I mean of course it wasn’t. It was likely supposed to be subversive anti-drug propaganda, a product of its time no less than Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Fantastic Voyage (1966).
Actually, it was the other way around. The virus made you happy and content. Happy people don’t got to therapy, don’t take tranquilizers, or but a lot of alcohol. The government has to find, and irraicate it to get people back onto their socially acceptable substances!
well, she did say’ forcing’ herself, that said , ppl being ‘pleasant’ towards ruth would probably have the opposite effect considering how “Well” she “got along” with billie/jen lol
Maybe in Canada. But Sarah is American, the strip is currently set in America, and I’m American (and also fat, particularly from a love of poultry), so I’m holding on for Thanksgiving to get it’s due.
people in the United States majorly use “America” as shorthand for “United States of America” mainly because it’s usually of no consequence to them.
pretty much everywhere else in the English speaking world where the distinction is necessary to operate on the international scene and get stuff done, “Americans” are known more accurately as “staters”.
and we in the States are lazy and like to abbreviate as much as possible, or more so. And we are also very self centered and like to forget that there is more North America above and below us, let alone that whole other America
I was always under the impression that when speaking about a country, people preferred referring to the individual countries as individuals, instead of lumping an area under the name of their continent.
Like it was frowned upon to refer to Egypt, or Mozambique, or Madagascar as simply Africa.
And after mentioning Canada, as well as the strip’s setting, I thought it would be pretty clear that I was speaking about the country of the United States of America and not one of the several countries on the continent of North America or even the countries on the continent of South America.
I also had no idea that Canadians referred to themselves, or were referred to by everywhere else in the English speaking world, as American, so that my comment could be so unclear (I always thought Canadians were referred to as Canadians).
I guess this is what I get from using our own media as the source for how the US of A and its people are referred to by other countries.
But I am a lazy, self centered, and forgetful American after all (and I guess context clues don’t matter).
The consequences I am speaking of are those which are of most practical importance to people from all over the world who have to import goods and services made from all over the North American continent.
Suppose I live in the Philippines and wanted some Canadian candy, if only because I think it has better flavor. If I just referred to it as “American candy” under the assumption that import services use it to mean “Canada”, I’d obviously be disappointed to get candy from the United States, hence why I’d want to specify.
The terminology and even arguably whole language of English that can actually WORK on the international market and cultural scene is it’s own trade-language distinct from the English used by the majority of people in the United States. The latter usually don’t need to use International English if only because the vast majority of goods and services and culture they could ever want or need are that which they can get without ever having to look outside their own country.
The United States being so VAST in size means that producers therein just about never need to worry about not having a market for their product, because of the high probability that someone, somewhere here will want what they can produce. Not so much in other parts of the globe such as Europe. Despite being about as big as the United States, Europe are a collection of sovereign countries with their own legal, linguistic and other barriers to trade itself happening like it does in the US and thus do not really have that same luxury. Hence why the European Union was established — it was to facilitate economic and internal development via framework and central currency (Euro) which could allow trade to happen at a rate where they could actually compete with the United States.
Canada is in North America, which is part of The Americas (plural). There is no place officially called just “America” (singular) in English; but unofficially, the term usually refers to the US in most English-speaking countries. (It’s different in Spanish.)
If you the reader feel less than comfortable visiting your relatives for whatever reason, know that Popeyes around this time sells a Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and potatoes and stuff.
Same nostalgic taste, MINUS having to put up with bigoted relatives.
Now back to our regularly scheduled de-programming.
I think ruth might be about to do her RA job. Like this is probably a good reaction. A mix of “Good for you!” and “Remember that this is probably unhealthy or at least unsustainable”, or maybe it actually isn’t, because she isn’t changing what she says but only how she says it, so.
Do RAs really give emotional therapy/advice like this versus just helping them get in touch with a counselor if someone does reach out to a staff member about it
I think they’d be someone you’d bother with like “hey some student left like a pile of their clothes in the hallway and disappeared” versus something like trying to befriend them and opening up
Depending on the university, yes. In the USA alone, freshman-reported rates of anxiety and depression have been rising every year (even discounting the huge spike post-pandemic shutdowns). Few places have the budget to increase their counseling / therapy staff sustainably. (Most secondary school districts are having challenges keeping the extra counselors they hired during the pandemic). So, yeah. 🙁
fake it til you make it they say although i half expect something to happen where it’s like “I am extremely pissed at this” but she’d still be smiling b/c her face is ‘stuck’ that way lol
honestly in my experience, this is just the actual advice that mental health professionals give you. just act really fucking happy. eventually you’ll be happy.
well i can imagine it being a psychology thing, forcing it is to obad but in the opposite direction of just wallowing in self pity probably isn’t good either like isolating yourself or so even if you have bad executive dysfunction but i’d also expect them to just assign you pills just so there’s a profit
1. Ruth decides to emulate Sarah because why not.
2. Both of them walk around pleasant, smiling, and sociable.
3. Every other resident becomes wigged out. Rumors about pod people or contagious smiling disease start circulating.
well, ‘toxic positivity’ can be a thing but so far sarah hasn’t crossed any lines like being “Cheer up/stop being depressed” to someone with a more ‘serious’ issue, so i guess she’s fine for now
Tho, now i want Liz to show up to see how she’d react, either she’d be amused or like “…We need to have a doctor examine you/did you get a concussion” I wonder what Booster would make of all this tho lol,, if they’d think it’d be a good thing b/c before they did something like “you don’t need to make up a reason to be happy” so some of it might be ‘genuine’ even if Sarah is known for her ‘cranky’/default glare face
still expecting her to play the long game as some form of troll or a committed bit but i’d think if ruth did something like this it’d be a lot more troubling than sarah doing this as some sorta coping? mechanism lol
You know, the people on this wing are starting to convince me that they deserve Mary. If your first reaction to seeing a friend smiling–even if that friend is normally dour–is to not smile back and ask what’s got them in a good mood, but instead to make wisecracks or ask what’s wrong, then… you’re just not a very good friend.
Maybe this isn’t going to work out in the long run. Maybe it’s not particularly healthy. But at least she’s fucking trying something different because, as she said herself, her old schtick wasn’t working for her.
