17:24:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Same. Reading Catcher in the Rye just made me realize that I was kinda a little bitch.
thatguywithglasses97 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 22:16:22 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I feel like people who complain about that are totally missing the point. Yeah, Holden's a whiner and a hypocrite but that makes him kind of tragic. I feel like those kinds of flaws were supposed to reflect on the reader as well. . It's obvious he's been through a couple of traumatic experiences (his brother's death, possible sexual molestation) and is having serious trouble dealing with it.
That being said, had I read the book now opposed to when I was 16, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much.
cleanshot911 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 22:45:45 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That's a really valid point. Kind of comment on human nature huh? I like that.
thatguywithglasses97 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 23:45:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It really is. It's not about some whiney, first world problems kid. It's about someone trying to protect innocence. Holden's a teenager on the cusp of adulthood, who's deeply afraid of the world before him. He wants to protect children from what he sees as the evils of adulthood, but he's definitely not the best person to do that. He's clearly attracted to adult privileges like sex and drinking, but he's also repulsed by them.
At the end, Holden feels happy for the first time in the novel. He has no idea why, and it doesn't last, but I don't think that matters. He felt it once, and he can feel it again.
So I guess the Catcher has two lessons, for adults and teenagers. For adults, it's no use telling kids they're useless and whiney, and that they need to get there act together. Sometimes all they need is to be listened to, and to be told it's going to be ok. For teenagers, it's going to be ok.
cleanshot911 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 23:57:42 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I actually kind of have more respect for the book with that idea in mind. To be fair there are a lot of ways to interpret books in general, and Catcher in the Rye is no exception, but I'd like to think that that was what Salinger was getting at, regardless of whether or not it's correct.
downund3r ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 22:34:34 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
When I read this in high school, I had pretty much the same thought. You read the novel and you just want to punch Holden for whining so much, and punch Salinger for writing such an awful character in the first place.
mragent0028 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:06:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ah see, I read it around 15-16, and thought it was a bit of both. He had that teenage angst I could identify with, but I could still watch as he fucked his life up fairly consistently. I had more of the impression that it was pointing out the rediculous in being a "rebel without a cause..." Kinda made me rethink a bit, but not too much. I really enjoyed it.
quigs17 ยท 12 points ยท Posted at 02:42:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Well time to re-read this book now
[deleted] ยท 12 points ยท Posted at 14:57:16 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"Holden is full of shit" is such a tired trope.
An adult reading that book should want to give him a hug and tell him it'll be alright. The child is clearly overwhelmed by a life he can't understand.
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 07:36:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Hold on, you read Catcher in the Rye as a teenager and thought Holden had his shit together? Even at 16 when I first read it, I knew he was fucking up. Still adored the book, but I never thought he "got it." That being said, I think a lot of the things Holden hates about Pencey would drive me fucking mad as well.
ImperialSympathizer ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 09:28:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Hm. Like many people have pointed out, most teenagers tend to think of Holden as a whiny asshole.
As an adult, it seems easier to empathize with Holden's self-destructive behavior and struggle for fulfillment.
TitoTheMidget ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 15:03:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I had the opposite response. As a 15 year old I thought "Man, what a whiny asshole." Reading it again at 26 I thought "Oh. He's clinically depressed. I get it now."
captainpalma ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:52:21 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I was forced to read it in high school by a guy I considered by best friend. Always talked about how much he loved that book. I just didn't get it man. The kid always came off just like you describe him, a whiny asshole.
dlbear ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 16:08:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I got to the end of Catcher and said "Wow, big fucking deal". Nothing about Holden made me give a shit about him, and I developed no interest whatsoever in any of the characters, least of all Holden. It was one of the most uninteresting novels I've ever read
VeryThing ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:33:04 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I couldn't even handle Holden Caulfield in high school. That book gave me anxiety and made me want to rip my hair out. I have always thought he was a whiny asshole.
Uldyr ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 04:59:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I read that book as a teenager and said "Oh wow, what a whiny little phony asshole"
1InEveryCrowd ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:07:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I agree, age changes the perspective on so many things. Would be interesting how the author would have written it in his later years.
Frozen-assets ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:17:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I just read it for the first time as a middle aged man. While I didn't identify with the main character I felt he was extremely well written. The author makes it sound part autobiographical.
brianlpowers ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:02:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I read it as a teenager... I think I skipped ahead and went straight to 'oh wow, what a whiny little asshole.' I've never picked up the book again.
burnie_mac ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:19:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I feel like I hated him in high school but could relate to him now
Obi-wan_Jabroni ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 17:05:06 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
As someone who read it in high school 4 years ago im gonna have to disagree with you. Holden is the worst
abc123shutthefuckup ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 17:56:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm going to go against the grain here and say that I agree with you
When I read it in school, I didn't think Holden was really an asshole. Whiny? Sure, and I also thought he was dumb as fuck and really antisocial, but I didn't think he was this huge douchebag that everyone here is making him out to be. He struck me as a young guy suffering from some extreme ennui and feeling like an utter outcast, and wishing he could be living some other life, any other life. Disgruntled and unsatisfied, he took it out on everyone around him, but never once though that maybe he needed to look at himself to change his life and find satisfaction instead of blaming everybody else
Granted, I read the book like 12 years ago, so my memory is foggy
rnw159 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:36:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You've got it backwards. Most kids think he's super whiny and annoying, but when you read it again as a 30 year old you realize that he's just a kid. He's just a kid who tries very very hard to be a good person. You realize that he's is incredible kind and empathetic and his character is actually a lot deeper than just a guy who whines a lot.
