Honestly, neither am I. Like, I know she exists, but I’m not familiar with any of her music.
Of course, I’m not super into Pop in general. The only notable pop artists in my music library are P!nk and Paramore.
Well, the last time Jennifer started spiraling after running into Alice she embroiled herself in a self-destructive lesbian relationship, so it wouldn’t be too surprising
Now I want to see a montage of various cast members trying to help Walky with his math. Joyce explaining bounded sequences. Jason discussing convergence and divergence. Sal demonstrating power series. Amber (or maybe A-G) discussing parametrics.
One of Joyce’s less-spotlighted traits in the other universe was her talent with complex math. Seems that might have carried over to this one. Though, being good at Thing and being able to TEACH about Thing are entirely different skillsets.
Walky was secretly smart in the other universe and is not-so-secretly smart in this one. There are any number of reasons why a smart person might fail to absorb knowledge, but I am disinclined to try diagnosing him.
I mean, I think multiple characters including Walky himself have suggested he has ADHD, which would certainly explain “is smart but struggles really hard to maintain focus on certain things.”
LOL well joyce has been known to be good at math but surprised he wouldn’t ask his gf or someone else that doesn’t have as much contempt for him as joyce
tho i can totally imagine some celeb/popstar being asked to make an ‘educational’ catchy song or so XD;
They’re so useful! If you’ve got a complicated function you can just pretend it’s a polynomial instead and we already know everything about polynomials!
Was Jennifer actually in math class with Joyce/Walky? I don’t know what the requirements of her major are, so I don’t know if math is a requirement. (It does look like she was coming from the same building Joyce and Walky were, but it doesn’t look like she had any books, so maybe her appearing there was a random occurance.)
Roll on the random encounter table!
1. Jennifer
2. Sudden Dorothy!
3. Asher, leaning on a wall and smoking
4. Amazi-Girl – that’s when the hero shows up!
5. Dina doesn’t know how she got there
6. Charlie doesn’t know how she got there
7. Ruth, we should put a bell on her
8. Becky! Did you know she’s a lesbian?!
9. phantom Mike in your head
10. roll 1d100 and consult the Randomer Encounters table
What is Jennifer thinking here? Is Jennifer thinking that Joyce is encroaching on her role of “bicker with Walky”? And realizing that she’s not OK with that?
Good memory! It was totally Hymmel the Humming Hymnal!
Which was a parody of Psalty the Singing Songbook… Which is funny to me because the name “Psalty the Singing Songbook” sounds MORE like a joke to me than “Hymmel the Humming Hymnal” does.
Dear Cheese, I hope not. Olivia Rodrigo is so much better. All of Sabrina’s songs give of the stereotypical “stuck-up cheerleader” vibe. Annoys me so much.
It’s Sabrina Carpenter. I don’t get it either. Literally her only song I’ve heard is Espresso and like it’s not bad but not that good. I think it should be Chapel Roan
Don’t make Olivia Rodrigo be a pop star. I love her, but she makes punk. It’s super lite pop-punk, but it’s punk and no one else is doing that. Let’s get her to go into rock stardom.
Most “stuck up cheerleader” characters in fiction are written by creepy nerds who don’t understand consent. We’re talking the type of person who you’d be glad doesn’t have self confidence in high school because they’d be a rapist by now otherwise. Most cheerleaders I’ve known who come across that way just have self confidence and assertiveness in a misogynistic society.
I do wonder where those tropes come from? It’s been over a decade, getting closer to two since I’ve been in high school, but I do remember most of it. I was a nerd but I don’t remember the cheerleaders being super catty mean girls. I knew one in my english class. She seemed nice enough. The jocks weren’t really jerks either. In fact some of the meanest kids I remember were other nerds. Cliques do form but usually everyone seemed mostly okay. Bullying and stuff happened but it’s definitely not like they show in the teen drama shows.
So, SOME of it is definitely because a certain stripe of entitled boy winds up feeling like “not being romantically interested in me (even if I never even spoke to her and she has no reason to know I’m alive, much less pining after her)” is a villaneous injustice that must be being perpetrated by evil shallow bongoes.
But also, consider that it’s just not very narratively effective to tell a story where you’ve got one (1) protagonist, and then the antagonist is split across like twelve different characters who only ever briefly interact with the protagonist for four years of high school.
It just makes a lot of sense to reduce “a lot of different girls said mean things to me once” into a single character, and in order for that character to be an effective antagonist, it makes sense to give them social capital in the form of significant popularity.
I was talking about this the other day, back when we last saw Jennifer’s flashback, but — I don’t think cheerleaders are usually beloved by an entire school, so much as that they TEND to be outgoing and athletic. They play a team sport, which gives them and the other cheerleaders a shared interest, and the other cheerleaders are also outgoing… so, they have kind of a built-in friend group, among which there will often be at least one girl who’s especially pretty and well-liked in the group. If they also date guys on the football team (due to proximity and shared interests), they also have that as a further extension of their friend group. A football team’s worth of friends is a lot bigger than most high school friend groups, so, you wind up popular in at least one sense of the word by default. This also gives you more people willing to vote for you when it comes time to choose prom queen.
Then, too, football games are one of the bigger social events a high school can have, and sometimes attendance is even mandatory (it kind of depends on how into “school spirit” a given school is), so, unlike other group activities a school might do (like choir), cheerleaders are more likely to at least have moments where they’re performing their skills while also being the center of attention.
So, you’ve got this combination where student athletes tend to have more friends and get more opportunities for being the center of attention, plus the narrative convenience of a singular focused antagonist, and is it any wonder that cheerleaders and football players often become bullies in fiction?
Based on the current sliding timescale, Olivia Rodrigo is a solid choice for Disney Channel into music stardom, which, given that Chappell Roan opened for her tour a couple years ago, was…a significant moment for a lot of Joyce-like girls.
