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Barb O. Saur 
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Is Walky popular? Jennifer may technically be right by comparison.
Depends how we’re grading popularity. Walky definitely has more friends. Billifer works harder to seem “popular” and make the “right” alliances to develop social capital.
I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that with a campus as populous as IU, popularity, at least in the sense that Jennifer means it, isn’t actually possible. The closest one could get would be how some student athletes achieve celebrity status, but celebrity isn’t really popularity, but rather acclaim. Popularity, as Jennifer means it, is based on having a majority of a population directly acquainted with you and willing to be swayed by you, either due to social authority or because they have a generally positive opinion of you. Simply put, it isn’t feasible to be acquainted with enough people to constitute a majority of the population of the campus of a large university like IU. Jennifer is still in the mindset of her high school, where she was popular. She’s essentially a small fish that had been the biggest fish in her small pond and is now in the ocean yet still thinks she’s a big fish.
Tl;dr she’s regressed to head cheerleader mentality like at the start and had a huge character regression.
That’s what’s been shown for this entire arc, not exactly mind blowing
In order to regress to head cheerleader mentality she would have to have progressed beyond it at some point.
What? There’s no majority requirement on popularity. You can still be a “popular” person even if most people in a given population have never even heard of you. Even if you do arbitrarily assign a 50% quorum for popularity, why is it based on the population of the entire campus instead of her peer group, her residence hall, her city, the entire world?
Popularity is an extremely arbitrary and subjective metric, and you can’t just do math to see if someone is popular or not. Granted, at this point I’m not sure I’d considerJennifer popular with any group larger than “herself”, but it’s not something you can say definitively
I feel like the point being made here is that popularity in *her* mind involves having most people know who she is and care, rather than that actually being a meaningful metric.
Walky may be friends with everyone on his dorm floor, but the 5 or so girls who share a hallway with Jennifer “look up” to her. Nobody understands popularity like Jennifer. (Sadly, for her.)
Actually, she’s right by default, because she’s Sal’s only quasi-sibling. Walky is an actual sibling.
Is Billifer referring to “found family” in that “quasi-sibling” statement?
I think she’s referring to the fact that Sal’s parents treat her like the favourite daughter.
Jennifer revels in the fact that she’s the “favorite daughter” while at the same time using it to get sympathy points.
I don’t think it’s evil like that. She’s aware that her parents are very emotionally distant from her, she’s aware that Walky and she have a sibling-like relationship. She’s aware that Sal’s parents treat her better than they treat Sal, and she knows that’s messed up but she also was hungry for the parental attention. She’s not usually “using” these facts to manipulate people’s feelings, that’s just where she’s coming from, it’s what her quasi-family situation is.
Being a narcissist does not automatically make you evil.
picking locks is the ultimate expression of trust
i mean i’m sure the school will cheap out on it but maybe 200 years from now there’ll be doors that are impossible to lockpick from the outside without like hacking into it/some kinda tech (unless some are made on purpose to be ‘easily unlockable’ for ppl’s safety
Hopefully we’ll have outgrown that notion by 200 days from now.
I’m reminded of a couple of SF RPGs in which such locks tend to be less trouble than conventional ones, because (in those settings) hacking’s such a generally useful skill that you’ll always know SOMEONE who can do it, while mechanical lockpicking is much less common.
You just need someone with some serious-putty
Noisy, messy. Rather not.
Highly unlikely they will ever be common due to the fact that having to battering ram through a door because something ran out of batteries is generally an undesirable feature. I have no doubt someone has already made one you can buy, but a physical override is such a basic safety and security feature that I doubt it will ever go away entirely. And it CERTAINLY won’t go away in any scenario where the resident isn’t also the owner.
When I stayed in Hong Kong, my hotel had computerized locks. The doorknob was also the lock. It was cube shaped and had a touch-screen. Before we went in, he went to an app on his phone and programmed the lock. So every guest gets a new number. You touched it to activate it, then entered the number, then turned it when it beeped at you to open the door. It was fascinating. But it looked easy to hack if you had that particular app.
Not like there are other quasi siblings. Unless some are hiding away somewhere.
Well, there’s Marcie, from Sal’s own perspective, at least.
Holy shit i forgot she existed
Where the hell has she been
Sitting on Malaya’s face a lot judging by bonus strips.
Good for them!
Billifer dressing like one of Robin hood’s merry men…
I’m not seeing any bycocket.
… so many ideas for replies, all extremely dirty.
Mmmm.
Resisting such filthy replies.
But it’s hard.
So hard.
Popular compared to Walky, or is there another quasi-sibling who is unpolular?
At this point, I think Walky has more people that like him than like Jennifer, and that’s saying something considering nearly everyone finds him annoying and his ex recently chewed him out.
