And I had managed to live my life so far without ever having heard of NewsMax. But no, I had to google it. And now I’m afraid to try to decode the alt-text reference.
yes, it’s outstandingly clear that despite Dorothy’s sentiments, it is in fact Carol who took HERSELF away from Joyce — she chose to alienate her own daughter because she genuinely thought that was worth it to prove a point, same with Linda
people like Carol and Linda don’t ACTUALLY believe in “family” or “the value of hard work”, which of course isn’t to say that they don’t believe in SOMETHING
granted, that something is a bunch of racist, sexist, classist, xenophobic, authoritarian, homophobic, dominionistic bullshit,
but point being, despite their avid insistence to the contrary, those are what their values actually are, and they govern according to those values (-_-)
Eh, I think it’s a bit much to say that what Carol believes in is the sexist/racist/etc. stuff. I think all of that is layered on top of the oldest and most powerful belief: Us Vs. Them. Basic tribalism, community is created by making an in-group and an out-group. If Carol’s daughter starts showing out-group tendencies, she has a choice: Remain in community with Joyce and become out-group from the rest of her community, or reject Joyce to maintain her other relationships. All of the religious/moralistic reasoning is just a justification for the maintaining of her in-group identity and community.
Rimwalker55
That is a very good point. It may also be true that most people don’t actually know they are being tribal, or racist, or homophobic. They only know that they feel safer, or more in control and ‘together’ when in certain situations and never examine the motivations for that contentment. It’s all out of sight but active.
Bryy
I mean, Carol *did* get overjoyed that there was a racist family moving in, right? With the implication being that she’s no longer the most extreme one?
They don’t believe in “family” as independent individuals, they believe in “family” as extras who make them (the main character of life) look good to their peers.
NGPZ
Yeah, people like them say stuff like “family”, “freedom”, “peace”, “equality”, “liberty”, etc
they may be using the same English words and vocabulary, but are speaking an entirely different language than we are, based on a very different, fundamentally incompatible set of values
and “different language” is not even as big an exaggeration as you may initially think:
consider the language Serbo-Croatian, once spoken in eastern Europe just northeast of Italy. After a period of turmoil in the region, the language eventually split into Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian.
to this day they still majorly use the same vocabulary and grammar as they did when they were all “officially” a single language, but INSIST they speak different languages because of very important political, social and cultural differences which may not be understood by outsiders.
Agreed, don’t sweat it, Dorothy. Pretty sure Joyce had already cut most or all ties with her mother long before you started smooching. It’s a little sad, but given how toxic the relationship had gotten it’s probably for the best.
Dorothy. DOROTHY. You’re aware of the story. That woman agreed to let the guy who threatened HER DAUGHTER AND HER DAUGHTER’S BEST FRIEND with a fucking gun AND THEN DIVORCED HER DAD FOR DISAGREEING WITH THAT. Oh, and indirectly got one of her frien- acquaintances killed!
And also SOLD THEIR HOUSE TO FUND THE SAME PEOPLE WHO MADE ALL OF THAT POSSIBLE.
Jocey is damn right, you’re not even close to that top, methinks.
I can’t tell if the part about newsmax is because their propaganda cut of the relationship with the mother, or because their propaganda is in favor of taking ethnic people’s mothers from them.
“People shouldn’t have their mother’s taken from them.” Pretty audacious of Dorothy to say this, when half of her strips involve her stabbing, bludgeoning, running over, shooting, melting, and otherwise murdering specifically mothers, often while their children are nearby. Little fuckin’ hypocrite that she is.
That’s why you’re supposed to murderize the children first, so they don’t see their mothers taken away from them. Then you murderfy the mothers afterward. That’s just good slaughter stewardship.
I think it is more the fact that they frequently target, attack, debase, and blame the lgbtq+ community for the wrongs in the world as well as other things that the conservatives generally dislike such as protesting, liberals, the youths, amongst other things.
Reinforcement and bolstering of negative beliefs basically. Could even say they radicalize them.
Right wingnuts and reactionaries are not the same as conservatives. Newsmax is usually firmly in wingnut territory.
nadamás
Have you like, not been paying attention to literally any news the past decades? Conservatism as an general ideology had become basically completely merged with “rightwunuts”. It already partially was but it just fully went mask off since trump took office the firt time.
