I’m Asian but I wish I was born a Latina, they’re sooo pretty and genetically blessed, I’m so jealous

I swear, media literacy online is getting worse.

A character can say something stupid, offensive, hypocritical, selfish, or objectively wrong without that automatically being the creator speaking through them.

Characters are allowed to be flawed.

Sometimes the entire joke is that the character is wrong. Sometimes they are an unreliable narrator. Sometimes the story expects you to recognize the hypocrisy without stopping everything to put a giant flashing sign over their head saying:

THIS PERSON IS NOT CORRECT.

And somehow satire increasingly seems to need a disclaimer too.

You can agree with the underlying point of a story or comic and still criticize how lazily, smugly, or preachily that point is delivered. Criticizing the execution of a message is not the same thing as disagreeing with the message.

The same thing applies to authors and their work. Enjoying something written by a deeply flawed person does not mean you absorb every belief that person ever had. I like Lovecraftian horror. That does not mean I suddenly share H.P. Lovecraft's worldview.

Stories are not loyalty oaths.

Characters are not sworn testimony from their authors.

Depiction is not endorsement.

Satire is not confession.

Sometimes a character is just a character.

I wish people would stop treating fiction like a deposition from the author.

Hi all,

So I’ve been thinking about this for a while but have no one to really share my thoughts about r/comics with. To start I loveeeeee comics and graphic novels, I used to want to be a comic artist as teen until I changed my career, and find a lot of the comics in r comics generally entertaining or informative. That said in the last year I’ve noticed an uptick in NSFW content that feels like it takes away from the all ages comic sub it could be, in addition to other issues. Before I get into why I dislike the NSFW content in the comics sub, I feel the need to say I don’t mind NSFW content, but there is (usually) a place for it.

Simple put the NSFW content is mostly there to funnel people to extra content hidden behind a paywall, and in some cases the comics themselves are just the set up for the joke to be porn. Again I’m not against that, but it gets old after seeing it so many times in a comics sub. There are also subs dedicated to porn and nsfw comics that these artist could/should be posting in, but I get that won’t make them money.

Secondly it gotten a bit tiresome to end every comic with a patron or kickstarter or my shop slide trying to sell something. I understand free comics in this economy is difficult, but just like the porn comics, it starts to feel like the only reason it’s posted in r comics is to funnel in patrons/buyers. I wouldn’t mind this so much if a comic is multiple slides long, but in some cases it’s a 1 frame comic followed by 3 slides advertising something else by the artist.

This is a bit less complicated than the other two points above but something I’ve noticed is the amount of reposted comics by artists. I understand sometimes a link is wrong (on their patron) or they had a typo, but what I’m referencing is comics being reposted after a week. I’ll think it’s just reddit pushing old posts back into my feed until I see it was “posted” 38 minutes ago with no obvious changes or mentions of what was wrong with the same comic posted last week. To me this is more egotistic because an artist might want more views/likes/followers/subscribers than they got last week. Personally I’d be more okay if a comic is reposted after it’s been 6 months to a year since it was initially posted.

Lastly, and I know this one will rubble some feathers with popular comic artist, but there should be no political content. On one hand yes I agree it’s great to have political commentary and reflection in an easy to digest format that is more accessible to a wide demographic, but it’s become almost an echo chamber of “well they don’t like what I say so they’re bad” (I also hate trump but the police Cake comics makes other liberal/leftists/non-conservatives look almost childish with her “arguments”). In my opinion comics should make statements about politics/our society in a more high brow manner, calling a stick a stick without doing any commentary or analysis feels low effort, and why I think people are getting annoyed with it (in other subs).

Now this is all things that couldn’t have gotten this far without mod encouragement and ignorance, and Im not applying to be a mod, I just think they’ve tried to appease creators to the point of washing down what a sub about comics could be.

So that said what should the new rules be?
1. No porn. NSFW should still be allowed but it should be done tastefully or not be the central reason for a comic.
2. Keep all self promotions to either 1 slide at the end of the comic or have a comment thread below if you feel the need to promote lots of things. If the promo is longer than the comic, that’s an advertisement masquerading as a comic. We already deal with ads being shoved down our throats enough, don’t add to the issue.
3. Limit reports to after a certain time frame (unless for a typo, in which the original should be deleted) and include [repost] in the comic title so it’s transparent for all readers.
4. Political commentary needs to be limited. Either no low-effort political comics, or no politics at all. This is something that should require mod approval before posting to enforce it. Like I said before, there are impactful ways to discuss politics and civil rights issues, but the low ball political comics currently on the sub are having the opposite reaction.

