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This is 100% about MetLife cutting its business in America (No more life insurance polices). Also am I the only one who finds the Peanuts to be depressing? I h

by baldfat 10y ago

This is 100% about MetLife cutting its business in America (No more life insurance polices). Also am I the only one who finds the Peanuts to be depressing? I hated the way everyone treated Charlie Brown and I disliked everyone, including Charlie Brown. I have felt this way since I was 5.

jameskilton 10y ago
Go read the original Peanuts strips. They weren't about entertainment, they were a look into bullying and the depressing life of Charlie Brown. (please forgive linking to Kotaku but I enjoyed this article http://kotaku.com/how-snoopy-killed-peanuts-1724269473 http://kotaku.com/how-snoopy-killed-peanuts-1724269473)
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Go read the original Peanuts strips. They weren't about entertainment, they were a look into bullying and the depressing life of Charlie Brown. From his phrasing that seems to be the parent's problem. They would probably like the lighter, more fluff and less serious Peanuts better.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  Back in the day, comedy and art had a lot of curmudgeon, sardonic characters, losers etc.. Try reading 'Andy Capp'. They just don't allow such zaniness anymore. Everyone has to be happy and PC. Think Annie Potts in Ghostbusters: "Ghostbusters, waddya want?"
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  Peanuts was pretty dark even after Snoopy was introduced. Snoopy no more killed Peanuts than comic books killed literature.
ta9090 10y ago
I've never been able to tell if the following strip is authentic, or if it's a dark reinterpretation: http://www.actsofgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Peanuts-Cry.gif http://www.actsofgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Peanuts... Edit: tvtropes suggests it's real, and it has a pleasant followup, although I'm not sure the followup fully offsets the initial effect.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  Indeed, that seems pretty authentic.
6stringmerc 10y ago
Interesting on the life insurance thing - wonder why they'd want out of the market? Is this a first of more to come? Hm. Regarding Peanuts, you're not alone in finding the strip a bit off-putting. I tried many times to 'get it' like the advice booth, but between the janky art style and not quite finding the strip speak to me, it's not a personal classic. By comparison I got a lot more mileage out of The Far Side.
- PhantomGremlin 10y ago
  Interesting on the life insurance thing - wonder why they'd want out of the market? Is this a first of more to come? The secret sauce to making life insurance work is the time value of money. An insurance company takes in relatively small premiums from its customers, then invests that money over decades. The result is a death benefit that is considerably larger in nominal terms than the sum of moneys paid in. This method has worked for life insurance for decades, even centuries. But central banks have upended it. Now some sovereign debt even has negative interest rates. Of course, there are alternative investments, such as equities and real estate, still available. But they are riskier and far more volatile than bonds held to maturity. Low interest rates together with low inflation make it very difficult for life insurance companies. Just another example of collateral damage from ZIRP.
  - 6stringmerc 10y ago
    Well put, I don't do life but have plenty of experience with P&C and some professional coverage lines. Law of large numbers type stuff makes sense, and if their actuaries don't see it happening, then yeah get out! Totally in agreement with you that ZIRP's downstream consequences are significant, and, I believe, distasteful in the context of global markets.
jschwartzi 10y ago
Brother, let me tell you about my childhood sometime.
Grishnakh 10y ago
>Also am I the only one who finds the Peanuts to be depressing? I hated the way everyone treated Charlie Brown and I disliked everyone, including Charlie Brown How can you dislike Charlie Brown? Peanuts was a great comic, because it's so true-to-life, though I guess it does water things down some (humans are really much, much, much bigger assholes to each other IRL).
cafard 10y ago
The strip was around for a very long time. I suppose that it may have run out of steam after some number of years, maybe after the middle of the 1960s. That it has outlasted its creator by so many years, I attribute to the human aversion to novelty at breakfast.
- ghaff 10y ago
  Pretty much every comic strip ever that goes on long enough runs out of steam. Even Doonesbury, which evolved over the years as the characters aged, was IMO pretty much ready to call it a day when the daily strip ended. But, yeah, most of the standard daily comic strips that have been recycling basically the same material for decades are pretty much there to satisfy a morning habit.
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Peanuts is not a happy strip. It's about childhood. Sometimes that's happy, but childhood isn't fundamentally happy. The genius of Peanuts is that it shows all of that: Happiness, sadness, depression, existential questions, and so many other things. They're emotions that we can identify with, because they may not be happy, but they're real things that we all experience, even children. I don't know why you dislike they characters, that's your choice. But in answer to if I find Peanuts depressing: yes, I do. It's optimistic sometimes, but it's not happy, and it's not supposed to be. Or maybe I'm just completely mad.
- kylec 10y ago
  As a child, I never really understood Peanuts or its appeal. If Peanuts is about childhood, it's from an adult's perspective.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    True. Although I actually did enjoy Peanuts as a child, it's very much from an adult perspective. Calvin and Hobbes is definitely the other side of that coin: childhood from a child's perspective.
B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
> Also am I the only one who finds the Peanuts to be depressing? Well, yes, but it could be worse. Matt "Simpsons" Groening had really depressing strips ('Akbar and Jeff' and 'Life in Hell') in the early years in the free newspapers.