She’s certainly our/ their blonde one! Fits the bill Joyce was looking for. I’m a millennial/ gen z cusper, but I’ve definitely seen people older than me enjoying her too. I watched Girl Meets World with my younger sister, so maybe I’m biased, but it hurts to see people here ragging on her.
Cholma – if you’re willing to give her another chance, try “Thumbs”, “because i liked a boy”, and/or “Exhale”
AMagicalDuck – lets not unnecessarily pit women against each other. There’s room for both, they seem to enjoy each other, and I promise you my demographic loves both
I often found the show disappointing, but her character was my favorite (well, of the episodes I watched, which wasn’t most). My problem is that my brain still defaults to thinking of her based on those appearances, and I need it to catch up to her current image.
Jennifer/Billie seems to be lost at the moment; not where she is physically, but mentally. I can’t tell if she just wants friends right now, or if she is going to withdraw even further away from people.
Pretty sure she’s really craving friends. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who would be absolutely happy to be friends with her, but she spent a lot of effort pushing them away. Which seems to be a bit of a cycle for her.
I mean, she isn’t wrong, that accounts for a lot of them. In addition to the ones in the alt-text, Sabrina Carpenter got her break on Girl Meets World and even if it took a little bit, she became a huge musician. Olivia Rodrigo is also a big example, though moreso for singing, as I think her show was a lesser hit.
For a lesser example, there’s also Dove Cameron. No shade on her, just Sabrina has become a huge star, and Dove’s not on that level at the moment.
well, it’s not the first time a walkerton sibling has struggled in math class XD
tho, whiel it’s good walkys putting in effort i can totally imagine him to not care/half ass it like “meh i’ll just double down in disappointing my parents” lol
I have heard that there is a Pornhub/Onlyfans star who has a side channel or whatever it’s called of science/math explainers.
[Duckduckgo]
Her name is Zara Dar, and she gives STEM lectures, and the SFW videos are also on Youtube.
It occurs to me that damnyouwillis could combine pornos with STEM and create some Pornographique Scientifique (Technologique/Mathematique)(I have no idea how to Frenchify “engineering”)
I’m not sure Walky considered Mike his friend, or vice versa. They were roommates, and they occasionally spoke, but there’s a good chance Walky didn’t think of Mike as a friend. Mike almost certainly didn’t consider Walky a friend.
It’s easy to be devastated by the death of anyone you know well, even if you don’t like them. That Walky’s still paranoid about it being a prank and Mike jumping out of the closet to surprise him doesn’t suggest friendship.
And then there’s the guilt for feeling relief that he isn’t still there to mess with you – I’m extrapolating that, but I can’t really imagine otherwise.
Joyce, I wish I had your level of knowledge about Taylor Swift. Having talked to Swifties on occasion in the past it’s miserable what has been put into my brain.
Aside from cover versions or guest features, she does write or co-write all of her own songs. It was pretty key to her being able to re-release versions of her album when the original recordings were owned by her former label.
I thought she wrote all the lyrics herself (or cowrote) but not necessarily all the music?
If she’s doing all the songwriting then that’s actually super impressive, though I remain much more impressed by her lyrics than by the music and her singing. (Not to bash her music or singing, just… the lyrics are, I think, really surprisingly good. I don’t think much of most lyrics to most songs, whatever the genre!)
The main thing I know about her is she rerecorded her entire discography just to screw over her old record label after they tried to screw her over and honestly I respect that
I decided I needed to find out what everybody was talking about, so I listened to one of her songs. She’s really good at the kind of stuff she does, but I’m bored by the kind of stuff she does….
Has she? I feel like if someone showed me a pic of taylor swift wearing a maga hat I wouldn’t be surprised
i do vaguely remember there being vids of ppl mocking kamala for spending soo much money for beyonce and other ‘celebs’ to show up and ‘endorse’ her (which you’d think that kinda payment/bribe would be illegal or so), and still losing, but yeah i’m b urnt out on politics to rly care
It should be noted Taylor Swift has denounced white supremacy multiple time, campaigned for Democrats in Tennessee, and also is important about feminism as well as bodily rights.
She’s probably THE MOST mainstream active anti-MAGA artist in music today.
i see, that’s good but i can imagine some ppl not speaking out either way to not rly get involved with politics even tho celebs usually never shut up about their beliefs
that said with how busy/it causing a scene, i wonder how many ppl send a proxy to let them vote for them, legality aside, versus them getting access like 1-2 weeks early of a send in ballot or so b/c other than some upper rich class place i imagine any kinda celeb vaguely recognizable showing up at a voting area would cause unwanted attention (never saw any kinda voting areas outside of schools tho , wonderh ow much it inconvenienced the students, or if teens would be tempted to troll and shout out some stuff to pester voters)
from what i’ve seen/heard, swifties are usually so obsessed that they probably wouldn’t rly either care about voting or , if she came out as a supporter of one person, maybe be willing to ‘convert’ but too many ppl putting idols on a pedestal
A bounded sequence is what it sounds like, a bunch of numbers “within a boundary”. For example, if you have a bunch of 1s, all of them are less than 2, so you’d say that the sequence of all 1s is bounded above by 2. It’s also bounded above by 1.5, and 1.1, and 1.001. In turn, a sequence of all 1s is bounded below by 0. Where this gets interesting is when you have a sequence of numbers that changes. If your sequence is just counting up by 1 every time–so (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, …), that sequence is bounded below by 0, but is it bounded above by anything? What about the sequence generated by starting with 1 and dividing the last number by 2 every time: (1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, …)?
As it turns out, not only is that last sequence bounded below by 0, but 0 is the greatest lower bound–that sequence isn’t lower bounded by any number greater than 0. The sequence is “within the boundary” of 0, just barely–it “takes up all the space” between 1 and 0. What’s really weird, though is that the sequence (1, 1/2, 1/4, …) never actually reaches 0. It just gets smaller and smaller forever. This isn’t too weird if you find it intuitive that numbers can get bigger and bigger forever, but still, the ability of a sequence to approach really really close to a bound without ever reaching it is important.
