CSotD: The Stupidity Generator
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Edison Lee coincidentally, and with his usual deadpan elan, provides an entry point for today's sermonette with an homage to "Bloom County."
Or was that "Opus"?
That is, it was Opus the Penguin who famously could not resist infomercials offering turnip twaddlers. But he did it in "Bloom County."
"Bloom County" was a landmark strip that ran for nine years, through most of the 80s. "Outland" then ran, Sundays only, for about five years (89-95), and then "Opus" also ran for five years (03-08), also Sundays only.
Until I began poking around, I had forgotten that I was quoted in Dave Astor's 2003 Editor & Publisher piece about early reactions to "Opus," along with several other cartooning stalwarts. Reading it over now, I stand by what I said then:
"I'm
not seeing anything new," he said, noting that Breathed's first two
strips reminded him somewhat of the fantasy sequences in the "Calvin and
Hobbes" comic. "I'd liked to have seen him come out with a couple of
haymakers, not a couple of jabs."
The article includes more damning comments than that by more prominent experts than me, but the basic response was that it was disappointing.
Yet some meathead posted an online listing of "The 10 Greatest Syndicated Comic Strips In American History," which listed "Opus" in the Number 6 slot.
Here's his list:
1. Calvin & Hobbes
2. The Far Side
3. Pogo
4. Peanuts
5. Doonesbury
6. Opus
7. Li'l Abner
8. Garfield
9. Liberty Meadows
10. Krazy Kat
The list got responses on the site itself and over on Facebook, where repostings provoked reactions and arguments of four kinds:
1. What about "Terry and the Pirates"? "Barnaby"? "Little Nemo"? "Little Orphan Annie"? (etc)
2. Is this guy an idiot? Does he not know the difference between "my favorite" and "the greatest"?
3. Is this guy an idiot? Does he not know the difference between "Opus" and "Bloom County"?
4. My favorites are …
But what it really provoked was clicks, and that's all it was really intended to provoke.
Suckers!
Of course it's a stupid list and of course he doesn't distinguish between "favorite" and "greatest" and it doesn't matter if he can tell "Opus" from "Bloom County" and of course it's anonymous, because the writer probably isn't a comics fan.
He's just some hack who cranks out lists for a site that posts lists to get people to click on the link.
(You'll note I didn't provide a link. Teacher says every time you click a link to a list or slideshow, America's composite IQ goes down three-tenths of a point.)
Arianna Huffington may be the reigning Queen of Click, but she at least maintains something of a fig leaf, providing news and information on the latest political developments, important social movements, celebrity boobs, cute animals and grotesque surgical failures.
And a confession: When I was out of work a few years ago, I worked for a click-bait generator, writing short assigned articles on things like how to clean an artificial wood floor.
The assignments were decided upon by analyzing search engine results — if a lot of people were asking how to clean artificial wood floors, the call for an article on the topic would go out, and then, the next time someone asked that popular question, up would pop the article and it would get a click.
I got five bucks for each article, but things improved and I moved on, having amassed something in the nature of $40 before I felt I'd degraded myself sufficiently.
And wotthehell, at least if someone clicked on that, they found out how to clean an artificial wood floor, which is what they wanted to know.
But it's a sad goddam state of affairs when the fact that somebody actually got what they asked for is worth mentioning.
The Internet is becoming a stupidity generator, and, no, it hasn't always been one.
In fact, I was thinking the other day that you don't hear the term "newbie" very much anymore, and it's not because everyone is now hip and up to speed. It's because the percentage of people on-line who have no freaking idea of what they're doing has become so huge that it's a given.
So you can post a picture of George Washington on Facebook and say "'Like' if you know who this is!" and, after salting the mine with a few hundred phony repostings and responses of your own, watch the suckers click and share and volunteer themselves and all their friends for whatever spam you're actually in the business of creating.
Or you can create promos promising the latest semi-nude pics of Miley Cyrus or fraudulent work-at-home schemes or bogus no-effort diets, and major news outlets will feature you on their sites because they have no shame or sense of quality-control and it wouldn't be so bad if it were all about the Benjamins but it's really all about the Abes and the eternal quest to repeatedly get the 10,000 Abes required to make a Benjamin.
I've sat in the meetings and I promise you that, if the ad director says revenues are up, you dare not say, "Yes, but shouldn't we be ashamed of what we're putting on the site? Doesn't it undermine our credibility?"
Unless you want to go back to writing about how to clean an artificial wood floor.
Meanwhile, it is an interesting question: What are the 10 greatest syndicated strips?
Or the most successful?
Or your favorites?
Or the most influential?
Of now?
Ever?
The NFL Network does a series of shows each year in which they present the Top 100 Players of the past season, as voted on by the players, who are asked to rank the Top 20 active players, based on the past season.
It's an interesting concept, because asking the fans simply proves that there are more people living in New York City than in Cleveland or New Orleans.
So I'd like to see the list of the greatest comic strips of all times, as chosen by attendees at the NCS Convention, and compare it to the list as chosen by attendees at ComicCon in San Diego.
I'd post them here, because I love lists.
Though I would admittedly make more money if I could get Miley to drop'em for the camera.
Or get Opus to watch an infomercial for my patented Solar Egg ScramblerTM.
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