MrTheFalcon ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:36:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, but they were all phoneys.
XSplain ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:11:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
He came off as a whiny spoiled little shit to me as a teenager.
I think the real lesson in it is how deluded we are to our own failings. Holden was a hypocrite because he hated phony people but he was entirely full of shit whenever he talked to anybody. Assholes don't realize they're assholes, no matter how apparent it is to everyone else.
knitasha ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 20:07:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yes, Catcher In The Rye and also the movie Ghost World.
I identified so strongly with Enid when that movie came out. Re-watching as an adult, all I could think was "Jesus Christ, Enid. Shut up and get a job, you fucking brat!"
secretcrazy ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 23:54:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I remember feeling puzzled about why people thought he was depressed because everything he was saying seemed normal to me. Turned out I was very depressed and had no idea at the time
MaesterChief117 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 01:23:25 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I think you might enjoy these. Language, Voice, and Holden Caulfield: The Catcher in the Rye Part 1
Holden, JD, and the Red Cap- The Catcher in the Rye Part 2
funwiththoughts ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:58:12 on November 18, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Bullcrap. Teenagers say "oh wow, what a whiny little asshole." 30-year olds say "oh wow, this is just like me when I was a teenager."
dusmeyedin ยท -1 points ยท Posted at 03:34:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I agree wholeheartedly. I never read it as a teenager, and I got around to reading it when I was 31.
The only merit I could see with the novel was that it might be of some historical interest to somebody who wanted to read about contemporary New York night life hotspots.
Edit: I personally feel that JD Salinger is overrated and I can't see what the fuss is about.
gladvillain ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 03:41:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Maybe you missed the boat, then. I haven't read it as an adult but as a teenager it was remarkably relatable.
CrystalElyse ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 12:05:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I read it as a teenager and couldn't relate to him at all. Holden was just an awful person and the book left me feeling so upset because I just wanted to shake him.
dusmeyedin ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 03:59:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Maybe.
I suspect my experience would be very similar to /u/loptopandbingo 's experience, though. "Hey this is great!" as a teenager, and then "...No it's not" as an adult.
For better or worse, I just jumped to the end result without the intervening period of temporary enjoyment. Such is life.
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 04:10:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Nope. It's not a book for everyone. I never liked it and I read it twice when I was young. 16 and 19
gladvillain ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:03:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Honestly this thread is making me want to revisit it.
dusmeyedin ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 04:08:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
So there's a phenomenon in literature (and probably movies, art, etc. as well) where the first big work to create a new genre gets overshadowed by its later imitators.
Bram Stoker's Dracula is my favorite example - the world's first really popular vampire novel, it was later overshadowed by more polished, modernist takes on it.
This probably was what happened to me with my reading of Catcher. It was the modern world's first truly bestselling work addressing teenage isolation, mental/emotional disturbance, and conflicting fears and desires about sex. But it came out in the 1950s and it spawned an entire genre of works that I encountered much earlier in my life when I was in the target reader demographic (including the superb The Secret History by Donna Tartt, published in 1992).
So I probably came to this novel the wrong way, by first reading up on its literary progeny and then coming to it full of high expectations.
The "ur-example" of a genre is its earliest big, notable work. It's not necessarily its most well-aged or well-executed. I think this applies to Catcher in the Rye. It climbed that mountain first, but its subsequent followers have eclipsed it in craft and workmanship.
Gggtttrrreeeee ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 04:36:48 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Liking or relating to the main character isn't it shouldn't be what makes you appreciate a book.
I think you may have misinterpreted the original comment. I think Holden Caufield is a whiny little bitch, but I think it's quite a good book in style and approach.
dusmeyedin ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 08:29:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Whenever somebody says the word "should" in a sentence, especially when the entire sentence is about one person's personal taste, it makes me wonder what basis they're using for this sudden application of an objective rule to subjective preference.
Gggtttrrreeeee ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 15:06:46 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Note I said should rather than does/is. I acknowledge that it might not. You just assume that not liking the hero means you don't like the book.
What basis? Simple art appreciation. Art is about eliciting a response.
[deleted] ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 04:13:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
dusmeyedin ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 04:16:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Actually, this was my biggest problem with it - I found it was horribly dated. Hence my comment about "it might be of historical interest..." above.
