Things Dobson mocks because he is too ignorant…
One “talent” Dobson seems to have, is the ability to alienate a lot of people through his opinions. And while he claims to be proud of that talent because he believes those he alienates are just assholes and racists who disagree with him CAUSE he attacks their abhorrent worldviews, the reality is much simpler; On average, people just don’t like him cause Dobson has no idea what he is talking about, which won’t however stop him from mocking the mere existence of certain things/interests and the people enjoying them. And those people tend not to be racists who want to see non-white people go extinct, but simply nerds and enthusiasts who like to enjoy their hobbies without the input of someone who won’t get over how he was bullied as a nerd back in school, but at the same time will bully you for being “nerdier”.
I could go into more detail how I mean that
by analyzing a lot of his anime related SYAC strips as well as his soapbox
strips on comic culture in a row. However, for the sake of “simplicity” I just
like to go over one of his oldest strips, published around 2011. Back when
Dobson was portraying himself still as a human. This strip alone will show how
even a decade back, Dobson could just be an asshole to any “nerd” who dared to
be into stuff he wasn’t, how he could manage to piss off many people all in one
going AND be unfunny.
Now the first thing I want to put out is that I do not even think that Dobson’s primary intention with this strip was to mock others and their interests. See, one thing about So you are a cartoonist especially in its early days was, that it was in a way Dobson’s attempt to make himself look likeable in the eyes of others. He portrayed himself just as an Average Joe, wanting to make comics. This strip itself was even part of a series of strips I like to call “Things Dobson likes/dislikes”, which really were just him in each panel pointing at something he is into or not.
And honestly, part of me does not mind it. It is just Dobson’s attempt to show others how “quirky” or contrarian he is. The problem really steams more from the following two facts: a) It is not really a cartoon or comic if you think about it, because there isn’t a joke, punchline or story attached to them, just Dobson showing off what kind of person he is and b) that his “things I do not understand” comic is really mean spirited compared to the others if you look just a bit deeper into it.
Right from the beginning the strip is just
indicative that this will be more mean spirited than Dobson will later like to
claim it was. Otherwise he would not feel the need to say “chillax” as a sort
of semi defense mechanism, cause if he really intended to make his grievances
heard through “good fun” he would not need to say that. So from the gate we can
assume its snarkier and more hurtful than it needs to be.
So lets get through the things he does not understand, shall we?
Sports: I will admit that I am not really
into sports myself, neither as a fan or someone participating in it
competitively. I go to the gym however in order to feel good about myself and
do something for my health instead of going every Friday to McDonalds. In
addition, as long as you do not go overboard with being a fan or participating
in it, I understand how sport can unite people (see events like the Olympics
and Soccer worldcups) , and while I am baffled upon the fact that the salary of
many people in sports (particularly soccer and football) are ridiculous high in
addition to money they make with advertisement deals etc. I have respect for
them. Respect for how they can stick to a hard training schedule, can take
injuries, will do stuff for charity etc. Furthermore, unlike Dobson, I do not
believe people who are into sports are dumb. Yes, I know the stereotype about
college footballers and sports who only graduated because of their sports
activities and are otherwise “meatheads”, but that stereotype does not apply to
everything in reality, Dobson. Ever heard of NFL lineman Duvernay-Tardif, who
also has a degree as a surgeon? Granted, he made that title only in 2018, seven
years after the comic was made, so look a bit further and see what we find…
Oh, look: Myron Rolle, college football player and later members of the
Tennessee Titans and Pittsburgh Steelers around 2010/12: Has a bachelor degree
in exercise science and in 2008 studied for a Master of science for medical
anthropology in the UK.
Ron Mix, famous AFL and NFL football player forever immortalized in the Hall of Fame has a Juris Doctor Degree and after his work as a sports became an attorney.
And that are just three examples googled up in relation to American football. Other famous sports worldwide have degrees in medical and sports related sciences. Heck, one of Europe’s most famous boxer’s in the 2000s, Vitali Klitschko, not only has a doctors degree in sports, he is nowadays head of the governing party of Ukraine, following the independence of the country in 2014.
So stop wiggling your three sets of eyebrows and cease your smug grin and shove that periodic table up your ass, Dobson. I bet you yourself don’t even fucking know the chemical symbol for silver or titanium you Agonizing Twat who never got over the fact some popular kids in school bullied him.
