[PA Comic] Monday, January 21, 2013 - Royalty

Geth

Royalty
http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/01/21

Astraphobia

I could do without all the stupid reality show introduction flourishes (e.g. the stupid Throne of Games) but it was watchable at least.

The Paul

It took me a while to figure out exactly what it is I don't like about Big Bang Theory.

It's this.

Lucascraft

I don't have the foggiest clue what King of the Nerds is, but this comic is shockingly introspective.

admanb

This is poignant.

Gyral

Lucascraft wrote: »

I don't have the foggiest clue what King of the Nerds is, but this comic is shockingly introspective.

It's a "reality" TV show on TBS. As with everything on TBS, it's been advertised so much I had no desire to watch it anymore (as if I did).

http://www.tbs.com/shows/king-of-the-nerds/

pirateluigi

This is the prettiest damn strip I've ever seen.

TychoCelchuuu

Yeah this strip is super pretty. I think it would be better with some jokes though, or at least one joke.

staplegun07

This strip was gorgeous. Not only is the art absolutely wonderful, but the dialogue hit home. I've managed to be a "nerd" all my life while receiving minimal grief for it, but I have always been acutely aware of how most people saw my hobbies. I have always been intrigued how "nerds" and "gamers" seem to be one of the few social groups so easily separated and categorized by their hobbies, and rarely in a positive way, and yet how quickly we all identify with it. It's what I both love and hate about the epithets. The terms are so rarely used to do anything but disparage, but it is worn like a badge of honor (one which we would fight to defend even if it means attacking our own who threaten to turn it into a badge of misogyny and hate). I have to say this comic made me look at Big Bang Theory again in a new way, one which had always kind of been there but always as some ephemeral shadow beast lurking in the recesses of my mind. I saw the trailer for King of the Nerds for the first time the other day when I was out to see a movie, and I had the same reaction as it seems most people on this site are having... apprehension with a dash of insulted. I really do hope that it turns out to be as positive and perhaps empowering as the first two "shoes" have described it. I guess... it feels like there is more at stake when it's no longer fiction being played out on a sitcom.

Aurich

This strip makes me feel like a bad person for not liking it much. And you guys are not helping.

KalTorak

I think the PAR recently linked to an article looking at the divergent ways that nerds were treated on BBT versus Community, which was pretty interesting and made a similar point re: BBT making bring a nerd the punchline of its jokes, compared to Community putting the audience on the nerd's (Abed, usually) side to enjoy the joke.

TychoCelchuuu

Wallpaper of the strip.

BlueBlue

My understanding is that there will be a dance-off challenge

Raslin

Yet another reason I'm sad that I couldn't make my audition for this. Stupid work.

punto

Wow I tried to watch it but I couldn't make it through all the reality tv chiches (the way it was cut, introduced, the "who will get kicked off the island" structure, etc). I closed it at the part where they go into the house and there's the obligatory "people reacting to the house montage". I had no idea it involved chess games and being rewarded for getting picked last.

TheKoolEagle

I watched the first episode and yeah, I have very mixed emotions about it, it feels like the root of the show was to celebrate nerd culture, but then to make it interesting to everyone else they introduced the reality bit along with cut up videos to make the contestants look like they are crazy.

The next episode will be what makes it or breaks it for me I think

anathos

KalTorak wrote: »

I think the PAR recently linked to an article looking at the divergent ways that nerds were treated on BBT versus Community, which was pretty interesting and made a similar point re: BBT making bring a nerd the punchline of its jokes, compared to Community putting the audience on the nerd's (Abed, usually) side to enjoy the joke.

This claim has been all over the site the last few weeks, and I can't understand why people still believe it after the most recent episode. The audience is clearly meant to feel sympathy rather than disdain for The Guys after the excessive abuse they suffer for their cosplay, Penny is mocked relentlessly for her lack of intelligence by her closest friends, The Guys return home to find The Girls engaging in an argument about one of their (The Guys) interests, and even Sheldon's mania for trivia is celebrated in the final scene with care thieves.

If anyone was the punchline in that episode, it's non-nerds.

Turambar

Beautiful

KalTorak

A group of cosplayers being stared at in a trucker bar, and the punchline is all the truckers? Or maybe it was the cop that assumed (correctly, I might add) that they wanted to call their mommies?

anathos

KalTorak wrote: »

A group of cosplayers being stared at in a trucker bar, and the punchline is all the truckers? Or maybe it was the cop that assumed (correctly, I might add) that they wanted to call their mommies?

I don't know if I'd call it a "punchline", but yes. We know that The Guys have had a crappy day and just want to go home, but all everyone else cares about is that they look funny. We're supposed to side with The Guys over all the cruel jerks they encounter everywhere. It's all a critique of people who judge others for their hobbies and a setup for their triumphant return home.

But I'll grant you the bit about Howard calling his mother undercuts the whole thing.

KalTorak

The whole time I thought the payoff of that scene was going to be one of the truckers or maybe the cop also being a (slightly less enthusiastic) Trek or cosplay fan.