But that's, like, just my own opinion, man. If you liked it and the book meant something to you, that's good too.
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 04:18:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
dusmeyedin ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 04:22:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Interesting, so Mark Twain isn't your cup of tea?
I personally found Mark Twain nothing special. He wasn't unbearable, but I couldn't really connect with his witticisms and so forth.
One much older author that I can't get into at all is Charles Dickens. Everything is so drawn out in the descriptions and he spends so much time with linked sentences just building up momentum. Yes, Mr. Dickens, I get that London is foggy and dirty during the Industrial Revolution. Can we please get on with the story?
Sort of thing.
With Salinger, I couldn't really find myself identifying with Holden's internal emotions and his outlook. This is a big problem because much of the novel takes place in his own head, so if I'm not able to put myself there (through whatever accident of history, personality, or experience) then the rest of the book will be pretty alien to me. That's more or less what happened - I read through the book faithfully but couldn't connect with the central protagonist's struggles, and so the primary feature of the book reverted to its historical epoch in the mid-fifties (or earlier).
To each their own.
Galligan4life ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 03:59:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Well shit, I guess all the literary critics who have given his books acclaim were confused, or something. Hell, the millions of fans he has must be really confused. I mean, you can shit on whatever you want, by all means do that, but don't pretend like your opinion has some lofty worth that elevates it above all others. If anything, you just come off like a douche.
dusmeyedin ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 04:03:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Looks like this rustled some jimmies. Your mileage may vary, and everything I've written is just my own opinion. It's completely possible that hundreds of thousands of people like something that I don't. And that's okay - nobody's wrong. I should have said "I found JD Salinger to be overrated", maybe that would be clearer.
Happy cakeday, BTW.
Galligan4life ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 04:30:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I've got a few Jaimie's very dear to my heart that rustle without warning. Yeah, I understand that people usually are stating their own opinions, but nobody every clarifies that and yeah. It makes it hard to tell who to take seriously because there are people out there who believe that their opinion is the holy truth, unfortunately.
flybaiz ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 03:51:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Agree with /r/gladvillain. Go yell at a cloud you old fart.
dusmeyedin ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:24:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I told that cloud good. It got the hell off my lawn, for sure.
choczynski ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:41:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I read Catcher In The Rye as a teenager.
I fucking HATE Holden Caulfield so much. This is the closes thing I can find to my hate for that book.
thebeginningistheend ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 08:42:34 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Of course you hate Holden, he has clinical depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and labors under the assumption that all his family and schoolfriends hate his fucking guts. He hates himself a lot more than you hate him.
harbinjer ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:57:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"whiny little asshole" is pretty much exactly what I thought of him at 15. Made me loathe the book, with a passion, more than any other assigned reading.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:03:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This might explain why I hated the book so much, didn't read it until 28.
dackots ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:11:22 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I read it when I was 14 and almost couldn't finish it because of how much I hated Holden.
Envy121 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:25:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Maybe because I read it during the rise of hipsters but there was never a moment where I thought Holden wasn't a douchebag.
Noodle36 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:21:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This actually works for /r/SandersForPresident, too.
[deleted] ยท 67 points ยท Posted at 03:44:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 05:29:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Never taken a hit out on someone, have you?
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 20:49:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
So you're a man with two knives, eh? Sounds pretty great.
sergregor ยท 311 points ยท Posted at 02:30:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
But Lisa is and always has been more of an "adult" than the actual adults... I'll identify with her until the very end. Although as I get older I also am becoming Abe.
theone1221 ยท 31 points ยท Posted at 04:02:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Eat my shorts, you goodie two shoes.
rburp ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:57:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Hey don't have a cow man.
ReservoirDog316 ยท 28 points ยท Posted at 04:23:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
We got beets!
Bloodfeastisleman ยท 18 points ยท Posted at 04:30:29 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You don't make friends with salad.
wegsmijtaccount ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 07:39:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's funny, but that episode had a lot to do with me becoming a vegetarian myself.
I had some feelings brewing about slaughtering animals, but becoming a vegetarian was still something very far fetched. But that show really summed up exactly how I felt, it was eary. It helped me wrap my mind around the fact that eating animals wasn't for me.
Plus, it helped me realise that just because you think something is an injustice, you have to be really carefull with how you present it, otherwise people will mock you. You really don't make friends with salad. You've got halloumi for that ;)
Shades101 ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 04:34:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You don't make friends with salad!
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 05:20:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You don't make friends with salad!
Rushdownsouth ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 06:02:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You don't make friends with salad! starts dancing
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 07:47:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Lisa is the part of life you go through when you continually learn important lessons and feel enlightened that you have struck the truth which nobody else sees... where in fact everyone with a few years on you has already struck these concepts, done the self examination, lived through some kind of transition as a result, and no longer feels the need to tell you about it, because they understand its a lesson learned through being walked, not being told.