Note that not one person she’s interacted with has acknowledged her problem or offered an alternative. It’s just been mockery and derision from everyone. It’s like Willis, having killed off Mike, now needs to make everyone sound like him.
This has just been a very unpleasant storyline.
Mike was killed off because many of the characters already sounded like him, NOT the other way around.
in a tumblr post he made it clear that Mike was done away with because he just didn’t make sense as a character in Dumbing of Age from the very go.
“whenever there was somewhere Mike would fit, there just always seemed to be a better character to fulfill the role… he just seemed like a character who would work better in another comic”.
The way that Willis wrote it, Mike filled the archetypal role of the “Christ figure.” That is, every action he did, was focused on helping others. Every choice he made, was angled at helping them. Mike either told the utter harsh truth, to help them confront, or he told the lie that would manipulate someone to be a better version of themselves. And then he dies in the act of saving his friends. That is exactly the “greater love has no man than one who would lay down his life for his friends” bit.
And the Christ figure is Mike. MIKE. The most harshest, rudest, assholier-than-thou shit in the entire comic. He did all of that because he loved his friends.
I kinda feel like that’s somewhat a commentary on Christianity in DoA. It’s twisted. Real twisted. Deep in there there’s good, somewhere, but every action it takes is just awful and you wish it would stop.
Mike doesn’t make sense in a lot of ways. His parents were wonderful. He had close friends growing up. It’s as if he saw just how horrible and twisted the world was, and hated it, and figured the best way to fight it was to fight fire with fire. But in the context of him having a relationship with any of the main cast? Any time that Mike just acted like Mike, it would feel like abuse, because it was abuse, and it would make less and less sense to have him be a protagonist.
Anyways. This long ramble was basically to say – Mike’s character has always existed as a catalyst to change the other characters; typically, change for the better. But the more he pushed, the less and less influence he would have, because it’s ultimately off-putting to the characters and the audience to have an abusive asshole as a friend. Mike died, after getting so many flashbacks to Ethan and Amber’s childhood, to solidify the fact that despite everything, he cared for his friends more than he cared about his own life. And he died so that he could continue to impact them and act as a catalyst for change, all without having to force him to have a major personality shift and change of heart.
And that’s funny because in Shortpacked, historical Jesus was an asshole as much alongside Mike, but of course only one of those would make the most sense in the Dumbing of Age universe so…
If Mike was always focused on helping others, he was shit at it. But he actually wasn’t. As he says, just before he figured out how much he was echoing Blaine’s abusive rhetoric, “I’ve been poking Amber’s bear for five friggin’ years. She’s multiple timebombs. Just wind her up and point her dadwards.”
An excellent academic take on DoA. Three hundred years from now, when DoA Studies (1) are a canon component of English Departments’ Webcomics Studies across most American colleges, this comment shall stand out as an early foundation (2) of DoA symbology. 😀
(1) DOA, DP, GG, GWS, QC, SMBC, and xkcd comprising the Core Septet
(2) Which means all of our comments are going to be analysed to hell and back by future students, freshmen and grad students alike. :O
The characters are not perfect people, they do and say weird or stupid thing, usually have unhealthy coping mechanism, doesn’t have very good grasp of most social etiquette and their personalities ofthen clash like a bad chemical reaction. This is, in fact, part of what make reading about them interesting.
1) Sarah herself has claimed that this sort of thing is how this friend group expresses affection. It might actually be more accurate to say that now Sarah’s not doing this, everyone’s got sound like Sarah.
2) Except in Ruth’s case, where she just sounds like Ruth.
3) When Sarah joined the others yesterday, it wasn’t just “smiling” it was “talking like a bad inspirational poster”. Honestly, if I started talking like that, I’d expect my friends to comment on it. And I’m a fairly cheerful person normally!
4) I think I’d question that nobody’s “aknowledged her problem”; I feel like Jacob did precisely that. But of course, that falls under the catergory of treating this like something’s wrong, so you’ve got him coming and gong.
Jacob acknowledged it by saying she would burnout, admitting by that, that he doesn’t believe in her ability to change. Then he went to Ethan and realized why Sarah was a misanthrope in the first place after the fact. Honestly he’s kind of revealed a few of his own character flaws in the process.
What upsets me is that Sarah is clearly trying to make herself happy. She was miserable as the grumpy, cynical person she was. She lost out on love and wants to make a change to pursue her own happiness and most of her friends don’t believe in her. Joyce is the only one who seems to accept and support what she’s doing. Ruth isn’t Sarah’s friend though. I think we forget that sometimes. This reaction is very expected from her.
Yeah, Ruth’s cynicism and depression recovery processes aren’t quite yet to the point where she can perceive and empathize with Sarah’s self-improvements efforts. She’s on meds, so she might get there soon, depending on how therapy is working out.
It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in her ability to change, it was that he thought she doing it like this, so suddenly and so forcefully couldn’t be healthy for her, which she partially acknowledge when she says doing this take a lot of mental effort. There is a way for her to change for the better without being like this. Also I don’t believe he realized that about her in the moment but that he been thinking about it for a while and just then say it out loud.
That’s hard to determine for me. He always sympathized with Sarah, but actua knowing his thoughts that aren’t shown is impossible. We do actually see Jacob come to the realization in real time though. Sarah became even more guarded and cynical in direct response to the backlash from the Dana situation. Talking with Ethan about him making similar choices in response to Ethan’s depression gave him the epiphany.
I also think he’s really quick to decide what is healthy for Sarah without offering alternatives. Extra ironic considering he was a huge factor in her sudden change in personality and he accused her of doing it just to get with him. Jacob’s a cool dude, but I really think he’s the last person who gets to decide what’s good for Sarah, even if it comes from genuine concern. If Sarah wants to fake it until she crashes out he has to let her.
Yeah because he isn’t a therapist, there isn’t any guarantee that any alternative he offers could actually helps even if he know how, he can still be worried that this aproach is not sustainable, that is an entirely fair assessment of this. Also no I don’t think if someone you care about is doing something you think is self defeating and will end badly then you just gotta “let her” do it, that is a terrible idea.
