Lovely People aka 'the bunny comic'

[Sc0ut]

Took me long enough to realize that "Alizongle" in the story is actually Ali Baba, the Chinese e-commerce group.

Someone said earlier in the thread that it's probably a combo of Ali Baba, Amazon and Google, and I agree.

[Superdark33]

Yep, Ali Baba (Evil China Store that sells Evil Useless Material Objects), Amazon (Evil Media and Material Object seller, has shows that arent 100% white christian men, evil), Google (banned far right people once ((((((( evil) are the villians for all the wrong reasons.


I didnt really comment on it when it happened, but im not really keen on the parasocial discussions on the well-being of Minna, its a bit iffy to speculate on a person's personal life like that.

[Sc0ut]

I didnt really comment on it when it happened, but im not really keen on the parasocial discussions on the well-being of Minna, its a bit iffy to speculate on a person's personal life like that.

Is it really parasocial? In my understanding the key component of a parasocial relationship is the imagined reciprocity. I didn't get the feeling that any of us who discussed the place Minna might be at feel that she's our personal friend or cares about us (I can only speak for myself for sure, and I certainly don't believe that). I personally don't even claim to care about her beyond a very general "I'd rather everyone was doing well", I never was into that overprotective approach some people had towards her in earlier days of fandom.

I don't like going too wild with speculating about people's personal lives and intentions either (whether they're famous or not), but I think some amount of "what the hell happened here, and how might I prevent being blindsided again if it happens with other authors/people I know" is inevitable when someone you know about displays such a big, sudden shift in personal values. Part of trying to understand something is talking about it imo.

[catbirds]

I don't like going too wild with speculating about people's personal lives and intentions either (whether they're famous or not), but I think some amount of "what the hell happened here, and how might I prevent being blindsided again if it happens with other authors/people I know" is inevitable when someone you know about displays such a big, sudden shift in personal values. Part of trying to understand something is talking about it imo.

It did get out of hand a few pages ago, at which point I think Wave decided to put a stop to it because it was getting close to armchair diagnoses. However, thoughts about how this comic might have happened, especially those that consider past events, seem pretty helpful.

As someone who almost always had Minna's stream in the background (but not anymore from now on, I think), I felt that at one point a few months ago it became obvious that this was what the "bunny comic" would be about. My big "oh no"/"oh [expletive]" moment was when I saw the words "SOCIAL CREDIT SYSTEM" tacked on the blackboard in a drawing she was working on, either in a stream or in a video. I still cut her a bit of slack by waving it off as "well maybe it'll be handled well" (considering that I enjoyed her previous stories), though clearly that did not end up being the case. I'm not sure if anyone's out there still archiving streams, but if anyone has several hours of time to burn, you can go back and check.

[Maple]

Bringing this back to the 'content warning' idea for a moment. (And I will say, I prefer the name 'content warning' to 'trigger warning' because while all trigger warnings are content warnings, not all content warnings are trigger warnings. For example, movie ratings for 'sex' or 'extreme violence' are content warnings, but not trigger warnings.)

I think the talk about "Well real life doesn't warn for content, so I'm not going to warn for my comic" is disingenuous because it misses the entire point: that this is a comic to be read for fun.

Yes, of course real life isn't going to have content warnings before something horrible happens. Tragedy happens with no warning whatsoever sometimes. But a comic isn't real life. Reading a comic is an activity people do for fun. And when people go looking for something to do for fun, they're going to read reviews and summaries to find something they personally want to do.

Here is an example of what I mean: I don't like spiders. I REALLY don't like spiders. In real life if I see a spider I have to call in someone else to take the spider out of my room and move it outside. Or if it's in a public space I quickly move away from it. So when I'm looking for something to do in my free time, I still don't want to see spiders. So if I see a warning of "hey, this page here has lots of pictures of cute little jumping spiders" I say "awesome, good for you, enjoy those pictures. I'm going to go somewhere else, thank you." I don't expect people to jump in and tell me "hey Maple there's a spider in your bedroom", because that's not realistic. But if people post pictures of spiders all over a web page without at least going "there be spiders here" then I get annoyed, because I don't want to spend what little free time I have looking at spiders! I want to do something else!

That's a bit simplistic of an answer, but it's the idea. Entertainment comes with content warnings all the time so people can make a personal judgement of if they want to consume that entertainment. Movie ratings, series summaries, book reviews, that sort of thing. Content warnings are everywhere in entertainment, because entertainment is supposed to be fun and making informed choices on entertainment is important to having that fun.