Final Fantasy: I doubt Dobson ever even tried to play Final Fantasy or ANY JRPG, honestly. Heck, not only does Cloud look pretty wrong (anime hair seems to be another thing Dobson can not draw) but frankly, the statement of Cloud being an emo is false and is based on misinterpretation. Bear with me for a bit; Final Fantasy 7 is in my opinion a good game and it had a major impact on the series and the perception of JRPGs in the west. However, I do also believe that many people overhyped its quality over the years. Including SquareEnix themselves, who particularly around 2005 released all sorts of tie in and sequel games, including also the movie “Advent Children”. Or as I like to call those things, Tetsuya Nomura’s wankfest, because now all of sudden everything is related to some guy called Genesis, we have even more characters to supposedly care about than we already got through the original game, happy end override happens almost on every corner and “goth” aesthetics are everywhere. And Cloud himself became an embodiment of that emo/loner stereotype in anime and manga around that time, despite never having been like that in the original game if you ask me. Yes, Cloud in the original game went through a lot of emotional trauma and he was not like some happy go lucky laid back shonen manga protagonist. But he also didn’t come off as a pretentious fucktard who never showed emotions and shut himself off from his friends and allies. He was more of a determined person who still cared for others and wanted to stop Sephirot so no one suffered like he did. His most “depressing” moment was when Sephirot revealed his false memories, making Cloud question his own existence as an independent being to the point he was broken enough to hand the Meteor sphere to Sephirot, but that was about it. But hey, “emos” sell better, so SquareEnix tried to sell that aesthetics and others were just so dumb and further misinterpreted it as emoness being Cloud’s main character trait, when in reality freaking Squall Leonhard in his original game was worse than Cloud in comparison.
I also find the implication of Dobson, that Final Fantasy is pretentious in that panel funny as fuck. Cause Final Fantasy 13s’ pretty dumb story and wankery of clicheed anime tropes not withstanding, the average Final Fantasy game has a straightforward fantasy plot of good guys vs bad guys, with some twists and anime tropes thrown into the mix. The most pretentious guys in those games really are just the bad guys when they talk on average about how the world is suffering and misery, and even that is just straightforward nihilism to justify why they want to destroy everything. It is in fact so straightforward, most little kids will get it particularly in the first 6 games of the series, which are just set in more “classic” fantasy worlds to begin with. I am not saying the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole is flawless (I really am not a fan of 13 and its sequels, but if you like it, you do your thing) but you do not need a thesaurus to get why people enjoy it or individual games from it. So stop hating on an entire game series, which btw has actually some pretty awesome female characters in protagonistic roles in it too.
Twilight: Both an example of Dobson’s
hypocricy and idiocy. Idiocy cause frankly, what is hard to understand why
people liked the books? Twilight (in my opinion) was just a professionally
published self insert fanfiction, in which Bella/the reader fell in love with
the local bad boy who just happened to also be a vampire. Sure, a vampire in
name only (seriously, if you asked me, the Cullens could be replaced with a lot
of other fantasy creatures and it would barely affect anything), but that is
beside the point. Shameless romance stories about someone falling in love with
the bad boy who deep down has a heart of gold and just needs someone to fix
them, are nothing new. So I was not surprised that people, particularly
teenaged girls and other women, enjoyed it. It was the romance literature
equivalent to fast food which just happened to explode in popularity because
Young adult novels were a simultaneous hit and something needed to fill the void
after Harry Potter. I read the first book myself and I thought nothing in
particularly wrong with it, aside of the fact I thought the book itself was
plotwise kinda dull. But that was not why people bought it, they wanted Bella
getting together with the bad boy. The fact Dobson did not understand on what
the popularity was build up on, is just an example for how Dobson does not even
in theory understand how stories work and what it is on a pure technical level
that makes them interesting and sell worthy to others.
As for the hypocritical aspect, that comes up nowadays when Dobson claims he feels bad for mocking Twilight all those years ago and how people were bad for making fun of it and Stephenie Meyer. That those who did it were like women hating assholes and still are if they do not apologize. Cause frankly, I feel a majority of people “apologizing” are just dishonest with themselves now. Apologizing primarily because in the eyes of some other people they look up to, if they do not they will be pariahs. Especially when extend of their initial childish disdain for Twilight becomes clear. I e.g. do not hate Lindsay Ellis aka the former Nostalgia Chick, but the fact she made a big apology video on Meyer was laughable when you see how she “stood” to her opinion back in the day to the point she wrote a novel to mock the kind of story Twilight did. Sure, she admitted to a lot of her own faults back in the day so there was also some self reflection to it and I respect that. But I think in a way this was also a tactic to just appease some other people and it does not take away that initially she had those thoughts about Twilight. And frankly, Twilight is problematic in a way.