Hey, this storyline is being very pleasant. One the best of all time. Just because people here are annoying that doesn’t take the happiness of Jocelyne s return…
Mockery and derision are of course not good responses, but when someone has a drastic overnight personality change, asking what’s wrong is appropriate, even when the change is to a more superficially pleasant persona.
She even says right here she’s forcing herself to smile. Should the response be “Good. Keep it up. We like you better when you smile.”?
How about, “Huh. I’m sorry I didn’t realize just how unhappy you were before. I don’t know if this is going to work for you in the long run, but I’m glad you’re trying something different. Let me know if you need to talk about any of this, or even just need to take a thirty-minute grouch break every so often.”
BTW, others in this thread brought up Jacob, and yes, his response was a lot more appropriate.
I am sorry none of these characters are freaking therapists, they are just dumb young adults with issues, they are never going to give the perfect response.
The overall reaction (Both in-comic and in the comment section…) to Sarah’s attempt at becoming better are a bit disheartening, personally.
I used to be a lot like Sarah, if not as extreme. Cynic and sarcastic, always a downer. And one day I realized that, well, acting like that? being like that? It only kept me a sad and bitter man, and made it so nobody really liked me, even if I was cordial in my bitterness.
Nowadays I try to be positive and more cheerful. It is hard, and it takes a lot of work, specially with my ’tism blocking a lot of social cues. But I am honestly happier, and people like me more. I still snark a lot, but I do it from a better mental state.
It takes work, every day, to stay like this. To actively block out the negativity in my mind. But it helps me! And I let out the negativity in more healthy ways, like trolling assholes in MMOs.
I agree with this comment. Sarah is making a sincere effort to change herself for the better. It’s very discouraging that people expect her to fail or when she slips up they claim that’s the “real” Sarah. It reminds me of Jennifer who for all her flaws keeps admirably trying to reinvent herself for the better and has even had victories like staying sober, yet she gets no credit for that. I believe in Sarah. She gets to decide who the real Sarah is. We’ll see who laughs in the end.
See I disagree with all of this. I don’t think this is a “sincere effort to change herself for the better”. I certainly don’t think Jennifer is “admirably trying to reinvent herself for the better”. She changed for the better with Ruth and while she’s stayed sober, in basically every other way she’s reverted to much closer to her high school status seeking self.
Sarah was making slow progress with her attempts to reach out to Jacob, but this isn’t building on that. At least to me it seems just a facade thrown up in reaction to Jacob hooking up with Lucy.
And I think that’s a lot of the difference in reaction. It’s not that people think this would be good for her, but expect it to fail, but they think this itself is a mistake.
This is what I’m talking about. Jennifer doesn’t get any credit for staying sober or mentally in a better place than she was when she was with Ruth. Admittedly it’s open to interpretation and Jennifer has reverted to her older more superficial values, but to me that’s better than being in a mutually toxic lesbian death pact with a partner that second guessed your relationship as soon as it was getting healthy.
As for Sarah I think it is sincere mainly because she is trying. Just because she admitted it is difficult doesn’t mean she’ll fail. Making slow progress with Jacob ironically set her back as she lost his affection to another. Being cynical prompted Lucy to weaponize her past against her and made Raidah an enemy bent on destroying her social life. It just seems like people don’t like how she’s doing it, but what’s the alternative?
Ruth and Sarah are kinda similar bitterfolk, now that I think about it; Ruth might benefit from Sarah”s whole idea of cheerfully saying the nihilistic horseshit she usually says. At the very least Ruth might show some interest in the laboratory results of Ruth’s experiments upon the normies.
Honestly, if she doesn’t burn out or explode, it might work. Being sulky and angry all the time can be a habit. By forcing herself into new behavior, it can add neural pathways, creating new habits. I’m not saying she’ll magically become a cheerful person, but if she keeps it up for a few months, I think she’ll find it’s a lot easier and more natural than she does now. And instead of anger and sulking being the default emotion, she’ll have to put effort into feeling that way, just like now she has to put effort into smiling.
Is this like when my mom told me, “Pretend to be happy, and you WILL be happy!” in my adolescent years? Cause it was a crock of shit then and it’s a crock now.
That’s how I’m taking Sarah’s approach. Except that it’s not even that, since it’s a reaction to Jacob getting with Lucy instead of her, so it’s more like “Maybe if I pretend to be happy, I’ll get what I want.”
I didn’t take it that way. I think that was the catalyst, but it was more like “Oh, being bitter and defensive was hurting me, and pushing people away, I need to try something different.” And I know a lot of folks are very cynical about that, which is understandable, but quite frankly I’m impressed with her. She wants to change, for the same reasons anyone wants to change (and yes, some of that is for her own quality of life), and she is trying something. For being like, what, 19? She’s doing better than a lot of 35 to 40 year olds that I know. Hopefully she’ll catch the therapy wave soon and see even more improvement!
I like how these Sarah strips show how hard it is to change and one of the difficulties is just people around you not being supportive. Shows why sometimes a change in demeanor comes with a change in social circle.
It’s definitely a real problem.
I think a lot of the reaction in the comments though is based around how readers interpret Sarah’s change in presentation.
If you see it as a real change in her that’s going to lead to her actually being happier in the long run, then the reactions to it are a problem.
If you see this as her propping up a facade to hide her real self after Jacob’s rejection, then not quite so much.
Similarly I think with the changes in Jennifer. It’s really hard for me to see the new Jennifer as anything but regression from the progress she’s made first semester – other than that she’s still not drinking.
And one big difference between both of them and Joyce is how sudden the change seemed to be. We’ve seen Joyce’s growth play out painfully slowly over years of real time. Sarah had been making some attempts to reach out from behind her mask of misanthropy, but this change came fast and doesn’t really seem to be the same thing.
I think Sarah’s overcorrecting, and this level of “pleasantness” won’t last, but not that it’s for nothing and she’ll return to how she was previously. Hopefully she can find a lasting balance where she’s genuinely less miserable.