Xenalien ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:18:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That newspaper snippet was used on one of the loading screens for The Simpsons Hit and Run. I never remembered seeing it in the actual show!
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:37:48 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I knew what it was, clicked anyway.
Patomark ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:17:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Lisa too!?
iamthe_walrusiest ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 04:35:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Especially Lisa! But especially Bart.
BoringSupreez ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 09:30:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Lol no, Lisa's a self-righteous twat.
CantStopWhitey ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 15:48:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah, what a pretentious loser.
powerplant472 ยท 26 points ยท Posted at 02:34:21 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I remember when I looked up to Lisa like the older sister I never had now I look down on my past self that was like Otto. I can almost relate with Homer.
KickstartOrange ยท 99 points ยท Posted at 01:23:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I always identified with Lisa, then I had a kid and now I'm Marge. I cringed when I realized that.
rudy_russo ยท 76 points ยท Posted at 02:56:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You don't think potatoes are neat, do you?
Tinfoilhartypat ยท 16 points ยท Posted at 04:19:00 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
No kid yet, but have developed a reflexive Marge-like grumblymoangroan of disapproval. Potatoes are neat!
hilarymeggin ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 04:50:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I do it so much that my 4 yo daughter already does it too!
hilarymeggin ยท 34 points ยท Posted at 04:49:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Bart: "Ugh, these Renaissance Festivals are so boring!!" Marge: "Oh really? Have you seen the loom?"
[deleted] ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 09:29:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"This is the store where I buy my yarn. But you don't wanna buy your buttons there!" Sounds so much like my mom. I always wondered how people turn into Marges.
rustybuckets ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:13:47 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oray-gano... What the hell is that?
Boro84 ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 15:04:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
8 spices!? Some of them have to be duplicates
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:31:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Well at least you don't need braces now.
[deleted] ยท 53 points ยท Posted at 02:58:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Same reason Randy Marsh resonates so much more with me now.
masongr ยท 25 points ยท Posted at 05:15:09 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You though this was america?
Derekabutton ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 12:05:04 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
He does respect you, bro.
JuanTawnJawn ยท 45 points ยท Posted at 05:41:46 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm not old enough to have that with the Simpsons but when I was a kid spongebob was just starting up and I saw squid ward as some grumpy ass old man. Now I see him as a normal person and spongebob as some super hyper-active annoying little shit.
Pirate_Crippler ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 11:04:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I remember watching the premiere of sponge bob during the kids choice awards at like 10 years old and the moment Living In The Sunlight kicked in I remember saying to myself "This show won't last a season".
I was happily proven wrong in the fallowing few years.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 23:59:29 on December 17, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Same thing happened with me and The Last Airbender. From the promos, I thought it looked lame.
The show blew my mind.
Rawrplus ยท -2 points ยท Posted at 10:14:42 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
What are you, 12?
characterlimitsuckdi ยท -3 points ยท Posted at 11:04:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
How could you not be old enough to have it with the Simpsons? The Simpsons was and is still on
[deleted] ยท -2 points ยท Posted at 14:50:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You're too young to be swearing on the internet, son.
JuanTawnJawn ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 15:11:34 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah.... You realize that spongebob aired in 1999 right? And I was already a child when that happened. Basic math skills my friend. They come in handy some times.
[deleted] ยท -5 points ยท Posted at 15:14:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You were already a child in 1999? Do you understand what jokes are?
midas__is__king ยท 14 points ยท Posted at 04:26:00 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I used to have a crush on Rory Gilmore. Now it's all about Lorelai.
BlueImpulse ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 12:26:44 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I just rewatched it all the way through. It's funny how now I side with Lorelei and identify with her much more. Also, ditto on the crush.
Boro84 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:06:50 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Alexis Blidel....them eyes doe
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:17:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
My girlfriend has been watching Gilmore Girls on repeat for a long, long time now. At first I came for the pretty cast members, but I stayed because it's... a pretty damn good show.
Bacon_Bitz ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 14:19:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I agree. I even totally understand the grandmother's side!
MrJeef ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:00:42 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Or, you know, we could work something out and get both in on the action.
Twons ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 17:51:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Rewatched it last winter and realized the same thing. It hit me like a sack if bricks.
the_quick ยท 23 points ยท Posted at 23:29:41 on November 8, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Just call me Jasper!...... That's a paddling!
Mediocretes1 ยท 9 points ยท Posted at 04:20:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Found the Dom.
[deleted] ยท 11 points ยท Posted at 03:25:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Wow never really realized how long I've watched them. I remember watching the Simpsons when they were a short on the Tracey Ulman show...(personally I thought they were the best part of that show... But I was just a whippersnapper)
Crimson_Rhallic ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:18:00 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
When I was younger, it was the main motivation for why I watched the Tracey Ulman show. I was extremely shocked the night the Simpson shorts were not included. During their ending cast commentary Tracey mentioned staying tuned for the premier of the Simpsons new stand alone show. I was so thrilled (and a little lucky to be there from the beginning) to see a full length show of the Simpsons.