Do you think that being popular has anything to do with people liking you?
Yes?
You’re popular if you believe you are popular. People you are not popular with are clearly delusional.
I think for later generations than mine, “popular” means a preppy aesthetic plus a set of personality traits, rather than literally a person who is liked by lots of other people. They’re more of a clique, who kinda just like themselves/each other.
Not sure which definition Jennifer is ascribing to herself. Does she think that lots of people like her?
She literally is popular in her wing. She’s literally actually unironically popular and not being delusional.
Also… A lot of named characters have a vague sense of distain for David. He doesn’t seem to be liked in his wing.
Clearly the Walkertons must have quasi-adopted Danny behind the scenes. They don’t care if it makes his relationship with Sal quasi-incestuous, they’re locking down getting the
whitestgoodest boy as a member of the family even if the relationship falls apart someday.We don’t know much about Marcie’s social circle outside of Sal and Malaya…
Sal would have just escaped out the window but she could not be bothered today.
Or maybe she could have snuck out the window, but realized that if Jennifer could get in she could mess up her room, so it was better that she just deal with this now.
Except that she wouldn’t overthink things in that way and instead just realize: “Oh, fine, I’ll do this because putting it off is more effort.” (As you said)
Occasionally Jennifer does have helpful things to offer when she knocks…even if it is unlikely to be the case right now.
Opportunities for humor are always welcome. Since Jennifer moved to a different dorm, I’m sure Sal has a lot saved up just for her.
“Good, instead of Malaya-annoyance, now ah can git some Jennifer-annoyance as a change of pace.”
Sarcasm… must… recharrrrrge… @-@
lol i wonder if she ‘used’ it all on malaya (heh) tho i’d expect her to have a reserve of sarcasm specifically for billifer
Sal has other quasi-siblings?
Nice roller derby stickers
I suppose Amber might qualify as a blood sister.
I’m an endless well of sarcasm — Ruth, probably
A lost relative of the endless barrel of exposition.
Man, Jennifer is REALLY deep in denial. Pretty sure no one in the cast actually likes her at this point.
Joyce likes her. They surprisingly rarely have a cross word for one another. Becky also tends to get along with her well enough.
Of course, both benefit from not having to deal with her bullshit turbo often.
Becky also gets secondhand guilt around her since she reminds Becky of her mom.
But yeah very few people are actually fond of her at this point? Other than her taking Joyce to the doctor I’m not even sure she’s doing anything protaognist-y for a while even.
I think it’s even more complicated than that. The cast is usually divided into groups and some are more social than others so it’s hard to gauge for some rare pairs. Like for instance does Ethan like Jennifer? I assume maybe no because he’s banging Asher, but who really knows? What is Dina’s opinion on Jennifer? While we’re asking what does Malaya think of Becky and what are Lucy’s opinions on Joe?
Frankly I think it has less to do with the main group not liking Jennifer and more to do with her purposefully excluding herself from them. Sort of the opposite of what Lucy has done. Also partially Raidah seizing an opportunity to isolate Jen from them during a moment of vulnerability .
Jen’s very much on the periphery of the social circle
i assume she’s ‘counting’ her popularity from high school (tho as we’ve seen from alice might also not be accurate either lol)
I’m not sure a lot of people really *liked* the popular people at my high school. It seemed more like political influence than anything else. And here in college Jennifer is continuing to cultivate political influence.
is she though? aside from being respected by Lucy, Joyce and Becky on adult subjects I don’t think she’s accumulated much influence, she definitely isn’t very influential in her new group since Radiah feels comfortable ordering her to be with Asher.
I didn’t say she was GOOD at cultivating it; she’s just putting in a modicum of effort.
True, though she tries I don’t think Jennifer’s efforts have gotten her anywhere close to being popular/influential. alot of people on her old social group are definitely beating her in that regard.
She probably thinks liking someone for political influence is the same as genuinely liking them as a friend.
Darn it, now I’ve got that song from Wicked stuck in my head again. I’ve not even seen Wicked!
Oh, no, it has songs? There’ll be no escape, after the deluge of wall-to-wall Christmas music drains away.
Having read the book, I’m wondering how the movie can have songs. It wasn’t that kind of story.
What kind of stories can’t have songs?
Plenty of musicals go to really dark places.
I read it too, and I also wonder.
What the fuck are you guys talking about? It’s been a musical stage play for decades.
I haven’t seen a stage play in decades. I mean, the story is so central to, and so focused on one character I don’t see who she’ll sing with. Or who’ll sing about her.
In my high school, the popular kids were from in town and the upper middle class. I was a country kid in blue jeans. I was supposed to hang with the other country kids in the basement, but I didn’t know that.
The thing is that Jennifer buys her own bullshit. She’s not saying this to affirm to herself that she’s “the popular one”.