This is how I feel too! It’s really hard to assert a new (or at least improved) identity when you’re surrounded by people who say “that’s not you, it’s fake, you’re acting”. I do agree with people that it’s not going to work that she’ll just be like this forever, she’ll eventually want to tell someone the truth and will probably have a hard time not doing it with her old fierceness. My hope is that she’ll then realize she can be a little both. She can try to show more vulnerability and try to exercise her empathy and kindness muscles without trying to dead lift 1000 pounds of Polyanna energy. But support and reasonable conversation with her from friends would help (sadly, a lot to ask of these extremely young people)
Funnily enough, this is the right attitude and Sarah has cracked the code! She really does care about the people around her.
I’m actually betting this manages to stick. Bet she didn’t have the shitty attitude she started the year with when she met Raidah and co, that was most definitely the consequences of Raidah’s harassment.
Acting things out/role playing can often lead to very real and substantial changes in mood and outlook. Especially when you commit to it as heavily as Sarah has.
Refusing to focus on the negatives while forcibly breaking out of her comfortable leather coat of disgust at the world IS a step in the right direction.
Sometimes you have to fake it until you make it.
She can’t change the world, only how she responds to it. And wallowing in anger, both at herself and the world around her, only hurts her long term happiness in the long run.
And to be FAIR to Sarah, her shitty attitude was completely warranted given her past experiences.
I think some are concerned that doing that, however useful, is a big cognitive workload and one must pace one’s self. If I were undertaking such a project, I would appreciate someone asking how I’m doing with it, now and then.
Maybe Ruth will have something more supportive to say tomorrow.
Smiling literally raises people’s mood. Like, there’s a physiological/psychological link in there somewhere. Try it in front of a mirror sometime: making a face that corresponds with a particular emotion makes you feel an echo of that emotion!
This isn’t about “being pleasant fakely” exactly. As has been commented before, Sarah is saying all the exact same things but with a smile on her face. This is an actual trick that works.
Loading ...
XD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming
great choice of metaphor AND i have been introduced to a new wikipedia page. excellent day in the comments for me
Theory is when ya basically know everything but nothin works.
Practice is when ya don’t know nothin but yet everything just works.
As
programmersautistic people socializing, we combine Theory AND Practice, nothing works, and nobody knows WHY.+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++
99 autism bugs on the brain
99 autism bugs
Medicate one and beat it down
137 autism bugs on the brain
Is it working…or is it contagious?!
It could be cool Halloween special
It seems as so Sarah is not smiling,
but the Smile itself is this entity wearing her as a face
You mean like McPedro the Mustache? :O
(ref. Girls with Slingshots)
In Soviet Russia, Smile wears you
You mean like this? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063799/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_What%27s%2520So%2520Ba It’s not a very GOOD movie!
I mean of course it wasn’t. It was likely supposed to be subversive anti-drug propaganda, a product of its time no less than Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Fantastic Voyage (1966).
Actually, it was the other way around. The virus made you happy and content. Happy people don’t got to therapy, don’t take tranquilizers, or but a lot of alcohol. The government has to find, and irraicate it to get people back onto their socially acceptable substances!
i guess it’s good she’s laughing at it versus thinking sarah’s like secretly on drugs or doing something criminal/sinister lol
“Smile, and the world will… smile with you?”
“Sneeze and it’s goodbye Seattle.”
“Fourteen, chief.”
I don’t remember that episode of Frasier…
“We haven’t had any irony here since about, uh, ’83, when I was the only practitioner of it. And I stopped because I was tired of being stared at.”
I think this is the first time I have ever seen a Roxanne reference.
Don’t lesnerize!
This was supposed to be a reply to cbwroses’s post
Ruth’s entire existence is an antithesis to Sarah’s new philosophy.
well, she did say’ forcing’ herself, that said , ppl being ‘pleasant’ towards ruth would probably have the opposite effect considering how “Well” she “got along” with billie/jen lol
Also Sarah is sporting a pretty cool top today. Ruth is clearly jealous. Dab on the haters Sarah. Just keep doing you.
Ruth..? La…Laughing?! It’s a Christmas Miracle!
A Thanksgiving Miracle, thank you. Don’t let the Mariah Carey in the air fool you.
Thanksgiving was a month ago :v
Maybe in Canada. But Sarah is American, the strip is currently set in America, and I’m American (and also fat, particularly from a love of poultry), so I’m holding on for Thanksgiving to get it’s due.
Canada is also in America, so I’m not sure what the distinction is
people in the United States majorly use “America” as shorthand for “United States of America” mainly because it’s usually of no consequence to them.
pretty much everywhere else in the English speaking world where the distinction is necessary to operate on the international scene and get stuff done, “Americans” are known more accurately as “staters”.
and we in the States are lazy and like to abbreviate as much as possible, or more so. And we are also very self centered and like to forget that there is more North America above and below us, let alone that whole other America
It’s weird.
I was always under the impression that when speaking about a country, people preferred referring to the individual countries as individuals, instead of lumping an area under the name of their continent.
Like it was frowned upon to refer to Egypt, or Mozambique, or Madagascar as simply Africa.
And after mentioning Canada, as well as the strip’s setting, I thought it would be pretty clear that I was speaking about the country of the United States of America and not one of the several countries on the continent of North America or even the countries on the continent of South America.
I also had no idea that Canadians referred to themselves, or were referred to by everywhere else in the English speaking world, as American, so that my comment could be so unclear (I always thought Canadians were referred to as Canadians).
I guess this is what I get from using our own media as the source for how the US of A and its people are referred to by other countries.
But I am a lazy, self centered, and forgetful American after all (and I guess context clues don’t matter).
You said it fine, jflb96 just thinks they’re being clever.
The consequences I am speaking of are those which are of most practical importance to people from all over the world who have to import goods and services made from all over the North American continent.
Suppose I live in the Philippines and wanted some Canadian candy, if only because I think it has better flavor. If I just referred to it as “American candy” under the assumption that import services use it to mean “Canada”, I’d obviously be disappointed to get candy from the United States, hence why I’d want to specify.