TheSaltbird ยท 12 points ยท Posted at 03:59:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
As long as I've been alive, The Simpsons has been on air.
[deleted] ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 13:29:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:42:50 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
XDDDDDDDDDDdddssbbbnbb
DrTardis89 ยท 11 points ยท Posted at 03:46:44 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I have been still am and alway will be homer.
They will put "I can't believe I ate the whole thing on my gravestone"
RodStewartsHairspray ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 17:09:27 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I have a folder on my laptop called 'Smile Material'. In it I keep pictures that can cheer me up when I'm feeling a little blue. I've got a screen grab of that year book shot in there. It slays me every time.
iFINALLYmadeAcomment ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 15:07:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Bart: This is the worst day of my life.
Homer: The worst day of your life so far.
large-farva ยท 32 points ยท Posted at 03:01:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's because the writers intentionally stopped focusing on bart.
breakerbreaker ยท 30 points ยท Posted at 03:38:50 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That was like season three though.
tallblonddrinkopepsi ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 02:00:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This thought is one reason I knew I was getting old.
PhoneJazz ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 04:01:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
We went from no kids and 3 money to 3 kids and no money.
PermaDerpFace ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 04:12:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm not sure but I think the show started out focused on Bart and shifted to Homer. Here's something depressing though, everyone who was Bart's age when the show first aired is a year or two away from being Homer's age :(
xrimane ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:51:26 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Same age, actually. The Simpsons first aired in 1987, and Bart was 10, so born in 1977. He would be 38 today, which is precisely Homers age given in the show.
PermaDerpFace ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:20:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I thought 39, but from Wikipedia:
Homer's age has changed as the series developed; he wasย 36 inย the early episodes,ย 38ย andย 39 in season eight, andย 40 in the eighteenth season, although even in those seasons his age is inconsistent
Rasera ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 04:34:20 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Originally I had a big, long winded post about how the more recent seasons (from the movie onwards) have actually been improving in quality, and that it was basically seasons 13 - 17 that were pretty meh, along with numerous episodes that I would recommend people watch.
But the reddit circle jerk about Simpsons will never die, so here's this comment in place of it.
And I always identified strongest with Lisa
DetEndeloseSvart ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 11:45:51 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I haven't seen the show in like ten years but that's mostly because I just haven't watched TV in that long. If The Simpsons was on Netflix or something, I would watch it all the time, and I'd gladly randomize amongst all of the seasons. I'm sure I'd get a lot of bad ones from that, but hey.
As it is, I'm usually too lazy to get out my DVD box sets and put them on, so I just don't see the show anymore.
Chopstick2U ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 05:00:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's like the general dialog from the top comments is pre-ordained in every Simpsons thread that makes the front page--like watching a bunch of dudes quoting Happy Gilmore at each other until they've performed an entire scene.
newguy2445 ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 05:25:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I eat pieces of shit you're right.
trackerbishop3 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 12:16:12 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
They had a couple decent seasons around h the mypod episode. They ruined Homer completely vs how he was I'm the 90s.
yeswhatyes ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:04:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I've been hearing whispers and rumors along those lines. Enough so I'm trying to jump back in, even. I'd like to read your long winded comment, if you still wanna write it.
vbnm678 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:17:48 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's a shame too. Whether or not you actually enjoy the newer episodes, you have to admit they've really been pushing the envelope the last few seasons. Too many people are hung up on the way things were to appreciate the way things are.
Unic0rnBac0n ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 07:59:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Malcolm in the Middle does this perfectly. When I was a child I thought their parents (especially the mum) was a demon spawn. Watching it again now I realise it was the kids that were related to the devil.
108claws ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 04:50:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oh and don't even get me started on that Ferris Bueller. What a young rich spoiled brat of a punk.
[deleted] ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 03:29:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Shit, son, I've given up identifying with Homer and I'm now identifying with Abraham.
Boro84 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:09:37 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Whats IT is strange and scary...it'll happen to you!!!!
[deleted] ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 03:37:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Homer was always the funnier character, over Bart.
DrPac ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 03:42:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"What a time to be alive."
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:31:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
-Old Man Jasper
jdw625 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 04:52:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
When I was a kid the Homer and Marge flashbacks, when they were highschool sweethearts, always took place in the 70's. I saw an episode a few years ago where they flashed back to 90's instead. From disco to grunge rock lol
glenomenon ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:08:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
"The 90's? Never heard of it." - Bart Simpson, 2008
my_fish_memo ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 23:28:03 on November 8, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
My "D'oh!" moment as a young dad was a noteworthy moment of my life from "Eat my shorts, man"
dirtyinthebrain ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 04:53:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I was in 4th grade when the show started. I'm 35 now.
