The thing I like about Billie and Lucy having to interact is that they both depend on pleasing others to feel valuable—Billie needs to be giving parts of herself away, while Lucy needs people to like her. When Billie doesn’t get what she wants, she withdraws into suicidal self-loathing, while Lucy gets more… persistent, let’s say, with getting people like Billie to be her friends.
It’s a neat contrast, and I’m curious if Willis plans to play with it a little bit.
I sincerely wish I knew, it’s very strange everytime they appear. If it was one person, I understand, but the entire floor is made up of these weird people that swoon over Billie and do whatever she says for no good reason. I really hope Billie gets sick of them and draws her line in the sand, and that they realize how they’re acting. Until then, I can imagine Lucy running through the college screaming “THEY’RE ALREADY HERE! READ HALL IS NEXT!”.
I don’t think its necessarily a hard thing to comprehend. Billie has been dealing with people who have cast off the shackles of high school all year. Now she’s with people who haven’t.
Mind you, Billie is also cool by juvenile high school standards too.
I’ve never met a single person in high school (let alone college) who cared this much about “cool people” and weird nerds like these guys are my people. This dorm’s entire population feels like it was ripped directly out of a really bad and inauthentic feeling teen comedy written by someone who has never met a teen.
My high school did have a football team and eventually a cheerleading one formed, but I don’t know anyone who went to games and while I’m sure I knew their names, it was because I had classes with them. I didn’t know anyone who was a cheerleader.
Oh this was an entire Thing in my first year dorm. There were established social heirachiches among the “cool” residents that they were obsessed with. Of course, they were also rampantly homophobic and racist, so my largely queer people of all races and straight women of color friends and I didn’t really register for them. And Billie wouldn’t have done well there, either.
I think the combo of the fact that she used to be head cheerleader and prom queen in high school and the fact that she “nailed” her RA within the first 3 months of college made her a “legend” before she even showed up in the dorms. I keep forgetting that for them, high school was just, like, 5 months ago, not to mention that at some colleges, those social dynamics don’t really change they actually get more codified.
They seem a bit extreme though. Billy wearing glasses and studying journalism almost broke their image of her. Honestly I want Joyce to come back and continue her “Billy’ fails , just like the rest of us” speech from before.
Also, like, Billy is only really rudeish to her friends or people who annoy her, unlike Malaya. I doubt they’ve seen Billy like that.
I have definitely met people who get attached to some who has more charisma than their peers. It can be really frustrating when you seem to be the only person in a group who doesn’t fawn over one person. Though in my experience they all kinda wanted to bang said person on some level so grain of salt I guess. As for Billie getting sick of them have you been reading this comic? Billie loves the attention. She wants a cult of personality around her if she can get it.
She loves attention, but I think she’d love GENUINE attention versus this weird blind attention that can be easily shattered just by the idea that Billie wears glasses.
I’m honestly a bit worried about how impressionable Forest Hall seems to be. I feel like they could very easily get sucked into a multi-level marketing scheme.
Lucy: “You’re just going to do whatever Billie does? What if she jumped off a cliff?”
Nash: “If Billie were to jump off a cliff, she would’ve done her due diligence regarding the height of the cliff, the depth of the water, and the angle of entry.”
Lucy: “NO, SHE WOULDN’T HAVE”
… Do Nash and Rose want Lucy to resent Billie?? They are flat-out saying that anything Billie does is automatically superior – how do they not realise how rude and insulting they’re being??
That’s heartbreaking since as much as it’s possible for a super sunny type like Lucy to eventually get on someone’s nerve she’s still quite nice and seeing her becoming resentful towards someone who’s she gotten along with well enough with at this point.
Honestly if I were her I just find companionship elsewhere instead of letting this get to the point where Lucy starts to reminisce about what it was like for her before she became a one-off supporting character in the story of Billie.
this place is honestly the weirdest goddamn nightmare world like what is happening who are these people what century am I in why does anybody give this much of a shit about being a cheerleader and where is this Sheeple plotline leading to.
please give us some examples because I have never met anyone who acts like this for a FORMER high school cheerleader. Small time celebrity I could see this kind of fawning, but literally nobody gives a shit about what you did in your podunk high school before coming to college/uni
I didn’t say it was limited to cheerleader-fawning or even ex-cheerleader fawning, Derek. And yes, Ivy, they’ll say it out loud, your willingness to believe notwithstanding.
I don’t believe you. People may think someone is cool and want to be around them, but they’d be self-aware enough not to say out loud that they just want to follow whatever the cool person is doing
I can believe it, but in my experience, they tend to use more flattering terms like ‘I want to be like them’, ‘they inspired me to do this’, ‘they make it seem like fun’, ‘I want to hang out with them’, ‘I just want to be like them’.
I can sorta believe it for a person who is actually cool but fixating on how you were ANYTHING in high school is inherently uncool. Nobody cares about if you were the quarterback in high school or the head cheerleader or the student body president. High school doesn’t matter outside of high school.
If it effected them personally they will care.
Certain things in high school matter getting your first job or going in to college but afterwards don’t.
They’re naive and easily led. It didn’t help they already thought Billie was badass before she got there because she was banging her RA. Then they found out she did things that were probably considered cool when they were in high school (not that long ago for them, most likely) like being a cheerleader and a prom queen and Billie’s doing absolutely nothing to disillusion them.
I want to know these characters’ class schedules now. Do these three all have Friday 8am classes? Are they all naturally morning people? Did they fail to go to sleep last night and give up on the idea as the sun rose (me)?
I honestly feel sorry for Lucy. She puts all the effort in and is taken for granted, while Billie is adored for no reason other than her past ‘glories’ at High School.
I wonder what it would be like if they encountered a college cheerleader instead of the current Hasbin in their dorm.
(Ok in truth I adore Billie and that was a little mean but come on what else are you going to call her status as a former cheerleader. Why she hasn’t tried out for the college team yet I don’t know.)
She said beforehand that they didn’t want her on the team because she had a previous DUI. Anyway, I like Billie but she doesn’t deserve the idol-worship that’s going on at Forrest (I think it’s bad for her as it’s disassembling her growth since she started at College).
It’s not mean it’s just unvarnished truth. Billie is a has been obsessed with her “glory days” and thinks they make her better than everyone else. She probably hasn’t tried out for the college team because if she fails it will crush her entire identity.
Luckily, I am an archive diving nerd. Also I remembered really loving the line ‘Turns out when you get a DUI, they don’t let you be a cheerleader anymore.’
I’m getting more and more convinced of my earlier suspicion that Lucy is trying to be an “alpha sweetie” in the same way as Billie identifies herself as an alpha bongo. The middle of the social group, the hub around which their social life revolves. Just a bit of a gossip and busybody, but ultimately a positive force acting on the people around her.
The difference between being an alpha sweetie and just being nice, is that part of her motivation is to get social power and status. Not entirely unlike Dorothy and her clipboarding.
Now, I make it sound bad but it really isn’t. All social circles have someone in the center doing something similar, and that’s usually the difference between HAVING a social circle or just a bunch of people who sometimes hang out. I’m just interested in the parallels it opens up between Billie and Lucy. Seen very clearly when they trade gossip here: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/02-this-is-the-way-that-we-love/sitch/
Yeah, I’m going back through all the Lucy strips, and the faces she makes in “Welcoming Committee” and “Stereotypically” really stand out now. At the time, I wrote off the awkward faces Lucy made in those pages as normal anxiety around meeting new people. Now it seems more like anxiety about potentially being “replaced.”
Also, I stayed out of the “is Lucy too pushy” conversation yesterday because I wasn’t sure if it was a personal bias rearing its head, but after going back through all her strips without other content intervening, I feel confident saying: WOW, Lucy is WAY too pushy. It really shows when you look at her strips in aggregate. Which I think is a point in this theory’s favor.