I just think it misses the mark to go "Real life doesn't have content warnings", because that's not the point. You don't see people saying "Real life doesn't come with ratings, so let's remove ratings from movies."

[Tarnagh]

I just think it misses the mark to go "Real life doesn't have content warnings", because that's not the point. You don't see people saying "Real life doesn't come with ratings, so let's remove ratings from movies."

I 100% agree with this. Entertainment contains content warnings for a reason. Parents may not want to let their children watch something violent or with strong sexual overtones. Or maybe, they don't want to see it themselves. Regardless, entertainment forms of all types contain content warnings so people can choose for themselves whether or not they want to consume that content. Webcomics are another form of entertainment. We know SSSS is a horror comic and we can expect there will be times that we will see icky things. We choose to read it knowing full well that these scenes are going to happen. Some of webcomics have "mature" themes and people read those knowing what they're getting into.

Not providing a content warning (or at least a brief synopsis of themes) is pretty much asking for it in terms of some people getting upset over content they wanted no part of reading.

My two cents, anyhow.

[Róisín]

Maple and Tarnagh, I do agree with you both. Being a person who is very easy with looking at pictures of critters that many folk find disgusting or scary, things like ants, leeches, spiders, scorpions, snakes and the like, I do know, for instance, that I should warn the total arachnophobe and the guy who is terrified of venomous critters in general when I am about to watch, for instance, a video about the breeding habits of spiders or one showing the dissection of the venom glands of a snake. That is only good manners. Or to tell the very prudish person in the group of folk I am talking with that I will be taking the conversation I am having with one of them outside because we are about to discuss something like how the person I am talking to might deal with their horrible menstrual periods, or do the same when avoiding discussing how to field butcher a deer with one of my hunting mates in front of a delicate-stomached vegetarian. And my husband has in the past requested that my medical relatives not spend the whole dinner party discussing what he labels as ‘purulent pustules we have known’.

That kind of warning is simply basic courtesy among people interacting. But the problem with films, webcomics or the internet is that something disgusting, horrifying or just plain scary can suddenly be right in front of you with zero warning. Not even in terms of ‘trigger warnings’, but also in terms of things you might not want your virgin fifteen year old child to see or hear, or your Afghanistan-veteran brother or your holocaust-survivor greataunt to suddenly be confronted with. Hence things like ratings and content warnings on films or books, or indeed like having a mature board here on the Forum for such things as art, discussions and stories with adult themes of sex or really extreme horror. It might be useful, for instance, to have a warning about proselytising a One True Way in the author’s notes to the bunny comic?

[Tarnagh]

And my husband has in the past requested that my medical relatives not spend the whole dinner party discussing what he labels as ‘purulent pustules we have known’.

That kind of warning is simply basic courtesy among people interacting.

It might be useful, for instance, to have a warning about proselytising a One True Way in the author’s notes to the bunny comic?

I absolutely love your husband's description of that kind of medical shop-talk! 

And yes, basic courtesy. Common politeness.

It would have been incredibly useful, and this entire debacle could have been avoided completely.

[JoB]

I think the talk about "Well real life doesn't warn for content, so I'm not going to warn for my comic" is disingenuous because it misses the entire point: that this is a comic to be read for fun.

It misses the point of people wanting to read comics etc. as something outside their "real life" in the first place.
(I'd call that "escapism" if it weren't commonly understood as referring only to a small part of works and people.)

So when I'm looking for something to do in my free time, I still don't want to see spiders. [...] But if people post pictures of spiders all over a web page without at least going "there be spiders here" then I get annoyed, because I don't want to spend what little free time I have looking at spiders! I want to do something else!

[goes to hide the spider-shaped wine gums sitting on the kitchen counter]

Spoiler: details • show

[... nah, not really. Nobody 'cept me's gonna see them there.]
Random find the ... uh ... second-to-last time (IIRC) I was at the supermarket. For whatever reason, availability of wine gums is spotty around here, even though sweets in general fill shelves. They'll be around for quite a while, I'm afraid, as I'm rather disappointed by both taste and texture ...

[Grade E cat]

My own two cents about content warnings is that there was a point in my life where I didn't put them in because I didn't see the point. The first time I put them in one of my fics at someone's request, it was a mix of a gesture of good faith and an attempt to mollify the person, so a small part of me felt like her hand was forced into putting them in and still wasn't actually understanding it.