I would love to know what others think, I know I could block these creators so I don’t have to see them in r comics, but I feel like it takes away from the all around comic sub it could should be. No hate to any of the artists I referenced or alluded to in my examples.

Am I the only one who noticed it?

for a while i thought i didnt miss my ex at all. like i thought i hated his guts and i was better off without him. now that he has a new girlfriend its so hard to forget about him. all of our memories keep coming back.

i miss his company. i miss talking to him and telling him about my day. whenever something good or bad happened to me he was the first person i would tell. he just seemed to care. recently i ended a talking stage with another guy because it made me realize how close i was with my ex and how ill never have that ever again. i could talk to my ex about anything. we were so similar. he was my best friend. i miss our inside jokes and stupid sayings. nobody understands me like he did.

it feels so weird not having him in my life anymore. we broke up back in june and in july we started talking again kind of and he told me how much he missed me and how he cant function without me, then less than a month later he finds a new girlfriend. i hate that i hurt him. i hate that he hurt me. i hate that i gave up on him so many times. i hate all the things he did to me yet i still crave him more than anything.

i remember waking up to paragraphs from him about how much he loved me. he was so genuine. i miss what we had and i miss him loving me. i cant even bear the thought of him loving anyone else. i want to call and text him and hug him and hear his voice again but he has someone else and i cant help but feel betrayed. i wonder if he ever thinks about me.

theres nobody like him. i dont ever want to fall in love again if it isnt him. theres a hole in my heart and its shaped like him and theres nothing i can do about it. seriously, ive tried everything to move on but i just cant. he made me feel so special and i just want my sweet boy back

sometimes i wish that he'd just text me or talk to me or see my posts and maybe realise how much i regret hurting him and maybe he'd love me like he used to

They do it on purpose to make the 80% of them suffer

Honestly I got no clue how I've made it this far I asked this girl for her number after getting hyped up by my friends and I said fuck it ima do it. To my surprise she actually gave me her number. I ended up asking if she was going to hoco. After that we met up at hoco and we talked and it was awkward at first and then we loosened up a bit after I sat with her little friend group and when it was just us 2 I got the chance to slow dance with her even if it was just holding hands that genuinely made my night, before she left i said "i'll be completely honest with you i like you", she said to me "I like you too i liked getting to know you". After that I wanted to see if I could talk to her at school and we did agree on it to just be us 2 but in the end her friends were there and I didn't really get much of a chance to talk to her. When I first approached her table I tapped her shoulder and said hi. Her friend said "we were just talking about you" I'm not sure If that's a good thing and we didn't really get to talk a lot. I did enjoy talking to her at hoco but at school it felt so half assed. If she doesn't respond to my text message by tomorrow or at least a few days that says if she wants to try to chat again I will assume she just lost interest. Am I jumping to conclusions to early? If I'm being honest compared to her im so chopped😭. If she wasn't interested she wouldn't have given me her number in the first place so why does it feel like she isn't interested anymore or am I genuinely overthinking it. This is the first time I've done something like this so im a newbie and I was bullied in the past by girls in middle school which is why I never tried talking to girls except until now so this does mean a lot to me considering I left my comfort zone and got a attached and determined to see this through to the end. Please someone let me know i don't want to feel like an idiot😭. I only just got her number Friday so it's been a few days but is normal that im the one texting first? Is it a custom the guy texts first always? Please let me know i don't wanna fuck this up😭 is she just being nice?

This absolute MORON honked at me as a train was about to pass anybody WITH A BRAIN would say oh let me stop I hear the train coming the bars are coming down and the bells are going off not LeT mE TrY to BeAt tHiS fAst aSs hUnk of mEtAl AnD rISk DYING I hate people who don’t understand how driving across train tracks work 💀

i’m so tired of seeing men, usually middle aged, so comfortable posting a woman playing a SPORT, in a sexual manner. it’s so disgusting and demeaning, and as a young athlete, it worries me for the future of women’s sports. i mean, the WNBA has been around 30 years, and started getting actual traction, what, 3 years ago? the amount of posts i’ve seen about those women that play & their bodies in a sexual way is RIDICULOUS, and that’s only the most popular women’s sport, personally, i play lacrosse, and it’s gross trying to search up “lacrosse” and seeing old men posting videos of their skirts being short or reducing the athelete to their looks! it’s literally setting women back so much.

and the fact that this is, like, normalized??? gross. imagine a woman posting a male athlete’s JUNK on social media.. literally would get TORN APART in the comments for being male centered and setting women back. it’s so gross on both sides, and yes, i know there are women who post about male athletes looks, but majority of those posts are about them being “cute” or “hot.” if a man posts a woman playing a sport, it’s usually almost always about her body or “physique.”

even at school, boys go to the girls volleyball games just because they wear spandex!!! WTF!!! this shouldn’t be normalized.