Why is this useful? Well, it relates to the concept of a limit, which is what a sequence (or another collection of numbers like a function) does as it approaches some number, even if it never actually reaches it. And limits are useful because they allow us to define a derivative–what a function does when its input changes by a really really small amount. And once you have a definition for a derivative you can define an integral, which describes the large-scale behavior of a function. That gives you what’s called the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, and then you can define kinds of derivatives and integrals for functions of multiple variables with more generalized characteristics (like complex variables), which then lets you predict things like how an infectious disease spreads through a population and eventually (if you learn a whole other kind of mathematics called topology) the shape of spacetime itself.
Joyce as a math major might be kind of cool… though she won’t get into the more interesting classes for another 45 years.
I can’t tell if Billy is thinking “I wish I had someone to bully me about not knowing popstars because of my Evangelical upbringing” or “maybe I could launch a pop career by singing about my exes. Now I need to get more exes than Ruth and Asher.”
All I know about Taylor Swift is that she sang shake it off and call me maybe and is dating a sports ball.
I do low key love it when one of the kids down the road has sleepovers and you can hear half a dozen itty bitties singing to her at the top of their lungs. Reminds me of my childhood but with MCR
To be fair, you don’t hear Carly Rae Jepsen’s name much these days. (I do have a friend who’s a big fan of hers, and for him I will add: even if you should.)
I’d like to have seen where Joyce was going with that. Taylor Swift (doesn’t matter if I know who Taylor Swift is, beyond ‘celeb’) is a boundary that the function does not produce numbers beyond.
For example a function (yes, function does have more than one meaning!) that ‘contains’ celebs no more famous that Taylor Swift…. but presumably also no less famous than…. Who?
To be fair, I wasn’t sheltered at all but I wouldn’t know any of Taylor Swift’s music, except I worked on a farm when she was first getting popular and we were only ever supposed to have the country station on (we were public-facing and supposed to stay somewhat on theme).
(I would still know who she is though, between friends and internet saturation)
I mean strictly speaking Joyce isn’t wrong. The Disney Channel (& also Nickelodeon a little bit) to pop star pipeline was going pretty strong there for a while. I guess now that cable is dying those days are over…
A surprising number of late 90s pop stars were on Mickey Mouse Club when they were kids. Guess that’s what happens when you work for a massive media empire.
Sadly, Joyce, as a white woman one day you’ll hear one of her songs in the middle of a lonely place and then you will develop a new hyperfixation. It is your destiny, as Vader would say.
That’s just what I wanted to say. Imagine the conceit to think you know everything that’s going on or like, you know what all people are like. . .of course that describes everyone I ever knew below the age of 30 and most older folks too. It takes a certain intellectual courage to imagine even the “number” of people in the world, let alone what they all have going on.
Although, Walky’s comment is very consistent with the guy who passionately argued Dexter & Monkey Master is the best cartoon because it’s the most popular.
OK, yeah, but she’s not hyperfocused in calculus. For her, it’d probably be a joke on how a fraction of the apostles were bound in prison in Acts 12, or something like that.
Actually, that sounds a little similar to the early, pre-Becky strips, when she was off the deep end.
I’m not really familiar with what Taylor Swift is doing these days, but I liked a lot of her older country songs before she switched to pop music, and a couple of her songs after that. Maybe eventually I’ll catch up with her more recent music, if I have the time.
I wish i was Joyce. All additional information I know on Taylor Swift I was taught against my will.
(My opinion is I like some of her songs and don’t appreciate how big her carbon footprint is. Also don’t get why people act like she’s way more left wing than she actually is)
“What’s it like to know only a fraction of the world in which you live?”
Walky’s Joyce disses continue to hit a deep nerve in my own evangelical upbringing. Being teased for not already knowing things you **weren’t allowed to learn** isn’t a fun experience.
I’ll gently co-sign this. As I said below, I like some of her music, and will never find her or anything she does more annoying than performative over-the-top hate, which seems to mysteriously drift every generation to whatever teen girls are into now.
I’ve been a fan of hers for eighteen years now, since only her first album was out, and the hating on her game has been old to me for at least fifteen years now.
Oh yeah, Swift’s had a SUSTAINED hate campaign for as long as she’s existed in the public eye. She’s also kind of an unusually long-lived female popstar, though.
Her music is fine (too many ballads for my tastes, I like some of her more “hype” songs and some of her angrier songs), but Taylor Swift has ever or could ever do will be more annoying to me than the people who make hating her their entire personality.
(Please reread this comment before you complain that I said you weren’t allowed to dislike her, as if that’s even something I was capable of enforcing.)
— This is a cute interaction and reminds me of how much more I personally like Joyce+Walky as bickering spiritual siblings than as a couple.
— I wonder how much of the boozey party is fuzzy to Joyce. Dorothy definitely identified the artist there as Taylor Swift, so I feel like if Joyce remembered things perfectly from that night, she’d be more confident about Swift being a singer.
On the other hand, we’ve definitely seen her pretend to know less than she does sometimes (like what euphemisms mean, or what Danny’s name is). If she just doesn’t care for Swift’s music, I could see her talking like this about her.
— Why DOES Joyce keep forgetting Danny’s name accidentally-on-purpose anyway. It’s PROBABLY just Willis having fun lampshading how different their relationship is this go-around, given that IW!Joyce was obsessed, but assuming she knows Danny is Dorothy’s ex… Willis could also be getting some mileage out of that, for reasons of subtext, since we know they really enjoy (enjoyed?) ship-teasing Joyce and Dorothy.