The terminology and even arguably whole language of English that can actually WORK on the international market and cultural scene is it’s own trade-language distinct from the English used by the majority of people in the United States. The latter usually don’t need to use International English if only because the vast majority of goods and services and culture they could ever want or need are that which they can get without ever having to look outside their own country.
The United States being so VAST in size means that producers therein just about never need to worry about not having a market for their product, because of the high probability that someone, somewhere here will want what they can produce. Not so much in other parts of the globe such as Europe. Despite being about as big as the United States, Europe are a collection of sovereign countries with their own legal, linguistic and other barriers to trade itself happening like it does in the US and thus do not really have that same luxury. Hence why the European Union was established — it was to facilitate economic and internal development via framework and central currency (Euro) which could allow trade to happen at a rate where they could actually compete with the United States.
Canada is in North America, which is part of The Americas (plural). There is no place officially called just “America” (singular) in English; but unofficially, the term usually refers to the US in most English-speaking countries. (It’s different in Spanish.)
PSA for United States Thanksgiving this year:
If you the reader feel less than comfortable visiting your relatives for whatever reason, know that Popeyes around this time sells a Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and potatoes and stuff.
Same nostalgic taste, MINUS having to put up with bigoted relatives.
Now back to our regularly scheduled de-programming.
Is this real?
Definitely. Full-sized “cajun”-style turkey, delivered, any of their usual sides. Several others have it, but delivery can be dang helpful.
Also, opportunities to celebrate Native American Heritage Month locally and virtually:
calendar.powwows.com/all-pow-wows
http://www.powwows.com/main/watch-pow-wows-live-powwows-com
americanindian.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/online
nps.gov/subjects/npscelebrates/native-american-heritage-month.htm
xcancel.com/search?q=%23NativeAmericanHeritageMonth
xcancel.com/search?q=%23RockYourMocs
And here I thought that Popeye was a sailor man.
Waitaminit… so it’s the CANADIAN’S fault Christmas keeps starting up just after Halloween? Keep your Holiday Creep on YOUR side of the border!!
10/10 strip no notes.
Sarah shall spread cheer as one spreads a plague
One genetically engineered virus at a time?
Maybe Sarah really is Mariah Carey after all
I think ruth might be about to do her RA job. Like this is probably a good reaction. A mix of “Good for you!” and “Remember that this is probably unhealthy or at least unsustainable”, or maybe it actually isn’t, because she isn’t changing what she says but only how she says it, so.
Do RAs really give emotional therapy/advice like this versus just helping them get in touch with a counselor if someone does reach out to a staff member about it
In theory, I think a lot of colleges say RAs are there for emotional support (not therapy), among other duties. In reality, I think it varies a lot.
I think they’d be someone you’d bother with like “hey some student left like a pile of their clothes in the hallway and disappeared” versus something like trying to befriend them and opening up
Depending on the university, yes. In the USA alone, freshman-reported rates of anxiety and depression have been rising every year (even discounting the huge spike post-pandemic shutdowns). Few places have the budget to increase their counseling / therapy staff sustainably. (Most secondary school districts are having challenges keeping the extra counselors they hired during the pandemic). So, yeah. 🙁
this seems healthy
Mmm.
fake it til you make it they say although i half expect something to happen where it’s like “I am extremely pissed at this” but she’d still be smiling b/c her face is ‘stuck’ that way lol
Trying to change an attitude you know is unhealthy and gets in the way of building the future you want and forming any personal relationships? Yes.
honestly in my experience, this is just the actual advice that mental health professionals give you. just act really fucking happy. eventually you’ll be happy.
well i can imagine it being a psychology thing, forcing it is to obad but in the opposite direction of just wallowing in self pity probably isn’t good either like isolating yourself or so even if you have bad executive dysfunction but i’d also expect them to just assign you pills just so there’s a profit
Thanks you Sarah, this is the happiest she been in months.
First smiling, now laughing out loud…what is happening to Ruth?
I will admit that it looks well on her.
1. Ruth decides to emulate Sarah because why not.
2. Both of them walk around pleasant, smiling, and sociable.
3. Every other resident becomes wigged out. Rumors about pod people or contagious smiling disease start circulating.
Don’t mind me. Just casually squeezing my boobs while I lose my shit
“HERE HERE HERE, SEE EM?!!?!?” XD
Have to squeeze the laughter out somehow. It might not remember where the exit is without a little bit of help
I have this strange feeling that Ruth tried the “Smile until you trick yourself into being happy” WAY too much when she was younger.
Yep i think this laugh is more about “been there done that” than “you foolish samuhraii”
“long ago in a distant land, I
Aku, shape-shifting master of darkness, unleashed an UNSPEAKABLE EVIL”“but then a FOOLISH student wielding an UNSPEAKABLE EVIL, stepped forth to oppose me”
“before she could blow me, I tore open a portal in time, and FLUNG her into the future, where UNSPEAKABLE EVIL is Law”
“now the fool seeks to turn into an ASS, and undo the future that is RUTH.”
XD
*Ruthless, needs two syllables to match the meter.
Sarah rocking a sweater like Rorschach from Watchmen, those squiggles keep changing from panel to panel, lol.
Good catch! I didn’t notice until you mentioned it.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
These two are one of my favourite less common dynamics.
This is the correct response.
Could Sarah have something there?
well, ‘toxic positivity’ can be a thing but so far sarah hasn’t crossed any lines like being “Cheer up/stop being depressed” to someone with a more ‘serious’ issue, so i guess she’s fine for now
Tho, now i want Liz to show up to see how she’d react, either she’d be amused or like “…We need to have a doctor examine you/did you get a concussion” I wonder what Booster would make of all this tho lol,, if they’d think it’d be a good thing b/c before they did something like “you don’t need to make up a reason to be happy” so some of it might be ‘genuine’ even if Sarah is known for her ‘cranky’/default glare face
I want Liz to come back just cause I like Liz.
Liz comes back, and it turns out she’s the sullen one now.
Ruth should check for pods.
