4 ms·

I don't understand how people are able to put so much emotional energy into their views on South Park. It's satire, if you don't enjoy watching it. Then don't

by posnet 11y ago

I don't understand how people are able to put so much emotional energy into their views on South Park. It's satire, if you don't enjoy watching it. Then don't. If you are truly worried about peoples views being strongly influenced by the content of South Park, then your opinion of peoples intelligence is far less than mine. It's for entertainment, and the viewer ship knows this.

sdrothrock 11y ago
> I don't understand how people are able to put so much emotional energy into their views on South Park. Isn't this just a classic example of selection bias? The people who will have views on South Park are exactly the people who put a lot of emotional energy into expressing them. I'm willing to bet that they're a tiny minority compared to the number of people who don't care enough either way to say anything.
danharaj 11y ago
> I don't understand how people are able to put so much emotional energy into their views on South Park. I think you might be overestimating the amount of energy that is put into having an opinion on the Internet. We're not exactly sending hand-written letters via pigeon. It takes seconds-to-minutes to state a view. > If you are truly worried about peoples views being strongly influenced by the content of South Park, then your opinion of peoples intelligence is far less than mine. It's for entertainment, and the viewer ship knows this. Putting consumerist entertainment on a pedestal is unjustified. What one thinks is entertaining is a reflection of their views on society. Being for entertainment does not strip a commodity of its social context.
tedks 11y ago
>It's for entertainment, and the viewer ship knows this. That's not true at all. Edit: I'll expand on this since it's getting downvoted. Most Americans have absolutely no idea what "satire" is -- so they can't "know that South Park is satire". I think they know south park is funny, but in the same way a bully making fun of a nerd is funny: the bully is hilarious because the nerd is pathetic. South Park is funny because "social justice warriors"/Al Gore's insistence that climate change is an urgent problem/gun control advocates are wrong in their position. The cool thing in millenial culture is to not care about anything. Having a cause of any kind makes you an SJW or a nutjob and that isn't cool. Liking what you do for a living makes you a nerd and that isn't cool. Being genuinely in love with your partner makes you whipped and that isn't cool. The only thing people aren't chill about is the need to be chill. All the time. South Park captures this very well, I think. Caring about anything, having any hobby, South Park shoots it all down. It even shoots down itself -- notice how after every moving monologue from Stan or Kyle about how we all just need to stop caring about something, we get a nice comic relief of Cartman calling whoever just poured their heart out a faggot and does something vulgar? We can't even care about not caring. Because of this, South Park was pretty regularly referred to as a moral and ethical guide by most of the friends I made in college. Who, like most people, have no idea what sarcasm even is (it isn't cool to pay attention in AP lit, you just do it for the grade and move on). (I would even say that South Park isn't sarcastic or satirical and is instead flatly advocating utter nihilism. This seems to fit with the creator's styles and I think is a major contributor towards this cultural impulse towards nihilism. But that's another comment.)
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  Can you amplify? I don't really watch the show but I did find it immensely entertaining in the early days
- remarkEon 11y ago
  -> The cool thing in millenial culture is to not care about anything. It seems to be quite the opposite. Every week I'm let know what it is I'm supposed to be outraged about. -> I would even say that South Park isn't sarcastic or satirical and is instead flatly advocating utter nihilism. It would seem, if anything, South Park just tries to round things out to free speech. You can call that nihilism, I guess, in a sort of perfunctory way.
  - MCRed 11y ago
    ->Every week I'm let know what it is I'm supposed to be outraged about. I call this the "Five minutes of hate". If you don't get that reference, read 1984 by George Orwell. I think you'll find it very illuminating. One week, it was Chik-fil-a and how we should hate them because their CEO gave money to a cause I disagree with, the next it's some baker in oregon who dared to refuse to do a wedding cake for a gay couple. (I'm queer, I believe in gay marriage, but just because you have the right to marry doesn't mean you have the right to make some business sell you something.) There's a lot of other stuff from 1984 that have become real- The memory hole-- how everyone forgets the past (and the media-- our big shouting head-- pretends like it doesn't exist.) Double-Speak is Double-plus real too. Etc.
    - jinushaun 11y ago
      Oh. My. God. You're right! Social media is our version of the Two Minutes Hate. I've been complaining about this for years! Can't believe I never made that connection.
  - tedks 11y ago
    >It seems to be quite the opposite. Every week I'm let know what it is I'm supposed to be outraged about. One of the things that's most jarring about the Internet age is that a minority group that previously would be blacklisted from newspapers, ignored by local administrators, etc., can actually broadcast its grievances to the world as a whole without any mediation. The decline of money going to journalism as the print medium dies means that instead of an actual journalist working on a story for weeks at a time, a "journalist" is a SEO grayhat with a click quota, and pulling "stories" from twitter is easy. Do you think that most millenials are activists? How many do you think are involved in activism? How many millenials do you think have been to a protest? >It would seem, if anything, South Park just tries to round things out to free speech. You can call that nihilism, I guess, in a sort of perfunctory way. I think you're reading too much into the theme of this season -- it's easy to do that when it seems like someone agrees with you. But how does dismissing climate change, gun control advocacy, or the concern of parents over their children's safety relate to free speech?