— …has Jennifer spent this whole time just kinda. Walking a few paces behind or in front of their group, sitting a few seats away, watching them all be friends, waiting to be noticed and not being noticed…?
(I kind of think we are headed for a re-Billie-ing here, but it hasn’t happened yet, so.)
you know, i started reading DoA before i read williss earlier work, so the idea of joyce and walky together was like marshmallow fluff and cement. then like a year ago i read it all, and actually found them so cute, i started to ship them. now im back to marshmallow and cement lmao
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Is it a bounded series or a Taylor series?
If the Taylor series is infinite and unbounded, you might try a Taylor polynomial approximation instead.
If there’s a Fast Fourier Transform, there’s got to be a Swift Taylor Series.
If not, in the days before digital computers, you could do a slow Fourier Transform using a Mader–Ott Harmonic Analyzer.
Hm. Google tells me that there is a YouTube video of Taylor Swift explaining Taylor series in 90 seconds, which I do find rather Swift.
If I weren’t an atheist, I’d be thanking God that I don’t have to deal with complex mathematics.
I love that this was the first post. Well done.
As somebody who’s gonna teach my students about complex Taylor series’ today this tickles me quite a bit.
Can’t say I’m familiar with any TSwift songs called “Probably Shut Up”. Is that one from her feud with Katy Perry?
No idea, but I don’t know why Joyce would lie about it.
Why would those two have a feud?
With Joyce and Walky, it just comes naturally.
I have no idea, but they did, and the good news is that it resulted in some truly unlistenably bad music from both parties.
If only more pop artists dropped feud tracks like “Not Like Us”.
For what it’s worth Kendrick Lamar was on one of them
Honestly, neither am I. Like, I know she exists, but I’m not familiar with any of her music.
Of course, I’m not super into Pop in general. The only notable pop artists in my music library are P!nk and Paramore.
Someone seems lonely.
I wonder if she’s still looking for a viable character witness
Like Johnny Lee, she’s looking in the wrong places.
Unfortunately for her she doesn’t really have a right place to be looking, just a selection of bad ones
Lonely? Nah. I don’t think she’s gonna end up with Dorothy soon.
Of course not…
Of course not.
Well, the last time Jennifer started spiraling after running into Alice she embroiled herself in a self-destructive lesbian relationship, so it wouldn’t be too surprising
Dorothy can do better though
Jennifer and Dorothy, going out (or staying in) drinking, would be bad. Much regrets the following morning.
Drinking? Yeah. Hope that’s not where this is going.
Dorothy and Jennifer having sex stone cold sober – that I would be onboard for. MAYBE it would get both of them to finally admit that they’re bi.
Of course she’s not, look at her, she’s very very specifically doing her best to *not* look lonely.
It’s nice to see Walky trying hard at math instead of just assuming he is.
Now I want to see a montage of various cast members trying to help Walky with his math. Joyce explaining bounded sequences. Jason discussing convergence and divergence. Sal demonstrating power series. Amber (or maybe A-G) discussing parametrics.
One of Joyce’s less-spotlighted traits in the other universe was her talent with complex math. Seems that might have carried over to this one. Though, being good at Thing and being able to TEACH about Thing are entirely different skillsets.
Walky was secretly smart in the other universe and is not-so-secretly smart in this one. There are any number of reasons why a smart person might fail to absorb knowledge, but I am disinclined to try diagnosing him.
I mean, I think multiple characters including Walky himself have suggested he has ADHD, which would certainly explain “is smart but struggles really hard to maintain focus on certain things.”
LOL well joyce has been known to be good at math but surprised he wouldn’t ask his gf or someone else that doesn’t have as much contempt for him as joyce
tho i can totally imagine some celeb/popstar being asked to make an ‘educational’ catchy song or so XD;
It hurts seeing a dynamic she used to fit into comfortably. Well, sort of uncomfortably, really. But at least she fit.
Taylor Series is gonna mess Walky up after this.
I looked those up and they are awesome. Thank you for the chance to learn something.
They’re so useful! If you’ve got a complicated function you can just pretend it’s a polynomial instead and we already know everything about polynomials!
We already know everything about polynomials. – Good one.
Oh, yeah, calculus is a totally solved area of human study. Thoroughly developed; completely explored.
Walky and Joyce would make for some interesting metamours. I think they’d get along fine and share Dorothy tips.
They kind of almost qualify already.
Joyce and Walky?
Maybe in some other universe!
Sharing Dorothy’s tips?
Hehehehe…
Sharing Dorothy tips.
Giving Dorothy tips.
Jennifer absorbed none of this math class. Enthralled by watching these two bicker.
In fairness, same. I have learned no math from reading Dumbing of Age, but have gotten plenty of enjoyment from watching characters bicker.
Speak for yourself. I just did some research and relearned what a bounded sequence is. Its awesome.
I know what Bounded Sequence is!
… It’s that Disney Channel sitcom, the one that started whatshernane.
It it’s on the Disney Channel you have to ask if it’s an ordered sequence.
My sister’s a fan. But the tv station has them out of order. It’s all a disordered sequence. She has opinions about this.
Same.
I’ve never been able to understand sequences and series. =/
Was Jennifer actually in math class with Joyce/Walky? I don’t know what the requirements of her major are, so I don’t know if math is a requirement. (It does look like she was coming from the same building Joyce and Walky were, but it doesn’t look like she had any books, so maybe her appearing there was a random occurance.)
Roll on the random encounter table!
1. Jennifer
2. Sudden Dorothy!
3. Asher, leaning on a wall and smoking
4. Amazi-Girl – that’s when the hero shows up!
5. Dina doesn’t know how she got there
6. Charlie doesn’t know how she got there
7. Ruth, we should put a bell on her
8. Becky! Did you know she’s a lesbian?!
9. phantom Mike in your head
10. roll 1d100 and consult the Randomer Encounters table
What is Jennifer thinking here? Is Jennifer thinking that Joyce is encroaching on her role of “bicker with Walky”? And realizing that she’s not OK with that?