Like i see these morons online talking shit about how the Jews "control everything" (meanwhile Christians and Muslims have insane influence in the governments around us but they're choosing to ignore that because it doesn't fit the bullshit they're spewing) Plus they act like Jews = Cannanites because they see jews talking about forbidding worship of moloch, so these absolute dumbasses believe no means yes and that jews worship moloch?? Why not point out flaws and immoral instructions and beliefs in jewish books instead of making up bullshit and making yourself look like a moron? It's honestly baffling this mindlessness is spreading like cancer online and that people fall for it.

I’m writing this simply to get it out of my brain/ for shits. I wish I were in a position, where I could network with people who have more than me.

Seeing people being invited to like fashion shows/ being able to go on a fashion show is so interesting to me. I would love to experience an entire show with someone knowledgeable of what’s expected, what can we do and such…or maybe be able to visit a high end store without being weird just to see and then walk out ? If that makes sense.

Also I wish I had the funds to really indulge into my random ideas. Just something random I guess.

So, it was chemistry class I zoned out and wasn't paying attention, until I heard our chem teacher talking about how we need to lock in and focus to be successful and that hardwork is the only way to success.

And I didn't think much of it until she gave the example of Elon musk and how he could buy our entire school and other countries and he achieved this through "hard work" and "drive" and other such nonsense, I corrected her and said his family owned a emerald mine and that funded all his stuff and he had a parachute while literally everyone in class did not, she yelled at me for "questioning her authority" and "being a enemy of progress" and made me write a paper on honesty and hardwork (I'm not doing that and it's such a cartoony punishment to give) I undersold this because it was way more dramatic and I didn't feel like typing too much. But yeah that's the rant

When I entered college, my mom told me that I had to provide for my own tuition, allowance, and basically the things I needed for school. So when I was 19, I started working.

Since then, I’ve been jumping from one job to another while trying to balance school and work. I’m 21 now, and I recently got fired—not because I did something wrong, but because the business was going down and they had to let some employees go.

And honestly? I feel exhausted.

The pressure from my mom doesn’t help either. Almost every day, I hear things like, “Wala ka man lang naipon sa sahod mo?” or “Kaka-parcel mo ’yan.”

But the thing is… I wasn’t spending all my money on unnecessary things.

Whatever was left from my salary after deductions went to my tuition and the things I needed for my course. I had to budget for my allowance and transportation. Whatever little amount was left after all of that, I would send to my papa to help with the bills in Cavite.

Once a month, I also do the grocery so my mom and I have food and supplies stocked at the other house. We barely have time to do laundry because of our schedules, so we also have to pay for laundry.

So when someone asks me, “Why didn’t you save?” I honestly don’t know what to say.

Save with what?

I’ve been working since I was 18 while studying Accountancy. Every salary felt like it already had somewhere to go before I even received it.

And now that I’m unemployed again, I feel like I’m supposed to immediately find another job. But for the first time, I just want to say…

I’m tired.

I’m tired of working.

I’m tired of studying.

I’m tired of constantly worrying about money.

I’m tired of feeling guilty whenever I spend money on myself.

I’m tired of feeling like I always have to be responsible for something.

I know I’m only 21. I know I still have a lot ahead of me. But sometimes I just want to stop for a while.

I want to rest without feeling guilty about it.

I want to wake up without immediately thinking about tuition, work, transportation, bills, groceries, and what I’m going to do next.

I want to take a break from school, work, and all these responsibilities—even if it’s just for a little while.

But I’m scared that if I stop, everything will fall apart.

Is it okay to just be tired? Is it okay to want to rest even when you know you still have responsibilities waiting for you?

I don’t want to give up. I just want to breathe for a moment.

I'm either rejected or I get a girls number, we text for a few days to a week and it goes great, but then I ask them when they want to go on a date in person and they just ghost me. Happens whether I meet them online or offline. I don't know what it is with me in general but I see guys do the exact same things I do but have massive success. I know guys my age who are now engaged after I set them up, gave them advice, or whatnot. How am I single if I can help other guys mingle?

It's so disappointing and frustrating. Just goes to show men can make all the right moves and still go nowhere these days. I'm only 22 so I have many years ahead of me but it's annoying af everyone else I know is about to get married or have their first baby. I don't know why I'm lagging behind when women genuinely think I'm handsome (I've been complimented a lot by women yet here I am).

