New Penny Arcade Comic for Monday August 15th, 2011

Fandyien

pretty much one of the first things that happened to me when i really started communicating with strangers on the internet was i registered here and juan sent me a gif of him jerkin' it

oh, childhood

JoeUser

Ivar wrote:

I've never even heard about parents actually leashing their children, let alone seen it. Is this some kind of weird American thing? Leashes are for dogs.

Javen

JayKaos wrote:

Ivar wrote:

I've never even heard about parents actually leashing their children, let alone seen it. Is this some kind of weird American thing? Leashes are for dogs.

Little kids are (sometimes) smarter than dogs, more curious, more likely to run away for no reason other than fuck you, and you're gonna miss em a hell of a lot more if they get run over by a car. Not a parent, and I dunno if I would ever leash my kids, just saying.

When I was out with my parents as a little kid, they just made me hold their hand a lot

Sky Box

Leashes for children seem to be something to allow them to walk around a bit without being kidnapped or running away. Which is nice. Wandering a bit can open up the world, and maybe that makes it a it more okay? Some kids really are stupid though, even if you physically/mentally discipline them. My sister and I have been raised in the same way, up to a certain age. When we were young, we were heavily disciplined at everything. But she...did some stupid things. She was 7 and still biting people, for no reason. She would eat the margarine out of the container, and have a face covered in the stuff. She drew all over multiple walls when she was 5-10. One of the worst stories is when our mother was screaming for her to come to the living room, since she had done fucked up. My sister screamed back from her room, "No, you come back here!" She had a bad time of it, to say the least.

A friend of mine and I talked about "parent licenses" once, and we pretty much came to the (depressing) conclusion that it would never work out. It would be nice to have a parent test in place though to make sure you wouldn't be crazy and kill/horribly beat your child. That friend of mine got put into foster care because of that. That sort of test probably wouldn't work too well either, though.

But yeah. Comic. Internet people can be really dangerous. I've never had that problem myself, but I imagine some people have. A friend of mine has pretended to be a girl on every MMO he has ever played. I've gotten some hilarious stories due to that. The moral of this story is, never trust internet people, most especially on MMOs. The alternate moral is pretending to be someone else leads to hilarious hi-jinks that make people in real life love you for your hilarious stories of internet stupidity. I do love this comic though. That face is the face of any parent who finds out what horrifying things their child is doing online.

Fandyien

one time in high school, i logged into a friend's WoW account

some dude messaged me and tried to initiate some hot cybersex with pet names and shit. i was all
"brah the guy who actually has this account has a moustache" and he freaked out

long story short the dude who owned that account raped a girl two years later

skettios

Maybe, instead of parent licenses, they should have soon-to-be parents take parenting classes?
of course, there's the issue of different parenting styles.. but maybe it could just show you the various options.
But mostly, go over the basics of raising a kid.

rfilyaw

Here's my solution. Any time a kid is born, the state takes the kid. They then give it to a random person somewhere else to raise.

I don't know what this is supposed to solve, I just think it would be funny.

Big Red Tie

i never really talked to weirdos on the internet until i came to se++

all i did was play neopets and runescape and d2

Kuribo's Shoe

If you played neopets and runescape I bet you talked to plenty of weirdos

Big Red Tie

nah on neopets i literally didn't talk to anyone but my friends (was there even a chat function?)

but in runescape one of my friends had a "gf" who turned out to be a dude so yeah. also some weird mistells in that game, but i never had anything directed at me on purpose

Ganluan

mistells are some of the best parts of an MMO. Also up there is people accidentally putting something in a server-wide chat channel that they meant to be private.

Seg

Ganluan wrote:

mistells are some of the best parts of an MMO. Also up there is people accidentally putting something in a server-wide chat channel that they meant to be private.

Especially when that something is an angry outburst about someone that is in the same guild.

Seg

As for being a parent dealing with kids on the internet, my wifes 10 year old granddaughter spends much of her time playing a few online social things, we have talked to her about why she shouldn't tell people her real name, age or where she lives.

jwalk

I saw a kid on a leash at the autocross race the other day, but I mean there are cars everywhere including ones racing around the course, not exactly a safe place for kids. Or dogs.

Rankenphile

Fandyien wrote:

one time in high school, i logged into a friend's WoW account

some dude messaged me and tried to initiate some hot cybersex with pet names and shit. i was all
"brah the guy who actually has this account has a moustache" and he freaked out

long story short the dude who owned that account raped a girl two years later

I don't think that is how "long story short" works

rfilyaw

Yadda yadda yadda, I'm real tired today.