Imagine how much better it could be if Phil Hartman was still alive.
_Schadenfreudian ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 09:01:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I started out identifying with Lisa. Passionate, intelligent, shunned.
At 24 I see myself more with Edna. Jaded. Cynical. Promiscuous. A smoker.
signupordiiiiiiiiiz ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 10:14:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Same with video games in general. Average age of a gamer is like 33.
consort_oflady_vader ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:51:20 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
We're the ones with the money. I was talking about being an adult/growing up to some students. They assumed it was all bad. Assured them, it's not.
skztr ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 12:15:56 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The Simpsons has been on the air long enough that I've stopped identifying with any of the characters
Jwhite45 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:12:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Same thing happened with spongebob. I grew up to become squidward
jesus_sold_weed ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:46:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm as old as the show. Whenever I forget my age, I think of the season.
phantom_bella ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 05:08:53 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Ugghhhhh and they are all still wearing the same clothes!
northern_tide ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 06:15:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
when I was a kid, I used to laugh at Moe & Barney, now, not so much
Fat_Caddy_Daddy ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 07:14:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Top comments are a South Park discussion? I think it's much more poignant that I was Bart, and now I'm Homer.
hempels_sofa ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 07:17:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I first saw The Simpsons on the Tracy Ullman show when I was eleven. I'm almost forty. That means I'm now older than Homer....
VikingMilo ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 08:55:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I totally agree! Though one of the later episodes "Cock magic" really brings me back to when I played Magic The Gathering!
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:14:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Pretty sure that was a South Park episode.
ThatsBullocks ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 09:05:28 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I got more!
issc ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 09:41:13 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Skinners the realest character in the show for me =\
uselessDM ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:21:48 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Or Krabappel.
issc ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 12:35:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
yeah I used to think they were miserable suckers but they seem to have things figured out and are living accordingly.
thegreger ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 10:57:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Before you know it, you'll be yelling at clouds.
xxGhosttsohGxx ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 11:46:09 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Same with Southpark. I now like Randy the best.
Laterface ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 12:00:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The show has changed to a large degree too. In the beginning it was far more Bart centric than it is today. Homer has become the show's main instigator, but the writers manage to spread the love and around to several of the other characters.
b333fburger ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:16:29 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
the simpsons has been on the air long enough, that it is no longer even worth watching. It is really sad how much it has declined. There is nothing clever or witty about it anymore, and there hasn't been for many years. I say put it out of its misery.
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:21:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
fpsmoto ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:51:27 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Relevant
jackacase ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 14:55:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The same thing happened to me with reading Calvin and Hobbes comics.
StylussKid ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 16:26:20 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
They've been on long enough that I've seen this same shower thought like three or four times......
mittensquish ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 17:18:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
finally someone said it!
dorkmonster ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 02:36:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
kinda like how in south park you used to identify with the kids, but now the Dad.
GTRbrahh ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 03:23:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
holy shit
findgretta ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 03:39:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I do too now that you've pointed it out.
captaindurango ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 03:47:29 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
On a side comparison, I find that I definitely identify closer to Squidward now.
LordOfThePC ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 03:56:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This is true. I'm more like Homer than I'd ever thought I'd be.
profamitywatcher ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:02:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
omg, you're right...I'm more into mmm...beer, than cowabunga man...
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:13:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Blowing my fucking mind here man! It's scary that Homer is in such a mess with his health and I'm almost his age. Holy shit!
Juniper07 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:23:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This is legit so true
DanzoFriend ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:24:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I feel the same way about Married With Children
butitdothough ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:30:53 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I started seeing why Homer would strangle that little dickhead Bart.
dannytheguitarist ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:32:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yeah. When the show started, I was a wee bit younger than Bart. Now I'm a wee bit older than Homer. And that's depressing.
helleowmeow ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:39:07 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
university of southern california?
KubrickIsMyCopilot ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:00:48 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I was contemporary with Bart Simpson when it started. Now I'm almost contemporary with Homer.
withbellson ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:39:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
36 and 239!
ILOVEGAYASSPORN ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:02:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Well, becuase your older now of course
WakeupB42late ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:13:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
So did the writers after about two or three seasons.
newsagg ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:17:55 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
>people still watch Simpsons
caraut ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:24:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The story of my life, literally. I am the exact same age as The Simpsons. Almost to the hour in the Eastern Timezone.
ryan49321 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 05:34:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I had the same happen when I started taking work breaks during "Boy Meets World"
sleepicat ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:00:44 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Man, you is old.
dackots ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:04:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I hate Marge.
TotesMessenger ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:18:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
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[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 07:26:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm in between at the moment. Dont identify with the kids any more, but at 18, I don't identify with the adults either... Why, Matt? Y u no hav regular teen characters?
Merari01 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:15:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
When Simpsons started airing I was about Barts age. Now I am Homers age.
horseradishking ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:15:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I made this switch 15 years ago.