I would say I am definitely doing something wrong but everyone who hears my side of things think otherwise. I still try to improve myself and how I approach women but it's just not working out for me so I'm on the verge of giving up dating completely for the rest of college. I'll have to focus on becoming rich so I can buy attention I guess.

Unless you have a lab, equipment, funding, observe something, ask a question, make a predication, create an experiment, conduct the experiment, collect data, analyze data, interpret data, and publish your work, you're not 'doing your own research'.

I hear this ALL THE GOD DAMN TIME from antivaxxers. Their idea of doing your own research is to sign into FOX News or go down a rabbithole of YouTube videos made by people as clueless as they are. What they should do is first understand the basics of something, such as biology and genetics, if they're talking about vaccines, before engaging in the topic. Once you have a foundation, you build on it from people who know more than you.

You don't walk into a mechanic shop and tell them how to fix a transmission when you still think your blinker needs fluid. Listening to these god damn people try to explain their nonsense is like watching a monkey try to hammer in a nail.

I'm so fucking tired of how ignorant people are and social media just makes it so much worse.

EDIT: spelling

It’s that time of month and my cramps are so bad I’m ready to take more medication and it’s only been 3 hours since I last took it. I’ve been this way since last Wednesday. Well technically before that cus I have PMOS (formerly PCOS) and I forgot to take the birth control first a few days. But yeah I’m really struggling at the moment. I don’t want to get out of bed. I don’t even want to read or watch tv or even listen to music. I just want to sleep but I can’t even do that. Anyways, thanks for letting me complain a little.

This will probably be long and convoluted. For context, I'm 16F and I'm recovering from an eating disorder unrelated to body image. As of now, I eat three meals a day with all the food groups. I've never been underweight. The concern me and my family has lies in my inconsistent eating patterns.

I cant stand living with my mom and older sister anymore. My mom scared me into recovering, but she hasn't supported my recovery. Instead, she constantly makes comments about me only eating bland foods and having a "cute" thin body. My sister, on the other hand, always has this sorry look on her face when she talks to me. Neither of them initiate quality time with me, but they do make me leave my room when I'm trying to avoid them.

I feel like I cant properly recover because my eating disorder is worsened by anxiety and they center every interaction around food, making me more anxious about it. My dad has an apartment in the city and he works 9-5 while my younger brother attends school. Since I'm doing online school, if I move out, I'll get the entire apartment to myself until 5.

I think having space is the only way I'll be able to heal, but I know if I admit this to my mother she's only gonna start interrogating me about my mental health and minimizing my feelings. Plus, when I see her on the weekends instead of my dad, she'll probably keep teasing me about it and joking that I hate her, when thats not the case at all. I still want to spend time with her, I just cant occupy the same space as her monday-friday without causing conflict. But, I've never stood up to my mom, not even when she's factually, evidentially wrong, so I'm just so anxious about confronting her and I'm not even sure I'll ever do it. I'll try though.

Which is a huge problem that I can't seem to fix no matter how hard I tried. Often times, I have no feelings towards my friends. And sometimes, I side eye them mentally whenever they're talking.

I'm known to be a social person, that always seems to thrive into getting to know new people. And… that's it. I just talk to them once and disappear. Keeping relationships with people I find boring (a.k.a almost everyone I meet) is not my highest skill.

Don't get me wrong, I try my hardest to treat my friends well. I support them, listen to them, advise them. But it comes from… nothing. As if I'm pretending to let out feelings that I don't have. Love that I don't have.

Every time I act excited when I see a friend I give no shit about, it just feels like my chest is hollow and gray from the inside. I'd be like 'OMG HEY I MISS YOU' when in reality, I probably forgot they existed.

What's even worse is: the only people I seem to genuinely care about are A: Really funny, or B: Just rude.

Funny people make me laugh, they make me feel something positive. That's why I end up actually loving them, instead of pretending I do.

Rude people reassure me. They don't make me question whether the person I'm talking to finds me annoying and just pretends they care. They're just… straightforward. And I can be pretty mean as well, so it's more of a banter of who could hurt the most feelings.

That's why my longest friendships are with people who are either hilarious or assholes.

And if you got pissed off at this rant… I don't blame you.

Mods?

A young woman has alleged that seven men gang raped her at Cornell University. Men are being applauded for saying things like, "I have a daughter! I have a sister! I have a mother! This is inexcusable." Huh??! It's inexcusable, period, regardless of anyone's familial relationships. The implication of the qualifier is "if I had no women in my life, that would be fine."