But nope, the payoff is those guys are just weird, and normal people find them weird.

Slicer

anathos wrote: »

KalTorak wrote: »

I think the PAR recently linked to an article looking at the divergent ways that nerds were treated on BBT versus Community, which was pretty interesting and made a similar point re: BBT making bring a nerd the punchline of its jokes, compared to Community putting the audience on the nerd's (Abed, usually) side to enjoy the joke.

This claim has been all over the site the last few weeks, and I can't understand why people still believe it after the most recent episode. The audience is clearly meant to feel sympathy rather than disdain for The Guys after the excessive abuse they suffer for their cosplay, Penny is mocked relentlessly for her lack of intelligence by her closest friends, The Guys return home to find The Girls engaging in an argument about one of their (The Guys) interests, and even Sheldon's mania for trivia is celebrated in the final scene with care thieves.

If anyone was the punchline in that episode, it's non-nerds.

Even if that weren't the case, it's not something that should be complained about anyways. The sort of humor has been around for awhile and poking fun at social groups is certainly acceptable. A classic example is the SNL "Da Bears" sketch which mocked hardcore sports fans that had fanboyish views on their favorite team, and hipsters are made fun of all the time. Nerds shouldn't be an exception to that!

People gotta come up with all sorts of weird logic to justify hating it (the worst I've ever seen is a term that has been floating around the internet: "nerd blackface", which is such a fucking stupid term for a variety of reasons and the people that use clearly it don't understand why) when they can just say "I don't like BBT because it's an unfunny sitcom".

KalTorak

...and one of the reasons it's unfunny is that most of its jokes rely on outdated stereotypes.

Why do you demand that the conversation stop at "unfunny"? People aren't allowed to discuss why it isn't funny?

Slicer

I'm not even saying they should stop anything! I'm just saying that people come up with hella weird logic to justify their hatred and it is silly. There's nothing weird with what you're saying. That's a reasonable complaint.

Eharr10

It would be interesting to see if the people who find the show uncomfortable to watch, would still find it that way, if it didn't have the laugh track. My question being: Is it uncomfortable because of the laughter where you don’t find it funny? Does it make it feel like you are being laughed at, rather than laughed with?

Tarranon

I don't really get when Community turns into the anti-bbt

One of the major motifs of the show is how these characters are basically terrible, and the worst aspects of their personalities are played up for laughs, conflict, and plot. Whether it's Abed and his obssessive personality and borderline autism, Shirley and her evangelical Christianity or Pierce and his being old and white. They're all caricatures, Abed is a nerdy caricature, and if the show were full of varying flavors of him instead of just being one it would probably piss off nerds too.

TychoCelchuuu

The news post for this one is stupendous. Excerpt:

We have an investment in this terminology, which is bizarre, but still true; I suspect that Jesus had no great love for the cross, or the lash, but here we are traipsing around in the fetters of our enemies’ ill-will. This isn’t a state that can long continue, its tenacity is simply a function of the pain with which it was applied. Will this be true for our larvae? Who knows. It’s hard to see the changes when you are looking with passionate intensity at your own time-shifted torment.

I picked up my son from school last week, and his “thinking face” was apparent; I waited until he had finished chewing.

“Some kids called me a nerd today,” he said.

How did that make you feel?

“It didn’t make me feel like anything,” he replied. “There’s no such thing as a nerd.”

The Paul

The odd thing about Big Bang Theory is that it applies that "let's laugh at this person for being different," to other groups, and I noticed that first. There are occasionally jokes that boil down to "Walowitz is Jewish! Hah!" or "Raj is Indian, Hah!"

I caught on to their doing that right away. I had to see a few more episodes to realize that the majority of the other jokes were "<character> is a nerd! Hah!"

I guess if you find it funny, it's funny. But for me you have to put a little more work into that kind of thing, subvert some expectations or something, otherwise it's just being a dick without bothering to actually make a joke.

milski

As a person who cuts down trees with a bunch of other people who self identify as nerds, I can definitely say that the outdated nerd stereotypes aren't true, but I still find it hard to hate the BBT solely for playing with old nerd stereotypes. I don't find it particularly funny, but I don't find it nearly as terrible as some people say; it laughs at the characters a lot but it does laugh with them enough, and have enough correct references to nerd culture, that somebody on the show cares. The fact is that we're supposed to care about the guys on the BBT far more than we're supposed to care about the main cast on most sitcoms, which isn't a bad place to be.

Blendtec

Watch BBT with people who don't identify as nerds. A lot of the laughing with them jokes will suddenly turn into laughing at them. For example, I might get a kick out of them discussing the mechanics of Mjolner and Thor, but someone who doesn't understand that might laugh simply because they see it as another joke where the punch line is "nerds doing nerdy stuff". BBT does have its moments, but by in large I've noticed that most jokes boil down to pointing out a nerdy thing followed by the laugh track. Sheldon simply mentioning the word comic books shouldn't be met with more laughs than an entire episode of SNL.