I think that’s very true. And again, a neat parallel between her and Joyce.
Joyce is not an alpha sweetie like Lucy, because she simply does not have that position in her social circle (She COULD have had that position with her old church group, and given that comment about her being best socialized, she very well might). But she still does the same thing on a small scale. “Joyce dress everyone day”.
I don’t find myself warming to Lucy – but I still do feel for her in strips like this (also the milk-sniffing one, where suddenly her opinion is discounted).
Also, my read is that Joyce is pushy because she is unaware of both social norms and how her behaviour can come across, and a bit over-enthusiastic. When specific
things are pointed out to her (e.g. Sarah doesn’t like waking up to her hovering above her face) she does take it on board (even if she misses the point and hovers over yer feet instead).
Lucy is pushy because she thinks people will need and therefore like her if she organises everything and insists on being the go-to person… She may well be lonely, insecure and awkward, but she also seems to be deliberately controlling, and almost manipulative in her desire to make others rely on her. Billie was ruder than necessary in trying to shut her down in yesterday’s strip – but Lucy’s response to “you’re annoying me” is “you’re stuck with me so get used to it”. Nash and Rose are being ridiculous and insulting here, but sometimes people do want to try new things and see what else is happening, especially at these kids’ stage in life. Instead of accepting that Nash is unsure of what she’s doing after panel 1, it kinda sounds like Lucy is telling her what she enjoys, and trying to imply that a habit of ~6 weeks is unbreakable. I get the impression she takes it personally before the others *make* it personal.
Except that Nash isn’t actually unsure. Or rather, she’s only unsure because she doesn’t know what Billie’s doing yet. Nothing to do with the activity or her liking it or not, she just wants to be in on whatever Billie’s doing.
That kind of makes this similar to when Roz and Dorothy were competing for the position of RA. Dorothy was genuinely nice and tried really hard but Roz overwhelmed them with her charisma. Lucy is trying to be what Billie is naturally, only in this case Billie isn’t even trying.
I don’t read it like she is.
Everybody in this dorm (except possibly Lucy) is totally blinded by whatever past and present glory they think Billies represents.
Never mind how relatively affordable 500cc sport bikes are. (For that matter, if all you want is an around-town or beginner bike, you can find Kawasaki Ninja 250s for around a grand just about anywhere.)
Come on, this is Sal we are talking about, she will have some super rare, special edition bike, we already know it has a Rutten motor, and it probably isn’t stock.
Can’t anybody in this dorm talk normally? Lucy just said Nash’s name three times in a row as if to call her attention even thought they’re having a conversation
Some people do say other’s names that much. I’ve seen “use people’s names more–people like this!” as a tip for people trying to learn how to be more friendly/outgoing/liked. (Nash is kind of a fun name to say, I’ll give her that.)
I’m the opposite, where I barely address other people by name at all.
I mean, Nash doesn’t seem to really be talking TO Lucy, so she might be trying to get her to actually pay attention to what she’s saying by repeating her name.
One of the things you learn in first aid, is to ask a victim their name, and make SURE you repeat it back to them in every sentence you use. People like hearing their name and respond to it, it keeps their focus on you, which is important if you’re trying to keep them from drifting off into unconsciousness. Politicians, call centre workers (and other jobs requiring one on one personal interaction) use the same trick. Call people by their name repeatedly and it’s easier to keep things going down the path you’d prefer.
That Lucy knows this trick at her age either means she’s had a job (or first aid training) where that skill is taught/needed, or that her “everybody’s friend” persona comes with a certain assumption of control on her part.
People in fiction say each others’ names more often than in real life. Partly it’s a writer’s tool to make sure readers remember the characters’ names, and partly writing doesn’t always come out sounding 1:1 with how people talk because it is planned out and amplified for readability rather than the in-person context and brevity you’d use while being in a conversation irl.
But also Lucy seems to be saying Nash’s name even MORE often because she is pleading.
I feel that eventually Billie is going to learn that none of them actually care about Billie as herself, but instead what Billie represents to them. And that they will turn on Billie the moment she isn’t able to keep up the perfect cheerleader girl act.
If Reed Hall is made of people who act like jerks but are really good people deep down, than Forest hall is made up of people who act nice but are for more selfish than they perceive themselves to be.
Lucy gets fed up with Billie and the idol worship of her and sets out to demonstrate to everyone that Billie’s not so cool. The spell breaks, and Lucy’s feeling of triumph is ruined by seeing how broken Billie looks in that moment and realizing that she, Lucy, did something that goes against her sense of self.
If she ever finds herself with a problem she can’t ignore, whether she’ll get any sympathy from the rest of the hall will be the least of her issues. Just having to deal with it will break her. (Not the effort, not anything that she has to do, just the fact that she can’t ignore it.) She’s not a person who needs help in her mind. She’s a fixer, not a get-fixed-er.
I’m hoping that Ruth learns how Billie has been treating her as a conquest to bolster her reputation with her peers and dumps her for being a terrible girlfriend because seriously what the fuck kind of way is that to treat your girlfriend you self-centered piece of shit?
Yeesh, OK, we get it, you hate Billie, but it came up one time, she refused to correct them and said some off-the-cuff bullshit about how she takes what she wants, and as far as we know has never mentioned her again.
Nah, treating women as sexual conquests is unacceptable in any context let alone the context of a committed relationship. I mean yeah, I fucking hate Billie she’s a drunk driving garbage human being with an unearned ego the size of the Chrysler building.
Treating men as sexual conquests, on the other hand, is completely acceptable?
Ruth started out hating Billie, sight unseen, for being a drunk driving garbage human being like the one who affected her own life and Billie “seduced” her just the same. Yeah, Billie’s self image is seriously twisted, but the ego is hardly completely unearned.
I think we’ve seen enough to know that Billie’s ego is pretty damn fragile. She likes the praise, but that’s not because she’s got a huge ego, it’s because she’s filled with self-loathing.
I suspect it’s implicit in her thinking. Would be glad to be wrong, but I doubt that she’s willing to entertain the notion that people who don’t fall into preconceived catagories can even be victims. Treating people as just objects is bad, and it’s also bad for the person who does it. We don’t have to make exceptions.
Fuck off with your “but what about the men” nonsense. I’ll include men in the same breath when sexual objectification becomes an equal opportunity issue and not the heavily gendered one it currently is.
But Billie using Ruth to seem cool has nothing to do with Ruth being a hot chick. It’s more to do with her being an RA, making the relationship rebellious.
Ivy, yes, you’re right that it’s probably the rebellion factor that has more to do with how Billie is viewed. If you’re talking about Billie’s ego, or her view of herself, however, I doubt that Billie thinks of it that way, but in spite of Emily’s dismissal of her, it was Billie’s intrinsic qualities and instincts that won Ruth over despite her strong initial prejudices.
for the record, I’d rather go to Lucy’s movie night, given I don’t drink, and hijinks are fun, but less fun if I am trying to watch a movie as they occur. 😛
I feel like movie nights were probably a lot more popular when streaming services and the like weren’t a thing. Now days if I wanted to watch a movie I would just watch whatever I wanted and if I wanted to socialize with people I would go to something that didn’t involve being quite and not talking to anyone for 1-2 hours .
It’s still fun to watch movies with friends. It’s still a social experience even if you don’t talk much.
It can be especially fun when you’re introducing an old favorite to people who don’t know it, since you get to watch their reactions as much as the movie.
I said it before: This seems like negative character development for Billie. The realisation that whatever she was in high school doesn’t count at uni seemed like such a healthy realisation.
But who knows — maybe getting all you want and more can also lead to a healthy realisation eventually.
Okay, yeah, I’ve got a feeling that this one is heading towards Lucy sitting alone on the steps of Forrest Hall, possibly with someone from the main cast.
I also want to go on the record as saying that I’m furious that people are now judging social events that they’ve been fine with up to now based on Billie’s reaction to them. That’s shallow on a completely different level.