You should’ve used Psalty or the Church mouse as a reference, Joyce!
What about Hymmel the Singing Hymnal?
Wasn’t it “humming”? (why do I even remember this?)
Alliteration is a hell of a drug.
Apocalyptic alliterating addiction.
(okay, so that’s smart-ass-onance instead)
Good memory! It was totally Hymmel the Humming Hymnal!
Which was a parody of Psalty the Singing Songbook… Which is funny to me because the name “Psalty the Singing Songbook” sounds MORE like a joke to me than “Hymmel the Humming Hymnal” does.
That would give Walky flashbacks. Best to avoid that.
They did agree that it never happened
I think Sabrina Carpenter is this generation’s current pop star idol right?
Dear Cheese, I hope not. Olivia Rodrigo is so much better. All of Sabrina’s songs give of the stereotypical “stuck-up cheerleader” vibe. Annoys me so much.
It’s Sabrina Carpenter. I don’t get it either. Literally her only song I’ve heard is Espresso and like it’s not bad but not that good. I think it should be Chapel Roan
Don’t make Olivia Rodrigo be a pop star. I love her, but she makes punk. It’s super lite pop-punk, but it’s punk and no one else is doing that. Let’s get her to go into rock stardom.
Most “stuck up cheerleader” characters in fiction are written by creepy nerds who don’t understand consent. We’re talking the type of person who you’d be glad doesn’t have self confidence in high school because they’d be a rapist by now otherwise. Most cheerleaders I’ve known who come across that way just have self confidence and assertiveness in a misogynistic society.
I do wonder where those tropes come from? It’s been over a decade, getting closer to two since I’ve been in high school, but I do remember most of it. I was a nerd but I don’t remember the cheerleaders being super catty mean girls. I knew one in my english class. She seemed nice enough. The jocks weren’t really jerks either. In fact some of the meanest kids I remember were other nerds. Cliques do form but usually everyone seemed mostly okay. Bullying and stuff happened but it’s definitely not like they show in the teen drama shows.
So, SOME of it is definitely because a certain stripe of entitled boy winds up feeling like “not being romantically interested in me (even if I never even spoke to her and she has no reason to know I’m alive, much less pining after her)” is a villaneous injustice that must be being perpetrated by evil shallow bongoes.
But also, consider that it’s just not very narratively effective to tell a story where you’ve got one (1) protagonist, and then the antagonist is split across like twelve different characters who only ever briefly interact with the protagonist for four years of high school.
It just makes a lot of sense to reduce “a lot of different girls said mean things to me once” into a single character, and in order for that character to be an effective antagonist, it makes sense to give them social capital in the form of significant popularity.
I was talking about this the other day, back when we last saw Jennifer’s flashback, but — I don’t think cheerleaders are usually beloved by an entire school, so much as that they TEND to be outgoing and athletic. They play a team sport, which gives them and the other cheerleaders a shared interest, and the other cheerleaders are also outgoing… so, they have kind of a built-in friend group, among which there will often be at least one girl who’s especially pretty and well-liked in the group. If they also date guys on the football team (due to proximity and shared interests), they also have that as a further extension of their friend group. A football team’s worth of friends is a lot bigger than most high school friend groups, so, you wind up popular in at least one sense of the word by default. This also gives you more people willing to vote for you when it comes time to choose prom queen.
Then, too, football games are one of the bigger social events a high school can have, and sometimes attendance is even mandatory (it kind of depends on how into “school spirit” a given school is), so, unlike other group activities a school might do (like choir), cheerleaders are more likely to at least have moments where they’re performing their skills while also being the center of attention.
So, you’ve got this combination where student athletes tend to have more friends and get more opportunities for being the center of attention, plus the narrative convenience of a singular focused antagonist, and is it any wonder that cheerleaders and football players often become bullies in fiction?
Based on the current sliding timescale, Olivia Rodrigo is a solid choice for Disney Channel into music stardom, which, given that Chappell Roan opened for her tour a couple years ago, was…a significant moment for a lot of Joyce-like girls.
There are a lot of Joyce-like girls? [Insert skeptical face emogi here]
She’s certainly our/ their blonde one! Fits the bill Joyce was looking for. I’m a millennial/ gen z cusper, but I’ve definitely seen people older than me enjoying her too. I watched Girl Meets World with my younger sister, so maybe I’m biased, but it hurts to see people here ragging on her.
Cholma – if you’re willing to give her another chance, try “Thumbs”, “because i liked a boy”, and/or “Exhale”
AMagicalDuck – lets not unnecessarily pit women against each other. There’s room for both, they seem to enjoy each other, and I promise you my demographic loves both
I have to ask; is Carla’s #1 Fan Carla herself?
Yeah, it is! Although I’ve considered changing my name since Charlie’s been around
I often found the show disappointing, but her character was my favorite (well, of the episodes I watched, which wasn’t most). My problem is that my brain still defaults to thinking of her based on those appearances, and I need it to catch up to her current image.
Carla’s number 2 fan is herself. Carla’s number 1 fan is the entire rest of humanity, tied. This is per Carla’s beliefs, which are correct.
and Carla’s number 3 fan is Charlie, which is why she’s so anxious around her
what? no, Carla is never anxious, she’s a goddess!
(hnnnnnng)
Omg Sabrina Carpenter!!!! I love the vibe of espresso, it’s been my mood lately in my dating life.
Jennifer wants to help.
she’s a problem solver.
(at least in her own mind.)
Meaning, not a solver _of_ problems, but a solver _with_ problems.
Sometimes both!
A problematic solver.
She’s a solving problem. The ex who finds other exes.
Ah, just the people to demonstrate with whom she can keep friends. To herself if nobody else.