CorkKid ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:26:44 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
This is deeper than I'd like.
Caitstreet ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:35:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Stop... you make me feel old
TheDothraki ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:02:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Upvote for correct grammar (has, not have). It's an easy trap to fall into, but one you avoided beautifully.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:07:36 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Though it isn't airing anymore, this is how I feel about Rugrats.
Craptivist ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:08:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Holy shites...... I didn't even realize I was doing that.
UPRC ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:35:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It's crazy how true this is. If the show keeps going for years yet and they recast characters, eventually we might be saying that we once related to Homer but now relate best with Abe. Or Jasper.
breecher ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:44:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
In the earliest seasons, when they had flashbacks about Homer and Marges college youth, they were set in the 70s, and Homer listened to progrock. They even had a couple of episodes in the early 90s where Homer is trying to be hip with the grunge kids of that time.
In one of the later episodes the flashback about Homer and Marges college youth is set in the 1990s with Homer starting a grungeband.
In a couple of years time such a flashback episode would be set around the turn of the millenium.
sisepuede4477 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 10:21:38 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Just wait, eventually you will stop watching them all together.
hks9 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 10:25:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I blame family guy for this change in American animated comedy television
EnkiiMuto ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 10:34:22 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Funny, I watch it since I was 9 or 10 and never identified with anyone.
nylightz ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 10:34:29 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Bart was written as the main character at the start but eventually they moved it over to homer.
zelandofchocolate ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:13:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
When I was a kid, I thought it was funny that they closed down the SEX CAULDRON place. Now I'm quite upset about that.
CrushCoalMakeDiamond ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:16:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The Simpsons has been on the air long enough that I've stopped watching it.
Logan_Mac ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:33:39 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
There are more "bad seasons" of The Simpsons than ones considered good (pre-season 11/10)
thegr8rambino13 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:34:25 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Yet I still watch it every time its on because!
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:44:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Homer is the reason I drink so much
comicdiarrhea ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:48:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
holy fuck
jmestrin ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 12:07:41 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
so does this mean you have matured in to a grown up? Ughh :-) Have a great day !
pepidav ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 12:41:31 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The Simpsons went downhill after Phil Hartman died.
Disgruntled__Goat ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:11:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The Simpsons has been on the air long enough that literally more than half of its episodes are shit.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:35:09 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The Simpsons very quickly moved away from Bart as being the focus of the show, and went to Homer since he was a more likable character. I'm not sure if it went that way because of all the nonsense about Bart being a bad influence to children, but Homer has been my favorite character since season 5...mostly because my dad wouldn't let me watch the show until then.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:46:27 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
deleted What is this?
zocc ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 13:58:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Old fart here. Never could identify with the Simpsons adults.
Too much tree hugging IMHO. It seems like Groening tries to educate us all by putting on characters that are too simply the opposite of what is good. Humor is subtle and jokes mustn't be blatantly clear.
Family guy is more my character. Peter is an absolute nutter and less predictable than a hippo. Perhaps he resembles one in many different ways.
UsernameNeo ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:00:00 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Soon you'll identify with Grandpa.
The_Quibbler ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:02:53 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
And they've all been the same age for over a year of real days.
DapperChapXXI ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:03:15 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Mmmmmmmmm Beeeeeeeeeeer
_Sagacious_ ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:10:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The amount of times the show has been running is irrelevant I re-watch the same few seasons over and over and who I identify within them has changed very gradually.
JeremyArroyo ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 14:58:03 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You could do this with ANYTHING that you saw as a kid if you played it now
glorialovelyface ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:16:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oh shit. I am old. I've just realised.
crushcastles23 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:27:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I've always identified with Maggie. The only sane, smart person in the family, let alone the town, and all I want to do is relax, but when we're needed, we come through and get the job done.
Yes, you could argue Marge is sane, but she's not very smart. Lisa is smart, but not always sane. Talking outside the Simpsons family, Frink is smart though absolutely insane, Hibbert is the same way, though he has brief lapses of sanity. Flanders, though he's quirky, is sane, just not very smart, same way with Reverend Lovejoy. Moe is the true midline, he's not super smart, but he's smart enough to know how to keep a business running (barely), though he is relatively sane, though his depression and lack of human contact outside the bar flys is slowly eroding his psyche.
leadfarmer153 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:34:44 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The same thing has happened to South Park. That's why Randy has become a main character.
Crymson831 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:55:43 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
And, at this rate, will continue till we identify with Mr. Burns.
sufferpuppet ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:16:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I don't like being outdoors, Smithers. For one thing, there are too many fat children.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:56:58 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Nope, still identify with Lisa but to be fair she was a mini adult in a kids body.
ziggl ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:34:10 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Oh, no. This happened to me while watching Office Space.