To anyone thinking this isn’t realistic… I’ve BEEN Lucy in a lot of social situations, even in bars with people aged 30+. Sometimes it’s more subtle, but people can present themselves in a way that gives them a “cool” reputation, even if upon analysis they are actually not that great to be around. Especially with this group seeming to be a bit nerdier on average than in Read Hall (that is the name of the OG dorm, right?), they might be less socially apt and not noticing that they’re being swept away by this obsession with coolness.
An aspect that I certainly think is very realistic in social situations is people not wanting to commit to an activity because something “better” might come up. I’ve had friends who did this when I suggested things to do (or who dropped out of a previous commitment last minute because something else to do came up), and it considerably cooled the friendship.
Like I see you point but there is nothing cool about Billie. Like college me was as socially unapedt and nerdy as they come and she still would have thought Billie was a full of shit has been who needs to exit high school and join the rest of us in the real world.
I agree that there is nothing cool about Billie, except her dating Ruth (viewed from the outside). I can see that this can be seen as a cool act of rebellion “for true love”.
But probably these girls would have reacted this way to almost any newcomer.
I could see people being like this, though less obvious about it, if they’d always wanted to be cheerleaders/prom queens/popular in high school but were always unpopular. Especially if they didn’t have as many other interests. Lucy has a lot of other interests, so she’s not drawn into it as much.
I think the two would go well together and could become really good friends!
It might make Becky jealous, though. She and Joyce don’t have much in common beyond a shared past — a powerful thing of course; I have good friends like that — while Joyce and Lucy seem to value lots of the same things in social interaction.
I think a plausible reason is the girls in this dorm are more introverted and nerdy. Didn’t make many friends in highschool or get much attention. Kind of like Amber is except without all the rage and DID. The girls in the main dorm all have way more dominant and outgoing personalitiy compared to it. Becky (I know Becky doesn’t actually live there but she hangs out there enough), Joyce, Sarah, Rachel, Carla, Ruth, Sal, Dorothy, Malaya now, I’m just listing names here. It’s almost a little meta considering the girls here are almost glorified background characters.
I am as nerdy as they come, and I never hankered after cool people, nor did the nerds I was friends with.
Nash in particular doesn’t strike me as an introvert.
I tink it’s more a question of self-esteem, not of nerdiness or being and introvert. Mine was pretty good even in high school, so I (mostly) didn’t care that everyone thought I was a huge nerd. But I had a fellow nerdy friend who constantly tried (and failed) to appear to the cool people, eventually throwing me under the bus for it. We weren’t friends afterwards.
Once I went to university I have however not really seen this dynamic in action.
A nerd stereotype is that they have low self-esteem but you don’t need low self-esteem to be one, it just tends to expected just like it is expected that nerds don’t have many friends, like in the case of Amber who had Ethan and her… local edgelord, Mike.
This is more just a problem of these people in particular seem to be impressionable, still in the high school mindset (much like Billie was) and so when something high school cool comes along their first instinct is still ‘woah that’s so cool!’ Like they haven’t realised yet that high school was a lie and none of the social points had any real value or worth.
Yeah. As clarification I was using the term “nerd” as shorthand based on the stereotype instead of saying introverted people with low self esteem and maybe not the best social skills. Didn’t really mean to imply specifically that they were seen as nerds are even part of that culture. I like the idea of a “highschool mindset” like you said I wish there was a term for that. Immature doesn’t really fit
I dislike everyone in this dorm. If we’re going on a secondary-to-background cast binge, can it at least be people who don’t suck on a permanent basis? Like, Agatha, Sierra, and Rachel are RIGHT THERE.
Based on the comments here, I think I must be the only one looking at Nash’s expression in the last panel and believing she is teasing Lucy. That’s a move you don’t typically make unless you’re good enough friends with someone to get away with it. I am willing to believe Rose is just that shallow, but I’m unconvinced in the case of Nash.
Given that Nash has been shown as blunt and impulsive before, while your reading is possible, it is also possible that she doesn’t realise how cruel the implications of what she is saying actually are and is just excited at the prospect of a possible better movie night as well. You don’t have to be actively trying to be cruel to someone to be cruel.
Nash was basically our first example of “Everyone in Forest Hall worships Billie for some damn reason”, and Lucy’s expression suggests that, even if Nash is teasing, they are not close enough for Lucy to recognise this.
I’m really hoping that Nash is just teasing here. Looking back over their archives, it’s hard to tell. Nash and Rose might both be that damn shallow. If that’s the case, Lucy deserves better friends. I mean, even if she was being an “alpha sweetie”, there is nothing wrong with that. It isn’t inherently bad.
I’ve known some really shallow people in my time. They didn’t get the time of day from me for long if I could help it. Hopefully, Billie will realize that Lucy belongs with the folks at Read Hall and introduce her to them.
this is utterly alien behavior to me, I never wanted to go do a thing just because a glamorous or popular person did it, or not do a thing for that reason…
This story line is quite…I don’t know, perplexing maybe? Like every other story line I’ve been able to see the motivation or at least sort of understand why the people do what they do, like I get why Ross did what he did or why Blaine does what he does but here…I just can’t get Rose and Nash or what their end game is or if they even have an end game
Mary knew what she was doing, she thought about it. Ruths grandfather thought about what he was doing, Sals mom thought about what they’re were doing but Rose and Nash…I don’t know what they’re thinking or if they’re even thinking at all (Nash clearly isn’t)
So I have no idea whats happening with this storyline, hopefully Billie learns a helluva lesson and I’m assuming it’ll all make sense at some point but geez these people are really unlikable
I think it’s quite clear. The girls of Forrest Hall have decided that Billie is a ‘cool’ person. Because they want to be associated with her (in the hope of being seen as ‘cool’ too) they are only willing to do things that please her or emulate her behaviour. Therefore, if Billie doesn’t want to go to Lucy’s film night, they won’t either. Ultimately, if Billie won’t associate with Lucy, they’ll ostracise her too.
This isn’t really wickedness on their part but simply a character flaw: They define themselves solely by how those they perceive to be ‘cool’ or ‘popular’ see them. Oddly enough (although they don’t know it yet) this is exactly Billie’s problem too.
I guess its probably because I’ve never seen this complete and utter hero worship like I know its exaggerated but even so its just seems so completely over the top (and not in an amusing Sal or Amber way)
If the author revealed that Rose and Nash were robots trying to learn to become human I’d probably accept it, thats how far removed from reality they seem to me
Possibly, but also just in the sense that they act a lot like teenagers modelling themselves after people they like/think are cool. Joyce has tried to do the same with Sal. And yeah, it does look weirder with these kids because we don’t know them as much as Joyce. We only see these kids in Billie’s storyline, so there isn’t much room to see them as individuals, when Billie’s not around.
I guess for me its one thing to see one person who was home schooled and naive act that way but to see a group acting that way, that can’t all be naive and home schooled
That and if I remember correctly Joyce did not give up things she loved because Sal didn’t like it. She didn’t swear to impress Sal. She copied Sal’s look for a bit and bragged about how the stuff she decided to do for her own reason made her like Sal
Home schooled maybe not, but naive? Yeah, it’s definitely possible for them all to be naive. And while Joyce wouldn’t give up things she liked for Sal, Joyce also has a lot of courage of her convictions that not everybody has.Especially fawning fangirls.
A little bit, but I don’t recall anything quite like this. Sure, she fangirls Sal, but we don’t see her decide to blow other friends off because Sal might not be there or whatever it is these two are doing.
I’ve never gotten the feeling Joyce would ditch her other friends because Sal wouldn’t be present at whatever activity they wanted to do. Also, Sal isn’t awful.
I honestly hope Billie keeps her little cult. She deserves to be able to enjoy the wonders of being successful without ever really trying or doing anything awesome.