Rankenphile

One time I was playing Everquest and this guy kept ganking me while I waited for a spawn.

Long story short, my uncle got AIDS from a blood transfusion.

Druhim

:^:

TankHammer

I had a talk with my sister when she was first starting to use the internet regularly in a social way. Mostly websites with flash games and stuff where there was a messaging system. I explained how to create an alias/username to use as a cover because that is what you are supposed to do on the internet. I told her a few of mine for example and she picked a pretty decent one.

When I first started using the internet many years earlier (1995ish) my family had AOL so my father picked my screen-name. He explicitly told me he didn't want me "using some fake name to deceive people" or something like that so to this day my AOL name is just my first name, middle initial and first 4 letters of my last name. It's a good thing I didn't attract any pedophiles because that shit isn't hard to decipher.

Ganluan

My AOL name was the same way, and I don't know what the hell I was thinking.

Ledneh

Tossrock wrote:

bwanie wrote:

Rolo wrote:

what happens if he is fascinated, and wants more

lardroom

Mommy?

Is there an explanation anywhere for this lardroom thing? I've seen it before and even have had an image in its name for the longest damn time

rfilyaw

This maybe?

jwalk

long story short, it's raining bears.

rfilyaw

Hallelujah, it's rainin' bears!
I'm gonna go out~ I'm gonna let myself get~ Absolutely soaking wet!

faits

rfilyaw wrote:

Here's my solution. Any time a kid is born, the state takes the kid. They then give it to a random person somewhere else to raise.

I don't know what this is supposed to solve, I just think it would be funny.

It seems like a solid idea at first blush, but where do the leashes fit in?

skettios

faits wrote:

rfilyaw wrote:

Here's my solution. Any time a kid is born, the state takes the kid. They then give it to a random person somewhere else to raise.

I don't know what this is supposed to solve, I just think it would be funny.

It seems like a solid idea at first blush, but where do the leashes fit in?

leash will lead them back to their first parents

Houk

faits wrote:

rfilyaw wrote:

Here's my solution. Any time a kid is born, the state takes the kid. They then give it to a random person somewhere else to raise.

I don't know what this is supposed to solve, I just think it would be funny.

It seems like a solid idea at first blush, but where do the leashes fit in?

leash the kid to the new parent so they can't just dump the kid with someone else

faits

Okay, but do the original parents get leashes too? It seems like they should get something for their efforts.

Houk

faits wrote:

Okay, but do the original parents get leashes too? It seems like they should get something for their efforts.

They get to not have to deal with the kid

facetious

Big Red Tie wrote:

i never really talked to weirdos on the internet until i came to se++

all i did was play neopets and runescape and d2

Did you talk on the neopets forums at all? 'cause that place is terrifying.

Dark Raven X

facetious wrote:

Big Red Tie wrote:

i never really talked to weirdos on the internet until i came to se++

all i did was play neopets and runescape and d2

Did you talk on the neopets forums at all? 'cause that place is terrifying.

I have vague memories of neopets.

Here is the clearest memory;

"Alright, I've had my dog for a week now, lets go pick a fight, make some mad stacks o' neopoints!"

Then I got wrecked.

Then I went back to playing real games.

facetious

I didn't really bother with the battledome.

I was just a restocker. Made like 10 mil in a month when I made a new account after my original one got "hacked" (by which I mean I made it when I was 12 and my password was my name, which was in my profile) after I won the Neopian lottery. Got bored, periodically came back, had like 50 million NP and never did anything with it and quit.

Big Red Tie

facetious wrote:

Big Red Tie wrote:

i never really talked to weirdos on the internet until i came to se++

all i did was play neopets and runescape and d2

Did you talk on the neopets forums at all? 'cause that place is terrifying.

never!

i kinda just did the minigames and did some battles and stuff
i didnt play it that much compared to runescape and especially not compared to d2

Shorty

Fandyien wrote:

pretty much one of the first things that happened to me when i really started communicating with strangers on the internet was i registered here and juan sent me a gif of him jerkin' it

oh, childhood

I was spared juancock, oddly

in fact to this day I've never seen any forumdong

which is pretty fucking ridiculous after eight years or so

Peter Ebel

I remember I was reading over a good size paper I had written on Wittgenstein when Juan posted a billion gifs of his dick. I think it was around a Christmas.