Ok, just for the record…that’s…25 “ha”s, 3 “heh”s 1 “oh man” and 1 “ffft” from Ruth…..and 15 palindromic “hah”s from Jamie just a few minutes ago!
is this Anti-Sarah… or, hmm… I’m not up to date on my people switching with alternate verions
still expecting her to play the long game as some form of troll or a committed bit but i’d think if ruth did something like this it’d be a lot more troubling than sarah doing this as some sorta coping? mechanism lol
hmm… the long con? i can see it
About as funny as Ruth harassing Billie
Ruth cannot argue with results…
You know, the people on this wing are starting to convince me that they deserve Mary. If your first reaction to seeing a friend smiling–even if that friend is normally dour–is to not smile back and ask what’s got them in a good mood, but instead to make wisecracks or ask what’s wrong, then… you’re just not a very good friend.
Maybe this isn’t going to work out in the long run. Maybe it’s not particularly healthy. But at least she’s fucking trying something different because, as she said herself, her old schtick wasn’t working for her.
Note that not one person she’s interacted with has acknowledged her problem or offered an alternative. It’s just been mockery and derision from everyone. It’s like Willis, having killed off Mike, now needs to make everyone sound like him.
This has just been a very unpleasant storyline.
Actually, re:Mike,
Mike was killed off because many of the characters already sounded like him, NOT the other way around.
in a tumblr post he made it clear that Mike was done away with because he just didn’t make sense as a character in Dumbing of Age from the very go.
“whenever there was somewhere Mike would fit, there just always seemed to be a better character to fulfill the role… he just seemed like a character who would work better in another comic”.
Wanna know the funny thing?
The way that Willis wrote it, Mike filled the archetypal role of the “Christ figure.” That is, every action he did, was focused on helping others. Every choice he made, was angled at helping them. Mike either told the utter harsh truth, to help them confront, or he told the lie that would manipulate someone to be a better version of themselves. And then he dies in the act of saving his friends. That is exactly the “greater love has no man than one who would lay down his life for his friends” bit.
And the Christ figure is Mike. MIKE. The most harshest, rudest, assholier-than-thou shit in the entire comic. He did all of that because he loved his friends.
I kinda feel like that’s somewhat a commentary on Christianity in DoA. It’s twisted. Real twisted. Deep in there there’s good, somewhere, but every action it takes is just awful and you wish it would stop.
Mike doesn’t make sense in a lot of ways. His parents were wonderful. He had close friends growing up. It’s as if he saw just how horrible and twisted the world was, and hated it, and figured the best way to fight it was to fight fire with fire. But in the context of him having a relationship with any of the main cast? Any time that Mike just acted like Mike, it would feel like abuse, because it was abuse, and it would make less and less sense to have him be a protagonist.
Anyways. This long ramble was basically to say – Mike’s character has always existed as a catalyst to change the other characters; typically, change for the better. But the more he pushed, the less and less influence he would have, because it’s ultimately off-putting to the characters and the audience to have an abusive asshole as a friend. Mike died, after getting so many flashbacks to Ethan and Amber’s childhood, to solidify the fact that despite everything, he cared for his friends more than he cared about his own life. And he died so that he could continue to impact them and act as a catalyst for change, all without having to force him to have a major personality shift and change of heart.
And that’s funny because in Shortpacked, historical Jesus was an asshole as much alongside Mike, but of course only one of those would make the most sense in the Dumbing of Age universe so…
My favourite bible verse is the one where Jesus says “For I have lain with thy mother for a shekel.”
My favorite part of the sermon on the hill! 😀
If Mike was always focused on helping others, he was shit at it. But he actually wasn’t. As he says, just before he figured out how much he was echoing Blaine’s abusive rhetoric, “I’ve been poking Amber’s bear for five friggin’ years. She’s multiple timebombs. Just wind her up and point her dadwards.”
An excellent academic take on DoA. Three hundred years from now, when DoA Studies (1) are a canon component of English Departments’ Webcomics Studies across most American colleges, this comment shall stand out as an early foundation (2) of DoA symbology. 😀
(1) DOA, DP, GG, GWS, QC, SMBC, and xkcd comprising the Core Septet
(2) Which means all of our comments are going to be analysed to hell and back by future students, freshmen and grad students alike. :O
And people will still be arguing for the “asshole sage” theory of Mike. Wonderful.
I caught all the references except for GG and DP. Which comic strips are they?
Girl Genius and, um…
Dumbing Positive.
Thank you!
The characters are not perfect people, they do and say weird or stupid thing, usually have unhealthy coping mechanism, doesn’t have very good grasp of most social etiquette and their personalities ofthen clash like a bad chemical reaction. This is, in fact, part of what make reading about them interesting.
Nobody deserves Mary. Not even Mary deserves Mary.
that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said about mary
Hmm.
1) Sarah herself has claimed that this sort of thing is how this friend group expresses affection. It might actually be more accurate to say that now Sarah’s not doing this, everyone’s got sound like Sarah.
2) Except in Ruth’s case, where she just sounds like Ruth.
3) When Sarah joined the others yesterday, it wasn’t just “smiling” it was “talking like a bad inspirational poster”. Honestly, if I started talking like that, I’d expect my friends to comment on it. And I’m a fairly cheerful person normally!
4) I think I’d question that nobody’s “aknowledged her problem”; I feel like Jacob did precisely that. But of course, that falls under the catergory of treating this like something’s wrong, so you’ve got him coming and gong.
Jacob acknowledged it by saying she would burnout, admitting by that, that he doesn’t believe in her ability to change. Then he went to Ethan and realized why Sarah was a misanthrope in the first place after the fact. Honestly he’s kind of revealed a few of his own character flaws in the process.
What upsets me is that Sarah is clearly trying to make herself happy. She was miserable as the grumpy, cynical person she was. She lost out on love and wants to make a change to pursue her own happiness and most of her friends don’t believe in her. Joyce is the only one who seems to accept and support what she’s doing. Ruth isn’t Sarah’s friend though. I think we forget that sometimes. This reaction is very expected from her.
Yeah, Ruth’s cynicism and depression recovery processes aren’t quite yet to the point where she can perceive and empathize with Sarah’s self-improvements efforts. She’s on meds, so she might get there soon, depending on how therapy is working out.