(Not to be annoyingly picky, but just to note there’s a small typo in panel 4 – it says, “What would Billie be doing that’d you’d prefer?” – an extra apostrophe-“d” on “that”!)
You know, I’m not saying I don’t feel for Lucy, and I’m definitely not saying Billie would be someone I’d enjoy knowing in real life, but if you go back to the start of Lucy’s tag and read all her DOA strips at once…….
I’d feel bad about it, but I would definitely find her suffocating in real life. Which sucks, because I’m sure she’s aware of that — or at least aware that she tends to put about 500% more effort into making and maintaining friendships than people do for her in return — but having repeatedly gotten really negative reactions from especially her roommates seems to just be causing Lucy to try even harder in desperation.
Like, in their very first strip together, Billie gives a slightly overwhelmed smile in response to Lucy telling her that she ran back from church just to meet her new roommate, and by the end of that same strip Lucy has not only hugged her but also put that hug on Instagram and declared that they will be best friends.
It’s a lot. I think for many people, it would be too much. And if you go back to the last strip where this movie night thing was mentioned, it was already being treated with some disdain by some of the people Lucy hopes will show up. 🙁
Again I feel for her. I’ve been in the position where I had no friends and was kind of desperate to make some. But I’m not… convinced that any of these people are actually Lucy’s friends, instead of folks she’s continuously corralling and checking in with, with whom she has more of a surface-level politeness, despite her increasingly intense efforts.
To make matters worse, she probably already tried giving Malaya her space (as seen in one comic where she explicitly declares that she’s going to do so), and might now keep doubling down with Billie, like when she kind of stated that they were stuck with each other and therefore had to get along. 🙁
Like. Lucy is nice, for sure, but she’s kind of intense about it over the long term, and I sympathize with Billie more than I am entirely comfortable with when she got up and left the dorm so that she could go crash face first into Ruth’s bed.
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uh oh
BILLIE’S HYPOTHETICAL MOVIE NIGHT WITH LIVE STRIPPERS
“I’ll build my own movie night! With blackjack! And hookers!”
Porntube and beer!
Oh, wait. Underage drinking is illegal, right? So non-alcoholic beer.
This is totally not a flask of liquor, and I am not spiking my beer with it.
(Actually, hasn’t Billie given up on drinking, temporarily, for Ruth’s sake?)
The first thing she wanted to do in Of Mike and Men was go to a bar, so I don’t think so.
Nope. She’s started hiding it better, but while Ruth has started trying to clean up, Billie has not.
Billie doesn’t really believe that she has an actual problem.
Addicts seldom do until their lives have gone completely tits up. Bille just hasn’t had her “rock bottom” moment yet.
Dumbing of Age Book 9: Before There Was a Hypothetical Better Version!
Dumbing of Age Book 9: Did She Say She Was Coming?
(secret double entendre WOO)
“You all want to be having sex with Ruth?”
Yeah, that was basically my thought.
More or less where my mind went as well.
nerds just orbit billie, don’t they
because of her powerful gravitational fieldIt is the power of her butt, it can destabilize nearby orbits like no other.
Related to butts, nice new gravatar.
the willis giveth (usable shots of billie’s butt)
but he also taketh away (good opportunities for shots of ethan’s butt)
It is the power of 2-dimensional character behavior that I frustratingly have yet to understand the narrative purpose of.
I like the butt talks tho
Oh boy, so when is the bottom going to fall out of Billie’s “cool” status?
when it collapses under its own weight HEYO
Honestly, my prediction is that it won’t, at least not any time soon, and Lucy is going to start resenting Billie.
Why? IDK. It’d be interesting.
The thing I like about Billie and Lucy having to interact is that they both depend on pleasing others to feel valuable—Billie needs to be giving parts of herself away, while Lucy needs people to like her. When Billie doesn’t get what she wants, she withdraws into suicidal self-loathing, while Lucy gets more… persistent, let’s say, with getting people like Billie to be her friends.
It’s a neat contrast, and I’m curious if Willis plans to play with it a little bit.
Lucy and Joyce just need to team up. No power in the world could resist their combined might.
The resulting supernova of sunshine and optimism will destroy the Earth, leaving about a dustpan worth of ashes behind.
“Everybody loves you
So don’t let them down”
Also, they will never forget you till somebody new comes around.
Hotel California is a great poem. And the music is good too.
I should mention that I know you were quoting New Kid in Town, but I just don’t find that as compelling. It is quite good in its own way, though.
What is this social hierarchy nonsense and why is it so unkind to Lucy!?
Obviously, these are pod people. And Billie’s the source!
Seriously, what is wrong with these people.
I sincerely wish I knew, it’s very strange everytime they appear. If it was one person, I understand, but the entire floor is made up of these weird people that swoon over Billie and do whatever she says for no good reason. I really hope Billie gets sick of them and draws her line in the sand, and that they realize how they’re acting. Until then, I can imagine Lucy running through the college screaming “THEY’RE ALREADY HERE! READ HALL IS NEXT!”.
I imagine it’s really only the 4 of them (Rose, Zaph, Beatrice and Nash).
I don’t think its necessarily a hard thing to comprehend. Billie has been dealing with people who have cast off the shackles of high school all year. Now she’s with people who haven’t.
Mind you, Billie is also cool by juvenile high school standards too.
I’ve never met a single person in high school (let alone college) who cared this much about “cool people” and weird nerds like these guys are my people. This dorm’s entire population feels like it was ripped directly out of a really bad and inauthentic feeling teen comedy written by someone who has never met a teen.
Lucky you.
Apparently in some schools football and cheerleaders really do have this weird cult like status, especially in really small towns.
I’m Canadian, we didn’t even HAVE cheerleaders or a football team.
My high school did have a football team and eventually a cheerleading one formed, but I don’t know anyone who went to games and while I’m sure I knew their names, it was because I had classes with them. I didn’t know anyone who was a cheerleader.
Oh this was an entire Thing in my first year dorm. There were established social heirachiches among the “cool” residents that they were obsessed with. Of course, they were also rampantly homophobic and racist, so my largely queer people of all races and straight women of color friends and I didn’t really register for them. And Billie wouldn’t have done well there, either.
I think the combo of the fact that she used to be head cheerleader and prom queen in high school and the fact that she “nailed” her RA within the first 3 months of college made her a “legend” before she even showed up in the dorms. I keep forgetting that for them, high school was just, like, 5 months ago, not to mention that at some colleges, those social dynamics don’t really change they actually get more codified.
They seem a bit extreme though. Billy wearing glasses and studying journalism almost broke their image of her. Honestly I want Joyce to come back and continue her “Billy’ fails , just like the rest of us” speech from before.
Also, like, Billy is only really rudeish to her friends or people who annoy her, unlike Malaya. I doubt they’ve seen Billy like that.
I have definitely met people who get attached to some who has more charisma than their peers. It can be really frustrating when you seem to be the only person in a group who doesn’t fawn over one person. Though in my experience they all kinda wanted to bang said person on some level so grain of salt I guess. As for Billie getting sick of them have you been reading this comic? Billie loves the attention. She wants a cult of personality around her if she can get it.
She loves attention, but I think she’d love GENUINE attention versus this weird blind attention that can be easily shattered just by the idea that Billie wears glasses.
*puts “Cult of Personality” on the hacked muzak*
At this point I feel sorry for Lucy, all she really wants is friends but I think she could find better ones than these.
She THOUGHT she already had, is the problem.
The movies are great medicine
I thank you Thomas Edison
For giving us the Best Years Of Our Lives…
Billy got up and walked out of here in her pajamas and I have seen her since.
When was that?
About ten minutes ago.
Bugger. *haven’t*
I’m honestly a bit worried about how impressionable Forest Hall seems to be. I feel like they could very easily get sucked into a multi-level marketing scheme.
Lucy: “You’re just going to do whatever Billie does? What if she jumped off a cliff?”