Nah, what this is referring to is the phenomenon of people “losing” family to far right propaganda brainrot. See posts all the time “My previously economically center-right but rational father started watching nothing but Newsmax [or even just Fox News] and now believes in [stolen elections, Jewish Space Lasers, whatever]”.
I think it’s her insecurity complex. The entire strip, Dorothy has filtered objective reality through the lens of her being the most important person in the room. She and Jennifer are the same way in that regard.
… What? Ok so we just making shit up now. Dorothy has plenty of flaws without needing to invest new ones.
Bill Erak
It’s not entirely untrue, but it’s phrased horribly.
Better said: Dorothy has always believed herself to be able to do anything and solve everything because she wanted to be president, and thus always centered other people’s problems through the lens of what she could do about it.
Now she doesn’t want to be president but she still has that instinct, so she sees this perceived problem, knows there’s no way to “”””fix”””” it, and sort of goes for self-blame. Which IS selfish, but not in a toxic or malicious way as people are certainly gonna try to spin it.
Bryy
Bill Erak said it better than me.
Corey C.
Bill’s thesis could be summed up in the strip where Dorothy sees Amber injured in bed. She immediately tries to help, but Dina already took care of everything Amber needed, to which Dorothy is left wondering what good is she if she can’t do anything to help. https://www.dumbingofage.com/comic/paraphernalia/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/comic/aggro/
.
Feels pretty relevant to point out that this is the last strip Dorothy and Carol were both in.
.
She’s, uh, missed a lot of Carol developments.
One of Dorothy’s most consistent and problematic traits is that she feels personally responsible for fixing pretty much every bad thing that happens. Last panel of this strip pretty much sums it up. https://www.dumbingofage.com/comic/chips/
I forget; what’s Joyce’s mom’s name again? is it . . . Thorace-bog?
Whatchamazog?
Thorax-and-a-bog?
Four-yacks-and-a-dog?
Ah, laxative-log!
No, that’s not it. Sapsucker-frog.?
138 thoughts on “The reason”
StClair
Oh, that very last line hits hard. :(
clif
And I had managed to live my life so far without ever having heard of NewsMax. But no, I had to google it. And now I’m afraid to try to decode the alt-text reference.
JR
You’re safe. Alt-text is a reference to a very silly cartoon villain from a very silly cartoon superhero show.
https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Evil_Midnight_Bomber_What_Bombs_At_Midnight
Rose By Any Other Name
Thank’s for the link.
I’d honestly forgotten that my tendency to replace “that” with “what” is a very old Tick reference.
Mo
YEAH BABY YEAH
EVIL IS GOOD BABY
Olofa
SPOON!
Wizard
Some days Fox just isn’t crazy enough.
Casi
Newsmax makes OANN look like CBS Pre-Wiss, and OANN already made Fox look like CNN Circa 2017
Casi
*Pre Weiss
elebenty
Yeah, same. In my case it was AM talk radio (and my dad.)
Sirksome
Eh, Carol’s not that trustworthy.
IntangibleMatter
I aspire to be an atheist that makes someone’s daughter gay.
Bonus points that I’m trans to make it extra horrifying that it was “one of the transgenders” who did it.
Amós Batista
“God” speed
TrueVCU
*Athe speed
anon
just open a ‘den of sin’ down the street from the closest catholic girls’ school ;P
IntangibleMatter
I have a friend who went to one and from what I hear they don’t need an external force to make them gay
Morleuca
No, we rely mostly on internal mechanisms when making someone gay
Astariel
Listen to Jocelyne, Dorothy. This one isn’t your fault and it’s not about you.
NGPZ
yes, it’s outstandingly clear that despite Dorothy’s sentiments, it is in fact Carol who took HERSELF away from Joyce — she chose to alienate her own daughter because she genuinely thought that was worth it to prove a point, same with Linda
people like Carol and Linda don’t ACTUALLY believe in “family” or “the value of hard work”, which of course isn’t to say that they don’t believe in SOMETHING
granted, that something is a bunch of racist, sexist, classist, xenophobic, authoritarian, homophobic, dominionistic bullshit,
but point being, despite their avid insistence to the contrary, those are what their values actually are, and they govern according to those values (-_-)
NGPZ
also, obligatory FUCK ICE
D:<
Wizard
Not even with someone else’s dick.