Again, I read the first book and I did not consider it the worst thing in the world, just kinda dull for my taste. However, having read on a lot of things that happen in the book series itself, it is clear that Bella and Edward are some pretty horrid and selfish characters who barely get called out or face consequences for terrible actions. Take also into account the pacing of the story and you get on average a book series that deserved a certain amount of criticism from a technical point of view and Meyer’s at least being questioned about some of her decisions in the writing process. It did however not deserve book burnings or people mocking and harassing fans and the author, the former being mocked by Dobson here funnily enough.
Transformers: And what is it you find weird about people caring for cars? This is not even me being a cars fan here or something, I just ask because even that “explanation” is no explanation at all. He is just saying “I don’t care for X because I also do not care much for Y”. The correlation between the two is missing.
As for why people care about those two things Dobson, perhaps it is for the following:
Cars because people like the aesthetics, the technics, like to build stuff or get a rush by driving them. Transformers, because people just like action as well as the lore to the franchise and think giant robots turning into vehicles is cool, as long as Michael Bay is not involved in creating a story.
Furries: As with cars, likely aesthetics. Anthropomorphic animals have been part of our culture even long before cartoons (just look at fables, fairy tales and legends all across the world involving animals) so I assume there is even something more subconsciously involved with it. And frankly, I like furries myself. Some of them are way better artists than Dobson could ever be. That said, I do as an individual draw a line at furries that harass other people and show creators, hurt animals or are combining their interests with some really weird sex fetishes (two words: diaper fur). Which I guess do many other people cause there is a healthy amount of furries and non furries who have standards. The thing is just Dobson seems to think all furries are the same. Not to forget that for a long time he did everything denying he was interested in furries, citing his college as a reason for it cause people there installed a hatred for furries into him. A wonder then he would even enjoy Looney Tunes anymore. And honestly, himof all people mocking people for having a “sick” fetish? I am sorry Dobson, but compared to the kind of inflation you drew, I would say the average furry (as in someone who just draws two adult fursonas making out with each other under consent) is less “disturbing” than you. Someone who did not just inflate the female, at times underaged victims, but also made them pop/killed them.
DnD: I wish I had the comment Dobson posted on deviantart under the comic, as in it he digged himself even deeper with every panel and the explanations he gave. Just to show I am not pulling it out of my ass when I say for DnD one of the main reasons he hated it was that he thought nerds made the fantasy genre even nerdier by adding math to it.
Oh no. The fact people have to add numbers from a couple of dices together is too high of a math concept for Dobson. So those people must have absolutely no lives and are all just fat, bald and with acne.
Seriously though, fuck off. I am not into table top gaming, but whoever is, they shall just have fun. And stop body shaming nerds with the way you draw the DnD player here (and in that other infamous DnD comic he did), especially when you yourself look like a shaved egg in real life. Heck, did you know of all people Vin Diesel enjoys DnD?
Just let the people enjoy their adventure campaigns and come together once in a while instead of being shut offs like you, whose only experience with an interactive fantasy story involves playing Skyrim at 10 fps.
And yes, I am aware that Dobson has changed his opinions on DnD now thanks to some podcast. But based on his record, I feel that Dobson only did join it because it is now the cool thing to care on average about DnD as nerd. In addition he also did not own up to his past “mistake” till people just called him out on his bullshit often enough.
Klingons: Okay, I am not much of a Trekkie myself, but again, I get that people just like the aesthetics of them and the story crafted around Klingon culture within the franchise. So, just let them have fun with it. What is even the “joke” here? That people enjoy it despite it “just” being black Asian barbaric samurai in space, which is a very simplistic, in my opinion even outright racist description based on the choice of words here? Frankly, I am glad he did not just also add a racist Japanese accent to the guy here.
So there you have it: Things Dobson does not understand and essentially mocks for existing. And don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with Dobson not “getting” those things. Everyone has their own tastes, likes and dislikes as well as reasons why they are into it or not. I e.g. understand that people enjoy Bob’s Burger, but I myself really do not like the show much, because most characters come off as annoying to me in terms of personality and quirks. That said, I understand the visual appeal to it, if you like it that is fine and if you ass why I don’t like it I will give an explanation to it. What I will not do is make a comic mocking the existence of it, imply that my disinterest is correlated to me thinking there is also something inherently wrong with you if you enjoy it and build my disinterest on none existing issues with the thing in question.
Dobson however seems to have done that quite a couple of times and combined with his self righteous nature, it becomes kinda obvious why people began hating his stuff to the point that almost all of 4chan and tumblr developed a stern disdain for him.
hypocrisyofandrewdobson