Nash: “If Billie were to jump off a cliff, she would’ve done her due diligence regarding the height of the cliff, the depth of the water, and the angle of entry.”
Lucy: “NO, SHE WOULDN’T HAVE”
As always, there’s an XKCD on that very subject.
https://xkcd.com/1170/
Do you have some kind of searchable index for finding them?
There’s a transcript for each comic in the html of its page, so they’re pretty easy to search for.
There’s also Explain xkcd, about the closest thing to an xkcd wiki that exists.
This dorm is about to be smote for idol worship or something if they’re not careful.
Almost-appropriate gravatar is almost appropriate. (“Almost” because Hank has been a little bit redeemed since his earliest appearances.)
He probably still thinks idol worship is wrong
… Do Nash and Rose want Lucy to resent Billie?? They are flat-out saying that anything Billie does is automatically superior – how do they not realise how rude and insulting they’re being??
That’s heartbreaking since as much as it’s possible for a super sunny type like Lucy to eventually get on someone’s nerve she’s still quite nice and seeing her becoming resentful towards someone who’s she gotten along with well enough with at this point.
Honestly if I were her I just find companionship elsewhere instead of letting this get to the point where Lucy starts to reminisce about what it was like for her before she became a one-off supporting character in the story of Billie.
She was an occasional supporting character in the story of Malaya.
But at least there was Fuckface.
It’s not that Lucy should resent Billie, it’s just that Lucy can never equal her.
Which is absurd because she’s a blatantly better and more likable person.
Likable? Yes. Better? Absolutely. Socially inferior because Billie is cool? CLEARLY!
this place is honestly the weirdest goddamn nightmare world like what is happening who are these people what century am I in why does anybody give this much of a shit about being a cheerleader and where is this Sheeple plotline leading to.
Second Eaton arc v2.0
They’re poorly written characters imo. No one acts like that.
I envy you having not yet encountered overwhelming evidence that people do, in fact, act like that.
please give us some examples because I have never met anyone who acts like this for a FORMER high school cheerleader. Small time celebrity I could see this kind of fawning, but literally nobody gives a shit about what you did in your podunk high school before coming to college/uni
It kinda depends on how podunk your university is and how young the freshmen you’re talking to are afaik.
I didn’t say it was limited to cheerleader-fawning or even ex-cheerleader fawning, Derek. And yes, Ivy, they’ll say it out loud, your willingness to believe notwithstanding.
I don’t believe you. People may think someone is cool and want to be around them, but they’d be self-aware enough not to say out loud that they just want to follow whatever the cool person is doing
I can believe it, but in my experience, they tend to use more flattering terms like ‘I want to be like them’, ‘they inspired me to do this’, ‘they make it seem like fun’, ‘I want to hang out with them’, ‘I just want to be like them’.
We have Female Batman in this school. This is hardly any less weird.
I can sorta believe it for a person who is actually cool but fixating on how you were ANYTHING in high school is inherently uncool. Nobody cares about if you were the quarterback in high school or the head cheerleader or the student body president. High school doesn’t matter outside of high school.
If you were a mass murderer in high school, no one cares.
If it effected them personally they will care.
Certain things in high school matter getting your first job or going in to college but afterwards don’t.
You keep confusing obtuseness with wit.
It’s an easy mistake for some of us to make.
And vote for Trump.
They’re naive and easily led. It didn’t help they already thought Billie was badass before she got there because she was banging her RA. Then they found out she did things that were probably considered cool when they were in high school (not that long ago for them, most likely) like being a cheerleader and a prom queen and Billie’s doing absolutely nothing to disillusion them.
Yeah I don’t understand their behavior either, I never acted like this towards any of my floormates in college.
I love how McAwesomes was awesome in Shortpacked. Yet people hate it here.
Mind you, I’d prefer this place to my actual college dorm.
Forest Hall feels so fake like am I in the Twilight Zone?
Lucy is getting disillusionned and I’m probably going to hell by fetching more popcorn to enjoy the show.
Jesus, Lucy needs better friends.
Totally.
Her friends should meet Alice
Then Lucy and Alice can team up to kill them all, before being pulled into the toxic maelstrom that is Billie can. >_>
You go to movie night with the friends you have, not the friends you might want or wish to have at a later time.
Billie movie night: Like regular movie night but drinking.
That is, objectively, a better movie night for most freshman.
Nash is now the most problematic character in this webcomic
it goes Nash > Ross = Blaine = Gashface
Nash is just aware of how cool and awesome Billie is. She’s all of what people should aspire to.
🙂
I thought I knew what hatred was but then I read this strip and discovered whole new depths of it.
I want to know these characters’ class schedules now. Do these three all have Friday 8am classes? Are they all naturally morning people? Did they fail to go to sleep last night and give up on the idea as the sun rose (me)?
No human is naturally morning people. Joyce and Lucy are clearly aliens.
I honestly feel sorry for Lucy. She puts all the effort in and is taken for granted, while Billie is adored for no reason other than her past ‘glories’ at High School.
I wonder what it would be like if they encountered a college cheerleader instead of the current Hasbin in their dorm.
(Ok in truth I adore Billie and that was a little mean but come on what else are you going to call her status as a former cheerleader. Why she hasn’t tried out for the college team yet I don’t know.)
She said beforehand that they didn’t want her on the team because she had a previous DUI. Anyway, I like Billie but she doesn’t deserve the idol-worship that’s going on at Forrest (I think it’s bad for her as it’s disassembling her growth since she started at College).
It’s not mean it’s just unvarnished truth. Billie is a has been obsessed with her “glory days” and thinks they make her better than everyone else. She probably hasn’t tried out for the college team because if she fails it will crush her entire identity.
She did try out for the college team and apparently got on. They revoked her spot after the DUI.
I considered going through to check if she had but then I saw there were 60 pages of strips with Billie tagged and was like “Definitely not worth it.”
Luckily, I am an archive diving nerd. Also I remembered really loving the line ‘Turns out when you get a DUI, they don’t let you be a cheerleader anymore.’
Once they realize Billie isn’t what they think she should be, there’s probably be some backslash. Fans are like that :/
Was.. was lucy the billie before billie was here?
Lucy was trying to be liked. Billie was trying to be liked by the “cool people.”
oh god. She probably was.
Yes.
I’m getting more and more convinced of my earlier suspicion that Lucy is trying to be an “alpha sweetie” in the same way as Billie identifies herself as an alpha bongo. The middle of the social group, the hub around which their social life revolves. Just a bit of a gossip and busybody, but ultimately a positive force acting on the people around her.
The difference between being an alpha sweetie and just being nice, is that part of her motivation is to get social power and status. Not entirely unlike Dorothy and her clipboarding.
Now, I make it sound bad but it really isn’t. All social circles have someone in the center doing something similar, and that’s usually the difference between HAVING a social circle or just a bunch of people who sometimes hang out. I’m just interested in the parallels it opens up between Billie and Lucy. Seen very clearly when they trade gossip here:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/02-this-is-the-way-that-we-love/sitch/
Here’s an example of what Billie reads into being an alpha bongo. I’m convinced Lucy have a similar deal going on.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/05-saturdays-all-right-for-slighting/mission/
Yeah, I’m going back through all the Lucy strips, and the faces she makes in “Welcoming Committee” and “Stereotypically” really stand out now. At the time, I wrote off the awkward faces Lucy made in those pages as normal anxiety around meeting new people. Now it seems more like anxiety about potentially being “replaced.”
Also, I stayed out of the “is Lucy too pushy” conversation yesterday because I wasn’t sure if it was a personal bias rearing its head, but after going back through all her strips without other content intervening, I feel confident saying: WOW, Lucy is WAY too pushy. It really shows when you look at her strips in aggregate. Which I think is a point in this theory’s favor.
I think that’s very true. And again, a neat parallel between her and Joyce.