ValdVin
With a reference about how much Newsmax means during the second Trump reich I wonder when Willis put this one in the buffer.
Ed Rhodes
With a bottle brush!
Skellig
Eh, I think it’s a bit much to say that what Carol believes in is the sexist/racist/etc. stuff. I think all of that is layered on top of the oldest and most powerful belief: Us Vs. Them. Basic tribalism, community is created by making an in-group and an out-group. If Carol’s daughter starts showing out-group tendencies, she has a choice: Remain in community with Joyce and become out-group from the rest of her community, or reject Joyce to maintain her other relationships. All of the religious/moralistic reasoning is just a justification for the maintaining of her in-group identity and community.
Rimwalker55
That is a very good point. It may also be true that most people don’t actually know they are being tribal, or racist, or homophobic. They only know that they feel safer, or more in control and ‘together’ when in certain situations and never examine the motivations for that contentment. It’s all out of sight but active.
Bryy
I mean, Carol *did* get overjoyed that there was a racist family moving in, right? With the implication being that she’s no longer the most extreme one?
Needfuldoer
They don’t believe in “family” as independent individuals, they believe in “family” as extras who make them (the main character of life) look good to their peers.
NGPZ
Yeah, people like them say stuff like “family”, “freedom”, “peace”, “equality”, “liberty”, etc
they may be using the same English words and vocabulary, but are speaking an entirely different language than we are, based on a very different, fundamentally incompatible set of values
and “different language” is not even as big an exaggeration as you may initially think:
consider the language Serbo-Croatian, once spoken in eastern Europe just northeast of Italy. After a period of turmoil in the region, the language eventually split into Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian.
to this day they still majorly use the same vocabulary and grammar as they did when they were all “officially” a single language, but INSIST they speak different languages because of very important political, social and cultural differences which may not be understood by outsiders.
Wizard
Agreed, don’t sweat it, Dorothy. Pretty sure Joyce had already cut most or all ties with her mother long before you started smooching. It’s a little sad, but given how toxic the relationship had gotten it’s probably for the best.
Sirksome
Saying I remember the Tick probably ages me severely, huh?
mindbleach
Somehow one of Maurice LaMarche’s weirder roles, relative to a megalomaniacal rodent who sounds like Orson Welles.
Roborat
Wow, I am a big fan of voice actors, and Maurice LaMarche in particular, and I had no idea he was in The Tick, which I was also a big fan of.
mindbleach
He’s one of those guys who’s in eeeeverything.
Like Richard Horvitz, but with more range.
brionl
Dorothy is going to get banished to the Sidekick’s Lounge, isn’t she?
Alongcameaspider
Pretty sure bailing out Toedad put that relationship on the path to being over even if Joyce didnt consciously realize it at the time
Bill Erak
Dorothy. DOROTHY. You’re aware of the story. That woman agreed to let the guy who threatened HER DAUGHTER AND HER DAUGHTER’S BEST FRIEND with a fucking gun AND THEN DIVORCED HER DAD FOR DISAGREEING WITH THAT. Oh, and indirectly got one of her frien- acquaintances killed!
And also SOLD THEIR HOUSE TO FUND THE SAME PEOPLE WHO MADE ALL OF THAT POSSIBLE.
Jocey is damn right, you’re not even close to that top, methinks.
CT Phipps
Forget all that. SHE STOLE HANK’S DOG AND PUT HIM IN A KENNEL!
Zaxares
Yeah, reading Dorothy’s last line my immediate response was “No, Dorothy. It’s more like ‘some mothers don’t deserve children’.” :P
Freezer
You’re selling Dotty short. She’s top 30, at least.
Jesse
I can’t tell if the part about newsmax is because their propaganda cut of the relationship with the mother, or because their propaganda is in favor of taking ethnic people’s mothers from them.
StClair
In this case, it’s the first, IMO.
deliverything
¿Por qué no los dos?
Cassie
Carol took herself away, Dorothy. When the cost for not having that happen is to suppress yourself it’s not fucking worth it.
Steamweed
“You might be number 157 in the list of reasons.”
“Well, is there any way I can make the Top 100?”
“I am SO glad you asked!”
Taffy
“People shouldn’t have their mother’s taken from them.” Pretty audacious of Dorothy to say this, when half of her strips involve her stabbing, bludgeoning, running over, shooting, melting, and otherwise murdering specifically mothers, often while their children are nearby. Little fuckin’ hypocrite that she is.