I'm aware there some people out there who will be given such an explanation and still not "get it", Minna may very well be one of them, and several people may have already tried that on her for all I know. But personally, having content warnings explained to me like Maple just did would have made it much easier for me to "get it" than simply being told something along the lines of "please add a warning, there are people who don't like seeing such things in what they read without warning". The room for interpreting the latter when its intended meaning isn't already known is surprisingly big, and I can personally see how someone can get the idea that "real life has no warnings" is a valid counter-argument to it.

[wavewright62]

Maple, that was utterly brilliant, thank you.  Best I've heard yet.

And my husband has in the past requested that my medical relatives not spend the whole dinner party discussing what he labels as ‘purulent pustules we have known’.

That.
That. Is well worth the price of admission.

[JoB]

That.
That. Is well worth the price of admission.

One has to admit, though, that treating those is a form of expressive art.

[Vulpes]

Well put, Maple. I entirely agree with content warnings (and agree that it's a way better term) on "recreational media" for lack of a better term.

It's still a minefield in academia, though - probably due to a lack of understanding and poor communication on both sides. Academics really, really don't like being told what to do (academic freedom, and all that), and I think that the students pushing for such warnings tend to be a bit over-zealous. I've seen a lot of outright demands for trigger warnings, along the lines of "You have to include trigger warnings because I don't want to deal with uncomfortable topic X at all." That is guaranteed to annoy an academic - they've carefully chosen a set of topics to cover for a reason, and because learning often happens at the edge of the comfort zone, they may be pushing those boundaries on purpose. They interpret such demands as "I don't want to learn," or worse, "I know better than you what I need to learn." Academics care deeply about learning, and usually have pretty big egos, so that's bound to get their backs up! And once someone is irritated, they stop listening. If those vocal students asking for trigger warnings would phrase it as several have done in this thread, e.g. "Please let us know when we'll be discussing an uncomfortable topic ahead of time so that we can be ready for it," I think most profs would be happy to do so. But there would still be those who would say, "Look, the topic of the course by necessity includes uncomfortable stuff, just come to class braced for it, for goodness sake!"

And my husband has in the past requested that my medical relatives not spend the whole dinner party discussing what he labels as ‘purulent pustules we have known’.

   Weirdly, I'm with your husband on this one. Dinner conversation around here may frequently revolve around a variety of biological topics, but usually not human disease in graphic detail. Usually...  :'D

[Sc0ut]

@Vulpes, I find it strange that it's an argument to say "you know... university professors have big egos and are thick headed, so to get what you want, even if it's a legitimate request, you should baby them, and accept that some may not comply at all, even if you're in the less powerful and more stressful position of being a student, and one whose triggers come up in class, at that". Yes, I exaggerated slightly, but only slightly imo. It's useful to keep in mind that while this thread has steered towards discussing the utility of content warnings in general, for people who don't get triggered per se, people whose brains relive traumatic memories after a trigger do still exist and that's an overwhelmingly bad experience and a recognized mental health issue. I can imagine it being an impediment to one finishing their education, and I'm concerned to see so little empathy for it and so much for professors and their big egos.

[thorny]

It's useful to keep in mind that while this thread has steered towards discussing the utility of content warnings in general, for people who don't get triggered per se, people whose brains relive traumatic memories after a trigger do still exist and that's an overwhelmingly bad experience and a recognized mental health issue.

Yes -- I'm sorry if my discussion of considering the 'content warning' aspect of this seemed to gloss over that part. There are indeed some people for whom 'trigger' is more accurate and no amount of bracing oneself in advance is going to make the problem go away.

Am I correct in guessing that needing to deal with such things may well include not being able to take some courses, or take up some lines of work, in general -- as, say, a person with a height phobia would probably not take a job involving repairing roofs or building skyscrapers, the one with arachnophobia shouldn't go into a line of work involving scouting farm fields for pests and beneficials, or even take the training for such work? The person afraid of heights might occasionally still need to fly, which would be a different sort of problem; but the equivalent with reading a comic (or other form of artwork) would be, don't read that sort of comic. I can imagine situations in which not being able to fly might really mess one's life up otherwise, or even mess up somebody else's life; but it's really hard to imagine a situation in which not reading a comic would do so.

In the academic situation it does seem to me that some people are imagining -- and, people being people, have maybe even run into -- cases in which students determined to take entomology courses want to be guaranteed that they'll never see cockroaches, or students determined to take history courses don't want to deal with descriptions of racism, and so on. There do seem to be some people who want to take biology without having to be exposed to any mention of evolution. But the Lovely People case doesn't seem to me to be at all equivalent to that; and a good deal of what I've seen discussed or complained about in the context of academia doesn't seem to be either.