Joyce is not an alpha sweetie like Lucy, because she simply does not have that position in her social circle (She COULD have had that position with her old church group, and given that comment about her being best socialized, she very well might). But she still does the same thing on a small scale. “Joyce dress everyone day”.
I don’t find myself warming to Lucy – but I still do feel for her in strips like this (also the milk-sniffing one, where suddenly her opinion is discounted).
Also, my read is that Joyce is pushy because she is unaware of both social norms and how her behaviour can come across, and a bit over-enthusiastic. When specific
things are pointed out to her (e.g. Sarah doesn’t like waking up to her hovering above her face) she does take it on board (even if she misses the point and hovers over yer feet instead).
Lucy is pushy because she thinks people will need and therefore like her if she organises everything and insists on being the go-to person… She may well be lonely, insecure and awkward, but she also seems to be deliberately controlling, and almost manipulative in her desire to make others rely on her. Billie was ruder than necessary in trying to shut her down in yesterday’s strip – but Lucy’s response to “you’re annoying me” is “you’re stuck with me so get used to it”. Nash and Rose are being ridiculous and insulting here, but sometimes people do want to try new things and see what else is happening, especially at these kids’ stage in life. Instead of accepting that Nash is unsure of what she’s doing after panel 1, it kinda sounds like Lucy is telling her what she enjoys, and trying to imply that a habit of ~6 weeks is unbreakable. I get the impression she takes it personally before the others *make* it personal.
Except that Nash isn’t actually unsure. Or rather, she’s only unsure because she doesn’t know what Billie’s doing yet. Nothing to do with the activity or her liking it or not, she just wants to be in on whatever Billie’s doing.
I think that’s a good take on them, Miri. Like Timemonkey alludes to below, I think this is a neat parallel to how Nash and Rose reacts
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/groundswell/
Lucy definitely wants to be the Mom Friend.
And like Dorothy, she doesn’t quite cut it.
Nobody who tries to be the Mom Friend can ever truly be the Mom Friend.
That kind of makes this similar to when Roz and Dorothy were competing for the position of RA. Dorothy was genuinely nice and tried really hard but Roz overwhelmed them with her charisma. Lucy is trying to be what Billie is naturally, only in this case Billie isn’t even trying.
Wowie, Nash sure is… unlikable
Nash is having Lucy on. You don’t have to be Mike to pull people’s chains.
I don’t read it like she is.
Everybody in this dorm (except possibly Lucy) is totally blinded by whatever past and present glory they think Billies represents.
Nash is grinning in the last panel while saying something she knows is absurd.
Pod people don’t have the capacity for the higher thinking necessary to play pranks.
Oy. Their disillusionment can’t happen fast enough. Poor Lucy.
…At least they are being honest about their idiotic worthshipping?
In Lucy’s place I’d be turning full misanthrope right about now.
I’m morbidly curious how these kids would react to Sal now.
Super cool, just the absolute greatest, oh my gosh- oh wait she doesn’t punch people any more? … Ennh.
How would they react when they meet an actual Cheerleader?
Sal has a motorcycle. Their heads would explode!
Never mind how relatively affordable 500cc sport bikes are. (For that matter, if all you want is an around-town or beginner bike, you can find Kawasaki Ninja 250s for around a grand just about anywhere.)
Come on, this is Sal we are talking about, she will have some super rare, special edition bike, we already know it has a Rutten motor, and it probably isn’t stock.
All I can say is yikes.
Wanna fight?
Honestly, it’s 1AM, your name didn’t register, social anxiety kicked in, and I immediately tried to figure out what I said that was inflammatory.
‘Is it the yikes?’ I wondered, brain ticking as slow as as half-frozen honey, ‘that’s not a good word? Should I have said yeesh? Or whoa now?’
Not everyone can have a conversation with their alter ego. Kids today don’t know how lucky they have it.
Haha sorry
Of course you realize this means you have to use the name “Other Ivy” from now on.
Bonus points if you play Gravatar Roulette until you get Other Rachel.
I’ve been Ivy for a long, long time, friend.
Okay then, into the Thunderdome with the both of you. Bat’leth duel, loser has to be Other Ivy.
I think Lucy needs better friends.
Is it bad that I can’t wait to see their looks of disappointment when they find out Billie isn’t as cool as they think she is?
Can’t anybody in this dorm talk normally? Lucy just said Nash’s name three times in a row as if to call her attention even thought they’re having a conversation
Some people do say other’s names that much. I’ve seen “use people’s names more–people like this!” as a tip for people trying to learn how to be more friendly/outgoing/liked. (Nash is kind of a fun name to say, I’ll give her that.)
I’m the opposite, where I barely address other people by name at all.
My uncle works in politics and he does this as a trick to remember new people.
That does make sense, Lucy definitely seems like she would read “How to get people to like you” tutorials.
I mean, Nash doesn’t seem to really be talking TO Lucy, so she might be trying to get her to actually pay attention to what she’s saying by repeating her name.
One of the things you learn in first aid, is to ask a victim their name, and make SURE you repeat it back to them in every sentence you use. People like hearing their name and respond to it, it keeps their focus on you, which is important if you’re trying to keep them from drifting off into unconsciousness. Politicians, call centre workers (and other jobs requiring one on one personal interaction) use the same trick. Call people by their name repeatedly and it’s easier to keep things going down the path you’d prefer.
That Lucy knows this trick at her age either means she’s had a job (or first aid training) where that skill is taught/needed, or that her “everybody’s friend” persona comes with a certain assumption of control on her part.
People in fiction say each others’ names more often than in real life. Partly it’s a writer’s tool to make sure readers remember the characters’ names, and partly writing doesn’t always come out sounding 1:1 with how people talk because it is planned out and amplified for readability rather than the in-person context and brevity you’d use while being in a conversation irl.
But also Lucy seems to be saying Nash’s name even MORE often because she is pleading.
I feel that eventually Billie is going to learn that none of them actually care about Billie as herself, but instead what Billie represents to them. And that they will turn on Billie the moment she isn’t able to keep up the perfect cheerleader girl act.
If Reed Hall is made of people who act like jerks but are really good people deep down, than Forest hall is made up of people who act nice but are for more selfish than they perceive themselves to be.
Lucy gets fed up with Billie and the idol worship of her and sets out to demonstrate to everyone that Billie’s not so cool. The spell breaks, and Lucy’s feeling of triumph is ruined by seeing how broken Billie looks in that moment and realizing that she, Lucy, did something that goes against her sense of self.
End of storyline
I don’t think Billie sees a difference between caring about Billie and caring about what she represents.
If she does, she prefers the latter.
She will once she has an actual problem and they don’t give a shit because it doesn’t fit within their narrative.
But their narrative is also her narrative.
If she ever finds herself with a problem she can’t ignore, whether she’ll get any sympathy from the rest of the hall will be the least of her issues. Just having to deal with it will break her. (Not the effort, not anything that she has to do, just the fact that she can’t ignore it.) She’s not a person who needs help in her mind. She’s a fixer, not a get-fixed-er.
I see Billie coasting on borrowed glories until her Governorship of Alaska.
…was that a burn? I think that was a burn. Sick burn!
I’m hoping that Ruth learns how Billie has been treating her as a conquest to bolster her reputation with her peers and dumps her for being a terrible girlfriend because seriously what the fuck kind of way is that to treat your girlfriend you self-centered piece of shit?
Yeesh, OK, we get it, you hate Billie, but it came up one time, she refused to correct them and said some off-the-cuff bullshit about how she takes what she wants, and as far as we know has never mentioned her again.
Nah, treating women as sexual conquests is unacceptable in any context let alone the context of a committed relationship. I mean yeah, I fucking hate Billie she’s a drunk driving garbage human being with an unearned ego the size of the Chrysler building.
Treating men as sexual conquests, on the other hand, is completely acceptable?