Extremely human? There’s too much in the world for one person to know it all
I can relate to all three characters in this comic.
Same.
But I also know enough that it’s bugging me to see Selena Gomez’s name spelled wrong in the alt text :p
Joyce still knows more than I do about taylor swift 🤣
Everything I know about Taylor Swift I know from watching Taylor Tomlinson standup specials.
omg Taylor Tomlinson <3
TT is AMAZING
I wish I could be in Joyce’s position and not know who Taylor Swift is.
I understand there are drugs you can take.
There are at-home do-it-yourself lobotomizer kits. I do not recommend them. 0/5 stars.
Jennifer/Billie seems to be lost at the moment; not where she is physically, but mentally. I can’t tell if she just wants friends right now, or if she is going to withdraw even further away from people.
Sadly, those two options are not mutually exclusive.
True
Considering how she’s been acting there’s a good chance of both right now.
Pretty sure she’s really craving friends. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who would be absolutely happy to be friends with her, but she spent a lot of effort pushing them away. Which seems to be a bit of a cycle for her.
I mean, she isn’t wrong, that accounts for a lot of them. In addition to the ones in the alt-text, Sabrina Carpenter got her break on Girl Meets World and even if it took a little bit, she became a huge musician. Olivia Rodrigo is also a big example, though moreso for singing, as I think her show was a lesser hit.
For a lesser example, there’s also Dove Cameron. No shade on her, just Sabrina has become a huge star, and Dove’s not on that level at the moment.
…or Annette Funicello…
At last, someone I recognize. Damn you, Multiple Sclerosis.
The most recent song to get stuck in my head was by Heart. So, y’know, the past exists, and some of it was pretty good.
Ahh, the founder. The original. 🙂
OOPS! Totally forgot about…HALEY MILLS!
how long has it been since these two have just ‘been talking to each other in a playfully antagonistic fashion alone’?
Long enough that Jen-a-billie can’t tell if they’re dating now or not. She’s lost track.
this is already more math than i was expecting to be in DOA ever
Willis starts a DoA courses tutoring side venture. The characters take turns explaining math and science concepts.
well, it’s not the first time a walkerton sibling has struggled in math class XD
tho, whiel it’s good walkys putting in effort i can totally imagine him to not care/half ass it like “meh i’ll just double down in disappointing my parents” lol
I have heard that there is a Pornhub/Onlyfans star who has a side channel or whatever it’s called of science/math explainers.
[Duckduckgo]
Her name is Zara Dar, and she gives STEM lectures, and the SFW videos are also on Youtube.
It occurs to me that damnyouwillis could combine pornos with STEM and create some Pornographique Scientifique (Technologique/Mathematique)(I have no idea how to Frenchify “engineering”)
She is blonde and she does sing probably. That is an accurate description of Taylor Swift.
Now wait. Does she sing Probably or does she sing Probably, Shut Up?
That’s head scratcher I would say she sings probably, shut up.
You drove out the toxic people in your life, Jennifer! Don’t give in!
Walky was friends with Mike!
Is toxicity by proxy a thing?
Only if you believe the son should be punished for the sins of the father.
proxicity
I mean, they were in the same dorm. Kinda didn’t have much of a choice but befriending him.
I’m not sure Walky considered Mike his friend, or vice versa. They were roommates, and they occasionally spoke, but there’s a good chance Walky didn’t think of Mike as a friend. Mike almost certainly didn’t consider Walky a friend.
Walky was devastated by his death and while not a pure indicator is, well, indicative.
It’s easy to be devastated by the death of anyone you know well, even if you don’t like them. That Walky’s still paranoid about it being a prank and Mike jumping out of the closet to surprise him doesn’t suggest friendship.
And then there’s the guilt for feeling relief that he isn’t still there to mess with you – I’m extrapolating that, but I can’t really imagine otherwise.
Jennifer is a toxic person in her life. First one she’s gotta work on.
Yes, until she kills Billie, she’ll always be the drunk driving girl.
She has to fight her in a junkyard ala Superman 3.
Huh? They never made such a movie. Just Superman 1 and Superman 2. 🙂
I bet David spelled Selena Gomez’s name wrong on purpose to act like he doesn’t know all the Disney Channel/Nickelodeon stars-turned-singers by heart.
He harbors a secret grudge that his Hymnel the Hymnal stardom never resulted in Disney or Nickelodeon gigs.
Joyce, I wish I had your level of knowledge about Taylor Swift. Having talked to Swifties on occasion in the past it’s miserable what has been put into my brain.
I’m with Joyce here
Joyce really missed, “At least I know what a fraction is.”
(Also, the start of Joyce’s explanation has the same energy as, “Imagine a SUPERMAN with the properties of a brick wall…”)
In Joyce’s defense, M and Taylor Swift are both real.
“Walky, pay attention to me! Be snarky or something. To ME, not to Joyce!!”
I probably wouldn’t know who she is if she didn’t keep pissing off MAGA types. Which definitely inclines me to like, uhh, what she does.
I’m not a hardcore swifty, but I will say she’s a pretty good lyricist. Not that she writes *all* her own songs, but then, who does?
Aside from cover versions or guest features, she does write or co-write all of her own songs. It was pretty key to her being able to re-release versions of her album when the original recordings were owned by her former label.
She also writes (or wrote, maybe) for other artists: Rihanna’s This Is What You Came For has both her lyrics and background vocals.
I thought she wrote all the lyrics herself (or cowrote) but not necessarily all the music?
If she’s doing all the songwriting then that’s actually super impressive, though I remain much more impressed by her lyrics than by the music and her singing. (Not to bash her music or singing, just… the lyrics are, I think, really surprisingly good. I don’t think much of most lyrics to most songs, whatever the genre!)
It’s not that hard to piss off MAGA types. Swift just gets more attention when she upsets them because she’s a celebrity with lots of fans.