That said, in general I'm not fond of a show doing that. It's one thing if it's something like South Park, I'm pretty sure at this point every single group/cliche/whatever has had many jokes directed at them. When it's just ganging up on one group constantly? It gets old and starts to get offensive. Obviously South Park has constant Jew jokes from Cartman, but that's because 1 character happens to be super offensive and anti-Semitic, the show isn't 100% that.

milski

I've watched BBT with other people, and yes, there's a lot of times where the joke boils down to them being nerdy or socially awkward or weird and that's what is supposed to be funny. It is not the greatest thing ever, I admit. I guess my lack of hatred for the show is that there are still moments that are actually good, they research what they're talking about enough that the characters at least seem to be actually nerdy, and I've never gone into a sitcom expecting to do anything but laugh at the protagonists to begin with; surprisingly enough while still being not-great characters in general, for a sitcom the characters on BBT are well rounded and sympathetic.

JusticeforPluto

The Paul wrote: »

It took me a while to figure out exactly what it is I don't like about Big Bang Theory.

It's this.

What I don't like about big bang is its just not funny. Oh, and I hate any show it a laugh track for some reason.

KitKatBar

BBT is problematic and has an overly loud audience, but my family (all nerds) watches it religiously anyway. In what sitcom aren't the characters the butt of the joke? We used to watch Home Improvement all the time, which made fun of tool guys. We watched Will and Grace, which made fun of gay guys. We watched Tiny Toons, which made fun of juvenile ducks. All those shows celebrated those kinds of characters, too.

Whatever a sitcom is about is what it will make fun of. The real success is getting you to care about the characters while laughing, and that's why my family watches BBT. Asperger's runs in the family; do you know how useful it is to be able to point to an example of Sheldon doing something and saying "like that"? My brother also has a "spot" that he's obsessive over, and while I wish he wasn't and it can be quite trying, if I just tell a guest "You know how Sheldon has a spot? That's my brother's, so try not to sit in it" while making a wry face, it goes over a million times better than trying to explain the details of his behavior.

And hey, sometimes they play Catan and make the same dumb Catan joke everyone does when they play, and we laugh because we do that too and now it's on TV!

[/soapbox]

So... Having managed to escape the advertising, what's the point of becoming King of the Nerds? Do you get a cash price or a trip to Wil Wheaton's house or something?

Faceless Coward

Strange elimination challenges are no basis for a system of geekement. Supreme nerd power derives from a mandate from the memes!

*Apologies!

Australopitenico

The problem with BBT is not some deep problem about how they treat nerds. It's just that "hey, people who plays D&D never gets laid" (laugh tracks) "hey, that indian guy said something that sounds gay" (laugh track) and "hey, look, that guy is being all jewish and shit" (laugh track) are just not jokes anymore, if they ever were. "Look, false stereotypes being stereotypey" is something that should remain sleeping in the deep abyss of the 90's.

gold

Australopitenico wrote: »

The problem with BBT is not some deep problem about how they treat nerds. It's just that "hey, people who plays D&D never gets laid" (laugh tracks) "hey, that indian guy said something that sounds gay" (laugh track) and "hey, look, that guy is being all jewish and shit" (laugh track) are just not jokes anymore, if they ever were. "Look, false stereotypes being stereotypey" is something that should remain sleeping in the deep abyss of the 90's.

This... The humor is just so cheap. It's basicly just making a punchline of things people already know as a punchline, so they laugh at it because that's what you're supposed to do, right? I agree that every sitcom makes fun of it's characters in some way, but I don't think it's mostly because of 'who' they are, but rather the way they react to a certain situation or event. I don't really recall obvious jokes in the Fresh Prince that boiled down to 'This is a black kid into hip hop, doing stuff that black kids into hiphop do.'

Neuroskeptic

I've watched BBT with other people, and yes, there's a lot of times where the joke boils down to them being nerdy or socially awkward or weird and that's what is supposed to be funny.

But every comedy has a character who's funny for that reason. George from Seinfeld. Ross from Friends. Etc. The difference is that in BBT they're labelled as 'geeks', which is arguably problematic, but the characters themselves are nothing new at all.

Neuroskeptic

P.S. And that's not even getting into British comedies, where half the characters are like that. But again they're rarely labelled as geeks.

Stormwatcher

The Christmas RPG BBT episode was fucking cringeworthy. No actual nerd would play DnD like that.

Goatmon

As a rule, I avoid any show with a laughtrack like the plague.

Going from Mike's comments, I think I will check this show out. It sounds pretty genuinely pro-nerd.

zepherin

Goatmon wrote: »

As a rule, I avoid any show with a laughtrack like the plague.

Going from Mike's comments, I think I will check this show out. It sounds pretty genuinely pro-nerd.

I don't know, I generally find laughtracks to be distracting and annoying, but if the show is good then I will only knock off a bit for the laugh track, unless it is the cheasy old school laugh track, where it is essentially the same canned sound with no variety, they have made some advances with how they handle laughtracks that moved them from really annoying to kind of annoying.

I just happen to like big bang theory. It is a form of abnigation for me. Same reason I watch top gear when I come home.