Ruth started out hating Billie, sight unseen, for being a drunk driving garbage human being like the one who affected her own life and Billie “seduced” her just the same. Yeah, Billie’s self image is seriously twisted, but the ego is hardly completely unearned.
I think we’ve seen enough to know that Billie’s ego is pretty damn fragile. She likes the praise, but that’s not because she’s got a huge ego, it’s because she’s filled with self-loathing.
When did Emily even imply treating men similarly was acceptable?
Clif is just being obtuse for the sake of finding something to argue with me about.
I suspect it’s implicit in her thinking. Would be glad to be wrong, but I doubt that she’s willing to entertain the notion that people who don’t fall into preconceived catagories can even be victims. Treating people as just objects is bad, and it’s also bad for the person who does it. We don’t have to make exceptions.
Fuck off with your “but what about the men” nonsense. I’ll include men in the same breath when sexual objectification becomes an equal opportunity issue and not the heavily gendered one it currently is.
But Billie using Ruth to seem cool has nothing to do with Ruth being a hot chick. It’s more to do with her being an RA, making the relationship rebellious.
And there we are.
Ivy, yes, your right that
Ivy, yes, you’re right that it’s probably the rebellion factor that has more to do with how Billie is viewed. If you’re talking about Billie’s ego, or her view of herself, however, I doubt that Billie thinks of it that way, but in spite of Emily’s dismissal of her, it was Billie’s intrinsic qualities and instincts that won Ruth over despite her strong initial prejudices.
I see resentment on the horizon
for the record, I’d rather go to Lucy’s movie night, given I don’t drink, and hijinks are fun, but less fun if I am trying to watch a movie as they occur. 😛
I feel like movie nights were probably a lot more popular when streaming services and the like weren’t a thing. Now days if I wanted to watch a movie I would just watch whatever I wanted and if I wanted to socialize with people I would go to something that didn’t involve being quite and not talking to anyone for 1-2 hours .
You make a persuasive point.
This is also true, but counter: food may be provided.
Depends on the type of movie night. A movie night where you all get together to heckle a bad movie ala RiffTrax could be a fun social experience.
It’s still fun to watch movies with friends. It’s still a social experience even if you don’t talk much.
It can be especially fun when you’re introducing an old favorite to people who don’t know it, since you get to watch their reactions as much as the movie.
social anxiety on steriods
Oh no, they’re breaking the Lucy.
I’m sorry but the girls in this wing are fucking sheep.
It’s like Billie found Heaven.
I said it before: This seems like negative character development for Billie. The realisation that whatever she was in high school doesn’t count at uni seemed like such a healthy realisation.
But who knows — maybe getting all you want and more can also lead to a healthy realisation eventually.
I mean it’s realistic, sometimes people regress if they’re presented the opportunity. I fully expect this to blow up in her face.
These girls idolize cool kids a lot to the point of unhealthy dependence.
This is upsetting.
My prediction: Billie will ultimately become the person the Forest Hall needs, not wants.
After seeing how Amber and Sal improved things last chapter I’m hoping it’s Billie’s turn to step up and do something probably ok
She is not in a secret suicide pact of a relationship any longer – now it’s merely destructive but not secret or suicidal. That’s a huge step up.
…and that tells us A LOT of Billie’s situation.
The worst thing to happen to the relationship from Billie’s perspective was Ruth getting better.
True… but there are signs they might make it work even in this new, scary context
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/02-this-is-the-way-that-we-love/schoolwork/
All Lucy’s disappointment is postponing my Amber/Walkie awkwardness.
*facepalm* nuff said.
Oh yay, relegated to someones plan B.
Super cool.
Okay, yeah, I’ve got a feeling that this one is heading towards Lucy sitting alone on the steps of Forrest Hall, possibly with someone from the main cast.
I also want to go on the record as saying that I’m furious that people are now judging social events that they’ve been fine with up to now based on Billie’s reaction to them. That’s shallow on a completely different level.
Joyce! She can sit with joyce
Lucy you clearly need some real friends
To anyone thinking this isn’t realistic… I’ve BEEN Lucy in a lot of social situations, even in bars with people aged 30+. Sometimes it’s more subtle, but people can present themselves in a way that gives them a “cool” reputation, even if upon analysis they are actually not that great to be around. Especially with this group seeming to be a bit nerdier on average than in Read Hall (that is the name of the OG dorm, right?), they might be less socially apt and not noticing that they’re being swept away by this obsession with coolness.
An aspect that I certainly think is very realistic in social situations is people not wanting to commit to an activity because something “better” might come up. I’ve had friends who did this when I suggested things to do (or who dropped out of a previous commitment last minute because something else to do came up), and it considerably cooled the friendship.
Like I see you point but there is nothing cool about Billie. Like college me was as socially unapedt and nerdy as they come and she still would have thought Billie was a full of shit has been who needs to exit high school and join the rest of us in the real world.
I agree that there is nothing cool about Billie, except her dating Ruth (viewed from the outside). I can see that this can be seen as a cool act of rebellion “for true love”.
But probably these girls would have reacted this way to almost any newcomer.
I could see people being like this, though less obvious about it, if they’d always wanted to be cheerleaders/prom queens/popular in high school but were always unpopular. Especially if they didn’t have as many other interests. Lucy has a lot of other interests, so she’s not drawn into it as much.
why dont lucy and joyce become friends?
I like to think the two would hate each other….the similarities repulsing.
I think the two would go well together and could become really good friends!
It might make Becky jealous, though. She and Joyce don’t have much in common beyond a shared past — a powerful thing of course; I have good friends like that — while Joyce and Lucy seem to value lots of the same things in social interaction.
Maybe this a dorm full of Billies, a.k.a people that are still stuck in high school. Either that or they’re all pod people.
What’s wrong with people in this wing? Lucy seems by far the most normal.
This is a moral judgement btw. I realise people like this actually exist.
I think a plausible reason is the girls in this dorm are more introverted and nerdy. Didn’t make many friends in highschool or get much attention. Kind of like Amber is except without all the rage and DID. The girls in the main dorm all have way more dominant and outgoing personalitiy compared to it. Becky (I know Becky doesn’t actually live there but she hangs out there enough), Joyce, Sarah, Rachel, Carla, Ruth, Sal, Dorothy, Malaya now, I’m just listing names here. It’s almost a little meta considering the girls here are almost glorified background characters.
I am as nerdy as they come, and I never hankered after cool people, nor did the nerds I was friends with.
Nash in particular doesn’t strike me as an introvert.
I tink it’s more a question of self-esteem, not of nerdiness or being and introvert. Mine was pretty good even in high school, so I (mostly) didn’t care that everyone thought I was a huge nerd. But I had a fellow nerdy friend who constantly tried (and failed) to appear to the cool people, eventually throwing me under the bus for it. We weren’t friends afterwards.
Once I went to university I have however not really seen this dynamic in action.
Or is “being a nerd” somehow associated with low self-esteem? Maybe I’m using the word wrong.
A nerd stereotype is that they have low self-esteem but you don’t need low self-esteem to be one, it just tends to expected just like it is expected that nerds don’t have many friends, like in the case of Amber who had Ethan and her… local edgelord, Mike.
This is more just a problem of these people in particular seem to be impressionable, still in the high school mindset (much like Billie was) and so when something high school cool comes along their first instinct is still ‘woah that’s so cool!’ Like they haven’t realised yet that high school was a lie and none of the social points had any real value or worth.
Yeah. As clarification I was using the term “nerd” as shorthand based on the stereotype instead of saying introverted people with low self esteem and maybe not the best social skills. Didn’t really mean to imply specifically that they were seen as nerds are even part of that culture. I like the idea of a “highschool mindset” like you said I wish there was a term for that. Immature doesn’t really fit
Introverted and nerdy maybe, but still obsessed with the stereotypical “cool” status, which isn’t really my expectation for the nerdy kids.