by posnet 11y ago

sdrothrock 11y ago

> I don't understand how people are able to put so much emotional energy into their views on South Park. Isn't this just a classic example of selection bias? The people who will have views on South Park are exactly the people who put a lot of emotional energy into expressing them. I'm willing to bet that they're a tiny minority compared to the number of people who don't care enough either way to say anything.

danharaj 11y ago

> I don't understand how people are able to put so much emotional energy into their views on South Park. I think you might be overestimating the amount of energy that is put into having an opinion on the Internet. We're not exactly sending hand-written letters via pigeon. It takes seconds-to-minutes to state a view. > If you are truly worried about peoples views being strongly influenced by the content of South Park, then your opinion of peoples intelligence is far less than mine. It's for entertainment, and the viewer ship knows this. Putting consumerist entertainment on a pedestal is unjustified. What one thinks is entertaining is a reflection of their views on society. Being for entertainment does not strip a commodity of its social context.

tedks 11y ago

>It's for entertainment, and the viewer ship knows this. That's not true at all. Edit: I'll expand on this since it's getting downvoted. Most Americans have absolutely no idea what "satire" is -- so they can't "know that South Park is satire". I think they know south park is funny, but in the same way a bully making fun of a nerd is funny: the bully is hilarious because the nerd is pathetic. South Park is funny because "social justice warriors"/Al Gore's insistence that climate change is an urgent problem/gun control advocates are wrong in their position. The cool thing in millenial culture is to not care about anything. Having a cause of any kind makes you an SJW or a nutjob and that isn't cool. Liking what you do for a living makes you a nerd and that isn't cool. Being genuinely in love with your partner makes you whipped and that isn't cool. The only thing people aren't chill about is the need to be chill. All the time. South Park captures this very well, I think. Caring about anything, having any hobby, South Park shoots it all down. It even shoots down itself -- notice how after every moving monologue from Stan or Kyle about how we all just need to stop caring about something, we get a nice comic relief of Cartman calling whoever just poured their heart out a faggot and does something vulgar? We can't even care about not caring. Because of this, South Park was pretty regularly referred to as a moral and ethical guide by most of the friends I made in college. Who, like most people, have no idea what sarcasm even is (it isn't cool to pay attention in AP lit, you just do it for the grade and move on). (I would even say that South Park isn't sarcastic or satirical and is instead flatly advocating utter nihilism. This seems to fit with the creator's styles and I think is a major contributor towards this cultural impulse towards nihilism. But that's another comment.)

oldmanjay 11y ago
Can you amplify? I don't really watch the show but I did find it immensely entertaining in the early days
remarkEon 11y ago
-> The cool thing in millenial culture is to not care about anything. It seems to be quite the opposite. Every week I'm let know what it is I'm supposed to be outraged about. -> I would even say that South Park isn't sarcastic or satirical and is instead flatly advocating utter nihilism. It would seem, if anything, South Park just tries to round things out to free speech. You can call that nihilism, I guess, in a sort of perfunctory way.
- MCRed 11y ago
  ->Every week I'm let know what it is I'm supposed to be outraged about. I call this the "Five minutes of hate". If you don't get that reference, read 1984 by George Orwell. I think you'll find it very illuminating. One week, it was Chik-fil-a and how we should hate them because their CEO gave money to a cause I disagree with, the next it's some baker in oregon who dared to refuse to do a wedding cake for a gay couple. (I'm queer, I believe in gay marriage, but just because you have the right to marry doesn't mean you have the right to make some business sell you something.) There's a lot of other stuff from 1984 that have become real- The memory hole-- how everyone forgets the past (and the media-- our big shouting head-- pretends like it doesn't exist.) Double-Speak is Double-plus real too. Etc.
  - jinushaun 11y ago
    Oh. My. God. You're right! Social media is our version of the Two Minutes Hate. I've been complaining about this for years! Can't believe I never made that connection.
- tedks 11y ago
  >It seems to be quite the opposite. Every week I'm let know what it is I'm supposed to be outraged about. One of the things that's most jarring about the Internet age is that a minority group that previously would be blacklisted from newspapers, ignored by local administrators, etc., can actually broadcast its grievances to the world as a whole without any mediation. The decline of money going to journalism as the print medium dies means that instead of an actual journalist working on a story for weeks at a time, a "journalist" is a SEO grayhat with a click quota, and pulling "stories" from twitter is easy. Do you think that most millenials are activists? How many do you think are involved in activism? How many millenials do you think have been to a protest? >It would seem, if anything, South Park just tries to round things out to free speech. You can call that nihilism, I guess, in a sort of perfunctory way. I think you're reading too much into the theme of this season -- it's easy to do that when it seems like someone agrees with you. But how does dismissing climate change, gun control advocacy, or the concern of parents over their children's safety relate to free speech?