It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in her ability to change, it was that he thought she doing it like this, so suddenly and so forcefully couldn’t be healthy for her, which she partially acknowledge when she says doing this take a lot of mental effort. There is a way for her to change for the better without being like this. Also I don’t believe he realized that about her in the moment but that he been thinking about it for a while and just then say it out loud.
That’s hard to determine for me. He always sympathized with Sarah, but actua knowing his thoughts that aren’t shown is impossible. We do actually see Jacob come to the realization in real time though. Sarah became even more guarded and cynical in direct response to the backlash from the Dana situation. Talking with Ethan about him making similar choices in response to Ethan’s depression gave him the epiphany.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-15/01-love-dares-you-to-change/reachedout/
I also think he’s really quick to decide what is healthy for Sarah without offering alternatives. Extra ironic considering he was a huge factor in her sudden change in personality and he accused her of doing it just to get with him. Jacob’s a cool dude, but I really think he’s the last person who gets to decide what’s good for Sarah, even if it comes from genuine concern. If Sarah wants to fake it until she crashes out he has to let her.
Yeah because he isn’t a therapist, there isn’t any guarantee that any alternative he offers could actually helps even if he know how, he can still be worried that this aproach is not sustainable, that is an entirely fair assessment of this. Also no I don’t think if someone you care about is doing something you think is self defeating and will end badly then you just gotta “let her” do it, that is a terrible idea.
Hey, this storyline is being very pleasant. One the best of all time. Just because people here are annoying that doesn’t take the happiness of Jocelyne s return…
Nobody deserves Mary. Even Mary doesn’t deserve Mary. But I see your point.
Humph, I should read to the end of the thread before posting.
Mockery and derision are of course not good responses, but when someone has a drastic overnight personality change, asking what’s wrong is appropriate, even when the change is to a more superficially pleasant persona.
She even says right here she’s forcing herself to smile. Should the response be “Good. Keep it up. We like you better when you smile.”?
How about, “Huh. I’m sorry I didn’t realize just how unhappy you were before. I don’t know if this is going to work for you in the long run, but I’m glad you’re trying something different. Let me know if you need to talk about any of this, or even just need to take a thirty-minute grouch break every so often.”
BTW, others in this thread brought up Jacob, and yes, his response was a lot more appropriate.
I am sorry none of these characters are freaking therapists, they are just dumb young adults with issues, they are never going to give the perfect response.
What a ridiculously out-of-character thing for Ruth to say.
Which part?
Are Ruth and Sarah friends? They seem “friendly” at best to me. Apart from that, I kind of agree with you.
The overall reaction (Both in-comic and in the comment section…) to Sarah’s attempt at becoming better are a bit disheartening, personally.
I used to be a lot like Sarah, if not as extreme. Cynic and sarcastic, always a downer. And one day I realized that, well, acting like that? being like that? It only kept me a sad and bitter man, and made it so nobody really liked me, even if I was cordial in my bitterness.
Nowadays I try to be positive and more cheerful. It is hard, and it takes a lot of work, specially with my ’tism blocking a lot of social cues. But I am honestly happier, and people like me more. I still snark a lot, but I do it from a better mental state.
It takes work, every day, to stay like this. To actively block out the negativity in my mind. But it helps me! And I let out the negativity in more healthy ways, like trolling assholes in MMOs.
I agree with this comment. Sarah is making a sincere effort to change herself for the better. It’s very discouraging that people expect her to fail or when she slips up they claim that’s the “real” Sarah. It reminds me of Jennifer who for all her flaws keeps admirably trying to reinvent herself for the better and has even had victories like staying sober, yet she gets no credit for that. I believe in Sarah. She gets to decide who the real Sarah is. We’ll see who laughs in the end.
See I disagree with all of this. I don’t think this is a “sincere effort to change herself for the better”. I certainly don’t think Jennifer is “admirably trying to reinvent herself for the better”. She changed for the better with Ruth and while she’s stayed sober, in basically every other way she’s reverted to much closer to her high school status seeking self.
Sarah was making slow progress with her attempts to reach out to Jacob, but this isn’t building on that. At least to me it seems just a facade thrown up in reaction to Jacob hooking up with Lucy.
And I think that’s a lot of the difference in reaction. It’s not that people think this would be good for her, but expect it to fail, but they think this itself is a mistake.
This is what I’m talking about. Jennifer doesn’t get any credit for staying sober or mentally in a better place than she was when she was with Ruth. Admittedly it’s open to interpretation and Jennifer has reverted to her older more superficial values, but to me that’s better than being in a mutually toxic lesbian death pact with a partner that second guessed your relationship as soon as it was getting healthy.
As for Sarah I think it is sincere mainly because she is trying. Just because she admitted it is difficult doesn’t mean she’ll fail. Making slow progress with Jacob ironically set her back as she lost his affection to another. Being cynical prompted Lucy to weaponize her past against her and made Raidah an enemy bent on destroying her social life. It just seems like people don’t like how she’s doing it, but what’s the alternative?
Is Jennifer in a better mental state now? It honestly looks the opposite
Wait how did Lucy weaponize Sarah past against her? I am pretty sure that did not happen
Ruth and Sarah are kinda similar bitterfolk, now that I think about it; Ruth might benefit from Sarah”s whole idea of cheerfully saying the nihilistic horseshit she usually says. At the very least Ruth might show some interest in the laboratory results of Ruth’s experiments upon the normies.
These two are cute together. They should make out.
Commence shipping of Rurah or Sarth or Saruth or Ruthrah or, um, something.
Honestly, if she doesn’t burn out or explode, it might work. Being sulky and angry all the time can be a habit. By forcing herself into new behavior, it can add neural pathways, creating new habits. I’m not saying she’ll magically become a cheerful person, but if she keeps it up for a few months, I think she’ll find it’s a lot easier and more natural than she does now. And instead of anger and sulking being the default emotion, she’ll have to put effort into feeling that way, just like now she has to put effort into smiling.
Is this like when my mom told me, “Pretend to be happy, and you WILL be happy!” in my adolescent years? Cause it was a crock of shit then and it’s a crock now.