Am nerd, can confirm.
I dislike everyone in this dorm. If we’re going on a secondary-to-background cast binge, can it at least be people who don’t suck on a permanent basis? Like, Agatha, Sierra, and Rachel are RIGHT THERE.
More Aggie, please.
Don’t bother, Lucy. Organizing stuff for people who act like that is super not worth it.
Being alone is worse; that’s why I really want Lucy to get friends at Read Hall. They’re a strange bunch but they’re nowhere near as shallow.
Based on the comments here, I think I must be the only one looking at Nash’s expression in the last panel and believing she is teasing Lucy. That’s a move you don’t typically make unless you’re good enough friends with someone to get away with it. I am willing to believe Rose is just that shallow, but I’m unconvinced in the case of Nash.
Given that Nash has been shown as blunt and impulsive before, while your reading is possible, it is also possible that she doesn’t realise how cruel the implications of what she is saying actually are and is just excited at the prospect of a possible better movie night as well. You don’t have to be actively trying to be cruel to someone to be cruel.
Nash was basically our first example of “Everyone in Forest Hall worships Billie for some damn reason”, and Lucy’s expression suggests that, even if Nash is teasing, they are not close enough for Lucy to recognise this.
This is getting creepy.
I sort of wonder if Lucy would get along with Amber.
I’m really hoping that Nash is just teasing here. Looking back over their archives, it’s hard to tell. Nash and Rose might both be that damn shallow. If that’s the case, Lucy deserves better friends. I mean, even if she was being an “alpha sweetie”, there is nothing wrong with that. It isn’t inherently bad.
I’ve known some really shallow people in my time. They didn’t get the time of day from me for long if I could help it. Hopefully, Billie will realize that Lucy belongs with the folks at Read Hall and introduce her to them.
Poor Lucy… she is deserving of better friends.
Didn’t know if you saw this:
Renovations set at Indiana University dorms plagued by mold
http://www.ccenterdispatch.com/news/state/article_37f80a77-d641-5680-915f-76669c9977b0.html
this is utterly alien behavior to me, I never wanted to go do a thing just because a glamorous or popular person did it, or not do a thing for that reason…
Oops, Billie ruined the dorm’s group dynamics
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/04-the-whiteboard-dong-bandit/dramahurricane/
(I’m actually a big fan of Billie, although she does clearly have some serious flaws she needs to work on.)
This story line is quite…I don’t know, perplexing maybe? Like every other story line I’ve been able to see the motivation or at least sort of understand why the people do what they do, like I get why Ross did what he did or why Blaine does what he does but here…I just can’t get Rose and Nash or what their end game is or if they even have an end game
Mary knew what she was doing, she thought about it. Ruths grandfather thought about what he was doing, Sals mom thought about what they’re were doing but Rose and Nash…I don’t know what they’re thinking or if they’re even thinking at all (Nash clearly isn’t)
So I have no idea whats happening with this storyline, hopefully Billie learns a helluva lesson and I’m assuming it’ll all make sense at some point but geez these people are really unlikable
I think it’s quite clear. The girls of Forrest Hall have decided that Billie is a ‘cool’ person. Because they want to be associated with her (in the hope of being seen as ‘cool’ too) they are only willing to do things that please her or emulate her behaviour. Therefore, if Billie doesn’t want to go to Lucy’s film night, they won’t either. Ultimately, if Billie won’t associate with Lucy, they’ll ostracise her too.
This isn’t really wickedness on their part but simply a character flaw: They define themselves solely by how those they perceive to be ‘cool’ or ‘popular’ see them. Oddly enough (although they don’t know it yet) this is exactly Billie’s problem too.
I guess its probably because I’ve never seen this complete and utter hero worship like I know its exaggerated but even so its just seems so completely over the top (and not in an amusing Sal or Amber way)
If the author revealed that Rose and Nash were robots trying to learn to become human I’d probably accept it, thats how far removed from reality they seem to me
Still I’m sure the pay off will be worth it
It’s funny you bring that up, because the kids in Forrest remind me exactly of Joyce’s fangirling over Sal.
The author going for mirror type thing, to show how bad Joyces behavior is in other contexts?
Possibly, but also just in the sense that they act a lot like teenagers modelling themselves after people they like/think are cool. Joyce has tried to do the same with Sal. And yeah, it does look weirder with these kids because we don’t know them as much as Joyce. We only see these kids in Billie’s storyline, so there isn’t much room to see them as individuals, when Billie’s not around.
I guess for me its one thing to see one person who was home schooled and naive act that way but to see a group acting that way, that can’t all be naive and home schooled
That and if I remember correctly Joyce did not give up things she loved because Sal didn’t like it. She didn’t swear to impress Sal. She copied Sal’s look for a bit and bragged about how the stuff she decided to do for her own reason made her like Sal
Home schooled maybe not, but naive? Yeah, it’s definitely possible for them all to be naive. And while Joyce wouldn’t give up things she liked for Sal, Joyce also has a lot of courage of her convictions that not everybody has.Especially fawning fangirls.
A little bit, but I don’t recall anything quite like this. Sure, she fangirls Sal, but we don’t see her decide to blow other friends off because Sal might not be there or whatever it is these two are doing.
I’ve never gotten the feeling Joyce would ditch her other friends because Sal wouldn’t be present at whatever activity they wanted to do. Also, Sal isn’t awful.
Yeah this, I was trying to work out why these last couple of strips are more difficult to read compared to other strips
These girls are ditching their friend, their friendship that easily
It’s a really unpleasant display of shallowness. Also, Nash is just being absurdly insensitive on top of that.
I think the point of this storyline is for Billie to realize being a Popular GirlTM doesn’t cure loneliness (fans =/= friends).
I honestly hope Billie keeps her little cult. She deserves to be able to enjoy the wonders of being successful without ever really trying or doing anything awesome.
You and I have some very different definitions of the word “deserves”…
Man every time we see this wing it makes me cringe.
Poor Lucy. She’s too healthy for anyone to relate, lol.
(Not to be annoyingly picky, but just to note there’s a small typo in panel 4 – it says, “What would Billie be doing that’d you’d prefer?” – an extra apostrophe-“d” on “that”!)
You know, I’m not saying I don’t feel for Lucy, and I’m definitely not saying Billie would be someone I’d enjoy knowing in real life, but if you go back to the start of Lucy’s tag and read all her DOA strips at once…….
I’d feel bad about it, but I would definitely find her suffocating in real life. Which sucks, because I’m sure she’s aware of that — or at least aware that she tends to put about 500% more effort into making and maintaining friendships than people do for her in return — but having repeatedly gotten really negative reactions from especially her roommates seems to just be causing Lucy to try even harder in desperation.
Like, in their very first strip together, Billie gives a slightly overwhelmed smile in response to Lucy telling her that she ran back from church just to meet her new roommate, and by the end of that same strip Lucy has not only hugged her but also put that hug on Instagram and declared that they will be best friends.
It’s a lot. I think for many people, it would be too much. And if you go back to the last strip where this movie night thing was mentioned, it was already being treated with some disdain by some of the people Lucy hopes will show up. 🙁
Again I feel for her. I’ve been in the position where I had no friends and was kind of desperate to make some. But I’m not… convinced that any of these people are actually Lucy’s friends, instead of folks she’s continuously corralling and checking in with, with whom she has more of a surface-level politeness, despite her increasingly intense efforts.
To make matters worse, she probably already tried giving Malaya her space (as seen in one comic where she explicitly declares that she’s going to do so), and might now keep doubling down with Billie, like when she kind of stated that they were stuck with each other and therefore had to get along. 🙁
Like. Lucy is nice, for sure, but she’s kind of intense about it over the long term, and I sympathize with Billie more than I am entirely comfortable with when she got up and left the dorm so that she could go crash face first into Ruth’s bed.
I like your take on this.