Doopyboop
She’s trying to smokescreen that her next step will be to personally stab, bludgeon, shoot, etc fathers.
Steamweed
That’s why you’re supposed to murderize the children first, so they don’t see their mothers taken away from them. Then you murderfy the mothers afterward. That’s just good slaughter stewardship.
Rectilinear Propagation
🎵Crush the child
Crush the child
Here come the parents, crush them too
Witnesses are a problem for me; I’ve been to jail many times🎵
Bryy
….. Dorothy.
Dotty. Come on.
Morrison
Newsmax says disengage from family members that don’t share your views? Literally?
JA
Should watch The Brainwashing of My Dad sometime.
Dedlok
I think it is more the fact that they frequently target, attack, debase, and blame the lgbtq+ community for the wrongs in the world as well as other things that the conservatives generally dislike such as protesting, liberals, the youths, amongst other things.
Reinforcement and bolstering of negative beliefs basically. Could even say they radicalize them.
Wizard
Right wingnuts and reactionaries are not the same as conservatives. Newsmax is usually firmly in wingnut territory.
nadamás
Have you like, not been paying attention to literally any news the past decades? Conservatism as an general ideology had become basically completely merged with “rightwunuts”. It already partially was but it just fully went mask off since trump took office the firt time.
RassilonTDavros
She’s referring to mass detentions and deportations, which Newsmax insists are Good Actually.
Lee
Nah, what this is referring to is the phenomenon of people “losing” family to far right propaganda brainrot. See posts all the time “My previously economically center-right but rational father started watching nothing but Newsmax [or even just Fox News] and now believes in [stolen elections, Jewish Space Lasers, whatever]”.
Schol-R-LEA;2
Well, it is one of the first thing any cult does, so…
Schol-R-LEA;2
Well, it is one of the first things any cult does, so…
Sirksome
Dorothy really has a HUGE martyr complex if she’s blaming herself for Carol. I guess she never really met the woman. Maybe she doesn’t know better.
Bryy
I think it’s her insecurity complex. The entire strip, Dorothy has filtered objective reality through the lens of her being the most important person in the room. She and Jennifer are the same way in that regard.
nadamás
… What? Ok so we just making shit up now. Dorothy has plenty of flaws without needing to invest new ones.
Bill Erak
It’s not entirely untrue, but it’s phrased horribly.
Better said: Dorothy has always believed herself to be able to do anything and solve everything because she wanted to be president, and thus always centered other people’s problems through the lens of what she could do about it.
Now she doesn’t want to be president but she still has that instinct, so she sees this perceived problem, knows there’s no way to “”””fix”””” it, and sort of goes for self-blame. Which IS selfish, but not in a toxic or malicious way as people are certainly gonna try to spin it.
Bryy
Bill Erak said it better than me.
Corey C.
Bill’s thesis could be summed up in the strip where Dorothy sees Amber injured in bed. She immediately tries to help, but Dina already took care of everything Amber needed, to which Dorothy is left wondering what good is she if she can’t do anything to help.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/comic/paraphernalia/
Li
https://www.dumbingofage.com/comic/aggro/
.
Feels pretty relevant to point out that this is the last strip Dorothy and Carol were both in.
.
She’s, uh, missed a lot of Carol developments.
Astariel
One of Dorothy’s most consistent and problematic traits is that she feels personally responsible for fixing pretty much every bad thing that happens. Last panel of this strip pretty much sums it up. https://www.dumbingofage.com/comic/chips/
Dave Van Domelen
I like the cut of her jib.
Dedlok
In regards to the Alt-Text: YEAH, BABY! YEAH!
Pocky
Hey, Joyce’s mom took herself away from them with her defense of toedad.
Gin
That ship may have sailed.
But this “ship” has lifted anchor and is full steam ahead. And it sure is steamy.
Don’t give me that look. Everyone who uses the term Ship knows they have to double check before speaking.
Cholma
I forget; what’s Joyce’s mom’s name again? is it . . . Thorace-bog?
Whatchamazog?
Thorax-and-a-bog?
Four-yacks-and-a-dog?
Ah, laxative-log!
No, that’s not it. Sapsucker-frog.?
Tequila Mockingbird