The main thing I know about her is she rerecorded her entire discography just to screw over her old record label after they tried to screw her over and honestly I respect that
Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly listened to a Taylor Swift song. But I like her anyway. She has all the right enemies.
I decided I needed to find out what everybody was talking about, so I listened to one of her songs. She’s really good at the kind of stuff she does, but I’m bored by the kind of stuff she does….
Has she? I feel like if someone showed me a pic of taylor swift wearing a maga hat I wouldn’t be surprised
i do vaguely remember there being vids of ppl mocking kamala for spending soo much money for beyonce and other ‘celebs’ to show up and ‘endorse’ her (which you’d think that kinda payment/bribe would be illegal or so), and still losing, but yeah i’m b urnt out on politics to rly care
It was actually a whole thing that some MAGAts used generative AI to create images of Swift endorsing Trump.
The real, actual Taylor Swift was pissed, and was pissed enough at Trump+MAGA to publically endorse Kamala Harris.
And then Trump made a social media post that said, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”
It should be noted Taylor Swift has denounced white supremacy multiple time, campaigned for Democrats in Tennessee, and also is important about feminism as well as bodily rights.
She’s probably THE MOST mainstream active anti-MAGA artist in music today.
i see, that’s good but i can imagine some ppl not speaking out either way to not rly get involved with politics even tho celebs usually never shut up about their beliefs
that said with how busy/it causing a scene, i wonder how many ppl send a proxy to let them vote for them, legality aside, versus them getting access like 1-2 weeks early of a send in ballot or so b/c other than some upper rich class place i imagine any kinda celeb vaguely recognizable showing up at a voting area would cause unwanted attention (never saw any kinda voting areas outside of schools tho , wonderh ow much it inconvenienced the students, or if teens would be tempted to troll and shout out some stuff to pester voters)
from what i’ve seen/heard, swifties are usually so obsessed that they probably wouldn’t rly either care about voting or , if she came out as a supporter of one person, maybe be willing to ‘convert’ but too many ppl putting idols on a pedestal
This is why Taylor didn’t sway the election. They kept her fans from her politics!
A bounded sequence is what it sounds like, a bunch of numbers “within a boundary”. For example, if you have a bunch of 1s, all of them are less than 2, so you’d say that the sequence of all 1s is bounded above by 2. It’s also bounded above by 1.5, and 1.1, and 1.001. In turn, a sequence of all 1s is bounded below by 0. Where this gets interesting is when you have a sequence of numbers that changes. If your sequence is just counting up by 1 every time–so (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, …), that sequence is bounded below by 0, but is it bounded above by anything? What about the sequence generated by starting with 1 and dividing the last number by 2 every time: (1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, …)?
As it turns out, not only is that last sequence bounded below by 0, but 0 is the greatest lower bound–that sequence isn’t lower bounded by any number greater than 0. The sequence is “within the boundary” of 0, just barely–it “takes up all the space” between 1 and 0. What’s really weird, though is that the sequence (1, 1/2, 1/4, …) never actually reaches 0. It just gets smaller and smaller forever. This isn’t too weird if you find it intuitive that numbers can get bigger and bigger forever, but still, the ability of a sequence to approach really really close to a bound without ever reaching it is important.
Why is this useful? Well, it relates to the concept of a limit, which is what a sequence (or another collection of numbers like a function) does as it approaches some number, even if it never actually reaches it. And limits are useful because they allow us to define a derivative–what a function does when its input changes by a really really small amount. And once you have a definition for a derivative you can define an integral, which describes the large-scale behavior of a function. That gives you what’s called the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, and then you can define kinds of derivatives and integrals for functions of multiple variables with more generalized characteristics (like complex variables), which then lets you predict things like how an infectious disease spreads through a population and eventually (if you learn a whole other kind of mathematics called topology) the shape of spacetime itself.
Joyce as a math major might be kind of cool… though she won’t get into the more interesting classes for another 45 years.
And now we cut to Joyce making a musical discovery
listen, i’d rather know about the calculus fraction rather than the taylor swift fraction.
She is correct, that is a lot of them.
I can’t tell if Billy is thinking “I wish I had someone to bully me about not knowing popstars because of my Evangelical upbringing” or “maybe I could launch a pop career by singing about my exes. Now I need to get more exes than Ruth and Asher.”
All I know about Taylor Swift is that she sang shake it off and call me maybe and is dating a sports ball.
I do low key love it when one of the kids down the road has sleepovers and you can hear half a dozen itty bitties singing to her at the top of their lungs. Reminds me of my childhood but with MCR
Call Me Maybe is not Taylor Swift.
…. Then I know even less than I thought 🤦
To be fair, you don’t hear Carly Rae Jepsen’s name much these days. (I do have a friend who’s a big fan of hers, and for him I will add: even if you should.)
wouldn’t be surprised if she ever collabed or did da call me maybe cover one day lol
I think Tom Hanks dated a sports ball once. Broke my heart when Wilson left him.
You got to understand Joyce. You don’t choose hyperfixation, hyperfixation chooses you.
Why am I thinking of Yakov Smirnoff?
In Soviet Russia…
In Soviet Russia, Yakov Smirnoff thinks of you!
I’d like to have seen where Joyce was going with that. Taylor Swift (doesn’t matter if I know who Taylor Swift is, beyond ‘celeb’) is a boundary that the function does not produce numbers beyond.
For example a function (yes, function does have more than one meaning!) that ‘contains’ celebs no more famous that Taylor Swift…. but presumably also no less famous than…. Who?
To be fair, I wasn’t sheltered at all but I wouldn’t know any of Taylor Swift’s music, except I worked on a farm when she was first getting popular and we were only ever supposed to have the country station on (we were public-facing and supposed to stay somewhat on theme).