by baldfat 10y ago

jameskilton 10y ago

Go read the original Peanuts strips. They weren't about entertainment, they were a look into bullying and the depressing life of Charlie Brown. (please forgive linking to Kotaku but I enjoyed this article http://kotaku.com/how-snoopy-killed-peanuts-1724269473 http://kotaku.com/how-snoopy-killed-peanuts-1724269473)

coldtea 10y ago
>Go read the original Peanuts strips. They weren't about entertainment, they were a look into bullying and the depressing life of Charlie Brown. From his phrasing that seems to be the parent's problem. They would probably like the lighter, more fluff and less serious Peanuts better.
jomamaxx 10y ago
Back in the day, comedy and art had a lot of curmudgeon, sardonic characters, losers etc.. Try reading 'Andy Capp'. They just don't allow such zaniness anymore. Everyone has to be happy and PC. Think Annie Potts in Ghostbusters: "Ghostbusters, waddya want?"
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Peanuts was pretty dark even after Snoopy was introduced. Snoopy no more killed Peanuts than comic books killed literature.

ta9090 10y ago

I've never been able to tell if the following strip is authentic, or if it's a dark reinterpretation: http://www.actsofgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Peanuts-Cry.gif http://www.actsofgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Peanuts... Edit: tvtropes suggests it's real, and it has a pleasant followup, although I'm not sure the followup fully offsets the initial effect.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Indeed, that seems pretty authentic.

6stringmerc 10y ago

Interesting on the life insurance thing - wonder why they'd want out of the market? Is this a first of more to come? Hm. Regarding Peanuts, you're not alone in finding the strip a bit off-putting. I tried many times to 'get it' like the advice booth, but between the janky art style and not quite finding the strip speak to me, it's not a personal classic. By comparison I got a lot more mileage out of The Far Side.

PhantomGremlin 10y ago
Interesting on the life insurance thing - wonder why they'd want out of the market? Is this a first of more to come? The secret sauce to making life insurance work is the time value of money. An insurance company takes in relatively small premiums from its customers, then invests that money over decades. The result is a death benefit that is considerably larger in nominal terms than the sum of moneys paid in. This method has worked for life insurance for decades, even centuries. But central banks have upended it. Now some sovereign debt even has negative interest rates. Of course, there are alternative investments, such as equities and real estate, still available. But they are riskier and far more volatile than bonds held to maturity. Low interest rates together with low inflation make it very difficult for life insurance companies. Just another example of collateral damage from ZIRP.
- 6stringmerc 10y ago
  Well put, I don't do life but have plenty of experience with P&C and some professional coverage lines. Law of large numbers type stuff makes sense, and if their actuaries don't see it happening, then yeah get out! Totally in agreement with you that ZIRP's downstream consequences are significant, and, I believe, distasteful in the context of global markets.

jschwartzi 10y ago

Brother, let me tell you about my childhood sometime.

Grishnakh 10y ago

>Also am I the only one who finds the Peanuts to be depressing? I hated the way everyone treated Charlie Brown and I disliked everyone, including Charlie Brown How can you dislike Charlie Brown? Peanuts was a great comic, because it's so true-to-life, though I guess it does water things down some (humans are really much, much, much bigger assholes to each other IRL).

cafard 10y ago

The strip was around for a very long time. I suppose that it may have run out of steam after some number of years, maybe after the middle of the 1960s. That it has outlasted its creator by so many years, I attribute to the human aversion to novelty at breakfast.

ghaff 10y ago
Pretty much every comic strip ever that goes on long enough runs out of steam. Even Doonesbury, which evolved over the years as the characters aged, was IMO pretty much ready to call it a day when the daily strip ended. But, yeah, most of the standard daily comic strips that have been recycling basically the same material for decades are pretty much there to satisfy a morning habit.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

Peanuts is not a happy strip. It's about childhood. Sometimes that's happy, but childhood isn't fundamentally happy. The genius of Peanuts is that it shows all of that: Happiness, sadness, depression, existential questions, and so many other things. They're emotions that we can identify with, because they may not be happy, but they're real things that we all experience, even children. I don't know why you dislike they characters, that's your choice. But in answer to if I find Peanuts depressing: yes, I do. It's optimistic sometimes, but it's not happy, and it's not supposed to be. Or maybe I'm just completely mad.

kylec 10y ago
As a child, I never really understood Peanuts or its appeal. If Peanuts is about childhood, it's from an adult's perspective.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  True. Although I actually did enjoy Peanuts as a child, it's very much from an adult perspective. Calvin and Hobbes is definitely the other side of that coin: childhood from a child's perspective.

B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago

> Also am I the only one who finds the Peanuts to be depressing? Well, yes, but it could be worse. Matt "Simpsons" Groening had really depressing strips ('Akbar and Jeff' and 'Life in Hell') in the early years in the free newspapers.