That’s how I’m taking Sarah’s approach. Except that it’s not even that, since it’s a reaction to Jacob getting with Lucy instead of her, so it’s more like “Maybe if I pretend to be happy, I’ll get what I want.”
I didn’t take it that way. I think that was the catalyst, but it was more like “Oh, being bitter and defensive was hurting me, and pushing people away, I need to try something different.” And I know a lot of folks are very cynical about that, which is understandable, but quite frankly I’m impressed with her. She wants to change, for the same reasons anyone wants to change (and yes, some of that is for her own quality of life), and she is trying something. For being like, what, 19? She’s doing better than a lot of 35 to 40 year olds that I know. Hopefully she’ll catch the therapy wave soon and see even more improvement!
Oh my Satan YES , Ruth please END this facade!
Oh good, it’s been a while since Ruth has been around.
Her last appearance was about three weeks ago. But I agree – more Ruth.
I like how these Sarah strips show how hard it is to change and one of the difficulties is just people around you not being supportive. Shows why sometimes a change in demeanor comes with a change in social circle.
The same problem both Jennifer and Joyce ran into. People around you struggle to accept change for a variety of reasons, not all of them bad.
It’s definitely a real problem.
I think a lot of the reaction in the comments though is based around how readers interpret Sarah’s change in presentation.
If you see it as a real change in her that’s going to lead to her actually being happier in the long run, then the reactions to it are a problem.
If you see this as her propping up a facade to hide her real self after Jacob’s rejection, then not quite so much.
Similarly I think with the changes in Jennifer. It’s really hard for me to see the new Jennifer as anything but regression from the progress she’s made first semester – other than that she’s still not drinking.
And one big difference between both of them and Joyce is how sudden the change seemed to be. We’ve seen Joyce’s growth play out painfully slowly over years of real time. Sarah had been making some attempts to reach out from behind her mask of misanthropy, but this change came fast and doesn’t really seem to be the same thing.
I think Sarah’s overcorrecting, and this level of “pleasantness” won’t last, but not that it’s for nothing and she’ll return to how she was previously. Hopefully she can find a lasting balance where she’s genuinely less miserable.
Hopefully she can get back to the actual attempts to reach out, rather than hiding behind this.
This is how I feel too! It’s really hard to assert a new (or at least improved) identity when you’re surrounded by people who say “that’s not you, it’s fake, you’re acting”. I do agree with people that it’s not going to work that she’ll just be like this forever, she’ll eventually want to tell someone the truth and will probably have a hard time not doing it with her old fierceness. My hope is that she’ll then realize she can be a little both. She can try to show more vulnerability and try to exercise her empathy and kindness muscles without trying to dead lift 1000 pounds of Polyanna energy. But support and reasonable conversation with her from friends would help (sadly, a lot to ask of these extremely young people)
To be fair, people generally don’t make sudden genuine radical lasting changes in their behavior. It’s reasonable to be dubious.
In fact, sudden radical personality changes are a huge warning sign of trouble.
Funnily enough, this is the right attitude and Sarah has cracked the code! She really does care about the people around her.
I’m actually betting this manages to stick. Bet she didn’t have the shitty attitude she started the year with when she met Raidah and co, that was most definitely the consequences of Raidah’s harassment.
“forcing myself to be pleasant” isn’t really the same as not having the shitty attitude she started with.
Acting things out/role playing can often lead to very real and substantial changes in mood and outlook. Especially when you commit to it as heavily as Sarah has.
Refusing to focus on the negatives while forcibly breaking out of her comfortable leather coat of disgust at the world IS a step in the right direction.
Sometimes you have to fake it until you make it.
She can’t change the world, only how she responds to it. And wallowing in anger, both at herself and the world around her, only hurts her long term happiness in the long run.
And to be FAIR to Sarah, her shitty attitude was completely warranted given her past experiences.
I think some are concerned that doing that, however useful, is a big cognitive workload and one must pace one’s self. If I were undertaking such a project, I would appreciate someone asking how I’m doing with it, now and then.
Maybe Ruth will have something more supportive to say tomorrow.
Smiling literally raises people’s mood. Like, there’s a physiological/psychological link in there somewhere. Try it in front of a mirror sometime: making a face that corresponds with a particular emotion makes you feel an echo of that emotion!
This isn’t about “being pleasant fakely” exactly. As has been commented before, Sarah is saying all the exact same things but with a smile on her face. This is an actual trick that works.
results inconclusive. ~<3
And Ruth again demonstrates why she’s one of my favorite characters.
I mean…
It IS working! 😛
glad to see that Joe didn’t ruin Sarah’s mood by his sperm …
Yeah, no problemo. A little bit of handwashing often improves matters. 🙂
Ruth cuts straight to the ridiculous centre
Laughing so hard she has to hold her stomach … or … I guess her tits? XD
Definitely the upper portion of her boobs. Holding the cleavages in place.
If she doesn’t cover the cleave, the Being From Over There will emerge.
Wow it’s been a while since we saw Ruth with that much emotions
I know Ruth is making fun of her, but this is adorable
Sarah’s really dedicated to making this work, isn’t she. I’m impressed.
Not even medicated butterscotch pudding can achieve that.
Who’s out here medicating pudding?
it’s a great way to take pills!
Popping it into your mouth and then drinking normally through a straw works, too.
Yeah, especially secret ones you weren’t told were in there. Not a chance in hell, boss.
Ruth can attest to that.
[while pointing a taser at Ruth] Step away from Sarah who is trying to improve her life. Do not make any sudden moves or soul-breaking comments.
Laughter is fine.
More than fine, it’s the very best medicine!
It’s good to see Ruth laughing like this. She’s had a rough…last third of her life or so.
+1
Hey, c’mon Ruth. She’s doing much better than you could.
I mean, yes, this will end in a bad crash, but until then…
New Sarah is too powerful!
That was nearly as powerful as Ernest Scribbler’s magnum opus.
I feel bad for sarah here
I’ve had too many times in my life trying to make a change with people reacting badly to changes they claim to want
“Just look how happy she is!”
Hrm…
“When you’re smiling, when you’re smiling,
The whole world laughs at you…”
Something’s wrong there, can’t quite put my finger on it, tho…