I mean Ruth definitely seems to still love her, no matter how much she pretends otherwise. Not sure if that falls under “liking her” or not.
“Candygram.”
“You’re not that Landshark, are you?”
“No ma’am. Candygram.”
At least she followed Ruth’s advice.
The old her might’ve gotten blasted on Landshark though!
I’m just wondering how long it takes for a text message with an image to arrive…
We still doing know if she sent it!
We still doing? I’ve done that. You start out typing a word, but end up typing the one your fingers are most familiar with.
i imagine she wouldn’t need a lock if she went in through the window lol
kinda hoped malaya would be the one to answer. honestly surprised she didn’t passive aggressively cover up sal’s roller derby poster
I don’t think it’s a poster, it looks like stickers. And as far as covering them up is concerned I don’t think she thinks it’s worth the effort.
I think that’s Malaya on the sticker. In the derby strips, she was the one wearing the striped helmet.
A striped helmet just means she’s the jammer for the team, so that could be just a generic picture of a jammer for that team. It doesn’t have to be Malaya.
True, but by the same token, we don’t know it’s Sal’s picture, not Malaya’s.
Jennifer just split up with her hot hunk boyfriend, was denied drama from the fallout, and had to be subjected to Lucy’s sincerity being rewarded by landing Jacob. Feeling low, she seeks out the thing she’s 100% dynamite at — journalism, and goes to knock on Sal’s door to crack the Amazi-Girl story open.
I would feel bad for her if she didn’t consistently prove that she deserves this kind of embarrassment. It’s fun to watch, too!
They never did break up, though. Like, Jennifer thinks they are still together. There never was an actual breakup strip.
Was there?
She knows he’s kissing Ethan now, so she knows they’re split. She might still think he’s coming back, but I don’t remember any indication of that
Raidah saw them and told Jen if we that she still to get her shit together to get him back, because he was a big part of why she tolerate her so long.
Can’t breakup if you claim like Jennifer that you were never actually a couple. Also from the way Radiah was telling Jennifer to get back with Asher and Jennifer saying she doesn’t care there clearly is acknowledgement that their relation to each other (however Jennifer wants to describe it) has changed with Asher nolonger pursuing her.
That’s the other juicy bit of story I can’t wait to get to — Walky being 100% right that Raidah’s friends will cut her lose because they only keep her around as part of networking. Jennifer will suffer, and quite heavily, because even though she’s pretending to move on, she never learned anything and still views the world as one long high school year.
The past is malleable when you’re Jennifer Billingsworth and you have to reframe your embarrassment as someone else’s fault to save face.
The last time they spoke on panel, Asher expressed the opinion he was Jennifer’s boyfriend, and Jennifer told him he wasn’t. Goodness knows what she thinks that meant, but what he took from it is pretty clear.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-14/02-its-the-love-i-havent-got/stockmarket/
once again i am reminded of the ever present passage of time.
Unfortunately Jennifer thinks breaking up and making out with other people are things you do in a relationship to make it dramatically satisfying.
Dumbing of Age 15: Ah Only Got So Much Sarcasm.
Did she actually open her shirt wider?
Yes. Yes she did.
Huh. So it’s not just Joyce she does this to.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/04-of-mike-and-men/fresh-2/
This is getting sad.
Welcome to college.
“Popular” is a worthless unit of self-measurement and Billie is one of the most pathetic characters in the cast.
It’s why I loved her She is almost pitiable if watching her trip over her own biases wasn’t so funny.
I don’t think I ever heard anyone say the word “popular” of a person after I got out of high school.
There’s only so much sarcasm she can muster, Jennifer.
Look at that pose, she thinks she is about to look really cool or something, this will be hilarious.
Jennifer, your hot boyfriend picked a depressed emo boy over you… a hot emo boy but the point still stands.
That’s a nice touch, having Malaya use up the whole whiteboard with their own name X)
Panel 3 looks like Jennifer’s mouth has flash lines coming out of it for her announcement. (Yeah, I know it’s a door sticker. My mind says otherwise.)
She is the female equivalent of the guy who tries to get free beers for being a star in his high school football team as an adult, unaware that nobody cares after you graduate.
That’s actually one of the first things she tried to do in her first week of college. Hopefully someone points out to her soon that referencing high-school for status points just advertises that she’s accomplished nothing since then.
It’s been one semester since high school, that’s not surprising
maybe jennifer will rescue this by saying “I know about you and amazigirl” because that’s as subtle as she knows how to be
maybe malaya will then ruin it for her by saying “yeah they’re on the team together”
and I’m now realising jennifer should know this beacuse she and asher were at roller derby that one time
unless she thinks that’s a decoy because she can’t accept she was wrong the first time?