(I would still know who she is though, between friends and internet saturation)
(my brother had it worse, he worked at McDonalds and they only played soft rock)
Maybe Jennifer see this as a proof that Walky finally gave up to talk with her.
I mean strictly speaking Joyce isn’t wrong. The Disney Channel (& also Nickelodeon a little bit) to pop star pipeline was going pretty strong there for a while. I guess now that cable is dying those days are over…
A surprising number of late 90s pop stars were on Mickey Mouse Club when they were kids. Guess that’s what happens when you work for a massive media empire.
Maybe that’s why one works for a massive media empire.
In capitalist America, massive media empire works you.
Sadly, Joyce, as a white woman one day you’ll hear one of her songs in the middle of a lonely place and then you will develop a new hyperfixation. It is your destiny, as Vader would say.
look Walky – nobody knows more than a fraction of the world they live in. The worlds to big to fit in a single human head.
That’s just what I wanted to say. Imagine the conceit to think you know everything that’s going on or like, you know what all people are like. . .of course that describes everyone I ever knew below the age of 30 and most older folks too. It takes a certain intellectual courage to imagine even the “number” of people in the world, let alone what they all have going on.
Although, Walky’s comment is very consistent with the guy who passionately argued Dexter & Monkey Master is the best cartoon because it’s the most popular.
You know what, if you’re gonna roll the dice, at least you’re playing the right odds.
Obviously this was about that one episode of New Girl Taylor Swift appeared in, jeez, Walky, do you even watch TV
Lucky guy, I think I would enjoy talking math with Joyce.
Need to make Joyce more autistic, so she can think of a punchline for “fraction” and “bounded sequence” that Walky won’t get.
OK, yeah, but she’s not hyperfocused in calculus. For her, it’d probably be a joke on how a fraction of the apostles were bound in prison in Acts 12, or something like that.
Actually, that sounds a little similar to the early, pre-Becky strips, when she was off the deep end.
Not only Walky, but no more than 1 out of 5 of the readers would get it.
Okay I’m gonna try using this explanation the next time I teach calculus.
Well, technically, Ariana Grande was a NICKELODEON sitcom star, but yes, point made ,
She’s also a playable character in both Final Fantasy and Fortnite, which is cooler than whatever Tay Lorswift is doing nowadays.
I’m not really familiar with what Taylor Swift is doing these days, but I liked a lot of her older country songs before she switched to pop music, and a couple of her songs after that. Maybe eventually I’ll catch up with her more recent music, if I have the time.
I wish i was Joyce. All additional information I know on Taylor Swift I was taught against my will.
(My opinion is I like some of her songs and don’t appreciate how big her carbon footprint is. Also don’t get why people act like she’s way more left wing than she actually is)
I tend to feel similarly about Taylor Swift.
“What’s it like to know only a fraction of the world in which you live?”
Walky’s Joyce disses continue to hit a deep nerve in my own evangelical upbringing. Being teased for not already knowing things you **weren’t allowed to learn** isn’t a fun experience.
“Yeah well I know math so shut up.”
Shout-out to the other people in this comment section who like Taylor Swift ✌️
I’ll gently co-sign this. As I said below, I like some of her music, and will never find her or anything she does more annoying than performative over-the-top hate, which seems to mysteriously drift every generation to whatever teen girls are into now.
I’ve been a fan of hers for eighteen years now, since only her first album was out, and the hating on her game has been old to me for at least fifteen years now.
Oh yeah, Swift’s had a SUSTAINED hate campaign for as long as she’s existed in the public eye. She’s also kind of an unusually long-lived female popstar, though.
not knowing any of these celebrities might be culturally isolating but it also would be very peaceful
I mean Jennifer if there’s ever been two people to start with when mending relationships…
Most Taytay knowledge I have comes from doing custom Connections and also this one guy I know.
Joyce and Walky bickering seems excellently normal amongst many storylines of questioning and struggle, heh.
Not really related, but I’m wondering when we’ll get back to Walky and Dorothy and if they’re actually still good for each other at all….
Her music is fine (too many ballads for my tastes, I like some of her more “hype” songs and some of her angrier songs), but Taylor Swift has ever or could ever do will be more annoying to me than the people who make hating her their entire personality.
(Please reread this comment before you complain that I said you weren’t allowed to dislike her, as if that’s even something I was capable of enforcing.)
but *nothing Swift has ever or could ever do
And with that quarantined:
— This is a cute interaction and reminds me of how much more I personally like Joyce+Walky as bickering spiritual siblings than as a couple.
— I wonder how much of the boozey party is fuzzy to Joyce. Dorothy definitely identified the artist there as Taylor Swift, so I feel like if Joyce remembered things perfectly from that night, she’d be more confident about Swift being a singer.
On the other hand, we’ve definitely seen her pretend to know less than she does sometimes (like what euphemisms mean, or what Danny’s name is). If she just doesn’t care for Swift’s music, I could see her talking like this about her.
— Why DOES Joyce keep forgetting Danny’s name accidentally-on-purpose anyway. It’s PROBABLY just Willis having fun lampshading how different their relationship is this go-around, given that IW!Joyce was obsessed, but assuming she knows Danny is Dorothy’s ex… Willis could also be getting some mileage out of that, for reasons of subtext, since we know they really enjoy (enjoyed?) ship-teasing Joyce and Dorothy.
— …has Jennifer spent this whole time just kinda. Walking a few paces behind or in front of their group, sitting a few seats away, watching them all be friends, waiting to be noticed and not being noticed…?
(I kind of think we are headed for a re-Billie-ing here, but it hasn’t happened yet, so.)
I’m seeing that the server clock is incrementally moving off again.
you know, i started reading DoA before i read williss earlier work, so the idea of joyce and walky together was like marshmallow fluff and cement. then like a year ago i read it all, and actually found them so cute, i started to ship them. now im back to marshmallow and cement lmao
god i wish i were joyce (not knowing who taylor swift is)