I used to be wondering what to do with my life,, now I'm worried that I'll lose what I have =/
KanadianLogik ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:42:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You know, I haven't watched a new episode in like 10 years, but every time I see a rerun on TV, it's an episode I've already seen like 100 times.
DefenseOptions ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:58:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
True story of ai
stuaker ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:12:05 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Depends on your mileage. I enjoyed all the cartoon stuff. The cgi and live action, eh
maxxed713 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:26:53 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I posted this same thought 3 months ago.
tk1178 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:25:40 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Not sure if it's been said in here but I was thinking earlier that you could say that you know that you're starting to feel old when you started watching The Simpsons when you were as old as either one of the kids and now you find yourself as old as Homer or Marge because of the fact the characters hardly age. Although I'm not as old as Homer just yet, (a good 5 years to go before that happens), when The Simpsons first aired it looks like I was probably around Lisa's age.
shim__ ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:41:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
There are adults in that show? :D
Maguffin42 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 19:54:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I remember when I started to think that Marge really should have divorced Homer by now, or buried him in the backyard.
ughalready ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 20:01:35 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
When the Simpsons debuted, I was the same age as Bart. Today I'm the same age as Homer in the early seasons.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 22:34:02 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I dunno, I still just identify with Ralph.
OldGilGunderson ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 01:08:26 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Adults suck, then you are one.
sega31098 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 01:10:06 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Honestly, now I identify more with Lisa than most of the other characters. At first I thought Lisa was just some whiny goody-two-shoes but once I hit 12-13 I started to see her as the voice of reason (albeit with stupid lapses).
ontopofyourmom ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 01:21:16 on November 10, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
When the Simpsons came out, I was Bart's age. Now I'm Homer's. I still identify most with Lisa. Even though I'm superficially more like the other two.
llameht ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 03:17:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Coincidentally watched it on fox tonight for the first time in years. Not funny at all. Family guy still got some chuckles though.
blot101 ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 03:55:53 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
yeah, they seem to follow more of a "south Park" type of thing now, where they change the entire town to make a weird point. I watched it for the first time in a decade about... a week ago. two episodes. one the entire town switched the education system, and the other the entire town started enforcing anti-bullying laws. not even a chuckle. Not one.
Tomusina ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 02:29:08 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I literally had this thought yesterday!!! So funny to see someone else say it. Completely relate.
Crohhg ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:11:54 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The Simpsons is absolutely shit now. Unbearable to watch in my opinion
ryanasimov ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:59:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm old enough to have never identified with the kids.
Patricia58 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 11:14:59 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I surprised forever why my parents enjoyed Squidward a lot.
majinbudha ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 12:55:46 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Cool story bro
redemma1968 ยท -4 points ยท Posted at 02:28:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
When the Simpsons started I was Mr. Burns age and now I'm Bart's age
schrockstar ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 03:35:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Me learn math? Unpossible
aryucrazier ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 15:25:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Reddit turn sarcasm? Unpossible!
[deleted] ยท -8 points ยท Posted at 02:02:41 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The Simpsons has been on the air long enough that the average episode is now shitty.
blot101 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 03:58:57 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
agreed
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:00:21 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Thank goodness you're here: the Hivemind Brigade razed my home to the ground! I need all the support I can get.
blot101 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 04:02:17 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I'm here for you buddy. this show should've stopped producing episodes 10 years ago at least.... but more like 15
Medibot300 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 04:14:52 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
It jumped the shark at the miniature jockeys episode. Terrible!
ThatsBullocks ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 09:31:33 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
That one was just awful, but it was still better than almost any episode that followed it.
[deleted] ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 22:25:44 on November 8, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
irishman178 ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 23:07:07 on November 8, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Are you saying boo or boo-urns
EggrollsForever ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 22:38:57 on November 8, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
deleted What is this?
[deleted] ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 04:09:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Omfg........ same
10Lei ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 04:15:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
I just stopped caring about the show.
leafy1992 ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 09:13:24 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
maybe its because your getting older? i identify with adults now but kids will still with the kids
guyinokc ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 09:36:49 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
You think?
Are you some kind of genius psychologist?
leafy1992 ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 10:01:11 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
if this is to me then no i just no my stuff basic knowledge
[deleted] ยท -2 points ยท Posted at 12:08:23 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
wizardly_flepsotard ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 12:18:18 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Cart...man...?
Ledmonkey96 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 12:59:32 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
The guy doesn't know the difference between South Park and Simpsons
mhayden1981 ยท 0 points ยท Posted at 13:15:30 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
Time to cut this guy off.
flybaiz ยท -1 points ยท Posted at 03:49:19 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
....
FUCK I'm old :(
Sinai ยท -1 points ยท Posted at 04:55:01 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
...I've never identified with any of them ever.
[deleted] ยท -1 points ยท Posted at 09:50:41 on November 9, 2015 ยท (Permalink)
People still watch the simpsons?
It stopped being funny about 15 years ago.