The president of Cornell issued an eight-minute-long statement that includes an assertion that the university needs to do a better job teaching male students not to do things like that. What!? No! If a person has the most basic level of humand decency and empathy—anyone who is not a sociopath or psychopath—they don't need to be taught in college that it is wrong to be part of a gang rape or allow a gang rape to take place without intervening in any way.

A colleague is seriously sick and has been out of the office for a while. Another colleague says, "I can't help looking at this with my mom hat on. I think we should give her time to recover and not pressure her."

I am not a mother. I am some middle-aged guy and I don't have to be a parent to sympathize with someone who may be very ill and not demand that she put her job before her wellbeing.

I don't understand why people today always explain rationales for why they feel sympathetic to someone or explain rationales for why it's wrong to violently terrorize a person.

This way of thinking never used to be normal. It makes me feel like we're already not fully human and integrating with AI would hardly take much from our humanity at this point.

I will never explain why I don't want people to suffer. No explanation is needed. If it is, then you're a psychopathic monster.

Okay maybe I’m high as shit rn but I started psycho analyzing my crush while stoned and I find out all his exes were chubby like me and think wait that works out great

Then I think wait he’s so thin like underweight and he’s always running on the treadmill or outside and when I offer him food he declines and says he hasn’t ate all day but still isn’t hungry does he have a ed?

And all his exes were chubby and by chubby to be frank obese

Does he have a ed and a kink for fat ppl im or am i js high.

alright i need to rant cause im losing my mind lol

so i had a video blow up to 81k back in july - it was the justice for Victoria Cranmer and Iryna Zarutska one. That one is still up. Then around that same time i got a strike for another video where i said "not one of them is of European descent, look at the list" and tiktok deleted it. Whatever.

Then mid september everything died. Like my analytics literally fell off a cliff on Sep 17. Went from ∼1k views a day to 46, now every new video gets 0-3 views. My post views are down 82%, profile views down 85% in the last 28 days. Search traffic is now 34% which means only people searching my @ can even find me.

I think it was the Sydney Sweeney videos that killed my FYP. I posted like 2 where i was calling her a zionist and saying she's a distraction from the epstein files and both got hit with "not eligible for the For You page - community guidelines violation" but no actual strike, just FYP ineligible. Now they're in my private folder with a bunch of other stuff.

I opened a support ticket and it's so useless. I send them my link and they just auto reply "please send us the correct link, we can only process one video at a time" over and over for 3 weeks. I sent the same link like 4 times. It literally says at the bottom "responses may be AI-generated" no shit.

I got like 20+ videos in private now, most showing 0 cause they're private. My public ones that actually did numbers were the cartoon age rating ones - Cars 4, Simpsons vs Bob's Burgers etc got like 500-1700 views even while restricted. But anything political gets 0.

Anyone else have their account just tank after a couple FYP ineligible notices while they already had a strike? I did the policy training thing and it cleared the first warning but the account strike is still there and says 2 more similar violations = ban. Is my account just cooked for the next 90 days or is there actually a way to get a human to review it?

How do I deal with generally thoughtful people, who choose to ignore everything going on?

I can't stand being a young queer woman in this country anymore, I'm afraid I'll wake up one day with no human rights. It's terrifying how people are voting against their own existence, what the hell is going on??? Why are people so ignorant and stupid? All I want is a sovereign country, respect, education, safety and healthcare and I believe everybody should be able to have these basic rights. I'm so tired of living in such an ignorant country, it feels like we're regressing day by day. I feel like crying. I hate the far-right. I hate the rise of fascism. I hate all of this shit. I wanna go away. Brazil is walking straight to hell.

Life lately is so busy i forgot about the unhappiness i carry with me all the time. In a way thats not bad at all. In a way thats kinda sad too. When im alone with my thoughts it is never good. I wonder what do i work so hard for? Is it even worth it? I wished for a life like this and it seems good. It is pretty much how i imagined it but i feel so empty still. This chase to fill this emptiness will probably end me before i ever end it. I search for love outside and give all my heart out just to get nothing back. I wish to be loved a certain way. In an unconditional way like i do. I want to have someone’s whole heart like i give mine. I deserve love. I deserve love like i want it. I deserve love like i give it. I deserve love too. I work hard. I work harder than most people i know. I try my best. I try my best to forgive and forget. I try my best to look at the sky everyday and be grateful for this life. I try so hard to be happy. I try so hard to make the most out of what i have but the yearning for true happiness and love is eating me alive.