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Nicki Minaj is straight (years ago said she was bi, but has since walked that back), Megan Thee Stallion and Chappell Roan are queer, I think Dua Lipa is straight herself but has a large LGBTQ+ fanbase.
I mean I think Nicki is also quite popular with the gays. Honestly if you become a big popstar without amassing a large queer fanbase you’re probably doing something wrong.
That might have waned a bit for Nicki in recent years, since she’s been doing a lot of things wrong lately, but certainly during her peak years
the only thing I know about Dua Lipa, is if you scroll through her albums it’s largely just covers of other people’s music, and I only know this because of a youtube channel called FrankyFade that covers (heh) a lot of different music that’s been covered and recovered over and over again (seriously, there are no original ideas anymore) ~<3
Not arguing on any of this, just musing that a lot of artists have walked back coming out as bi only to later reconfirm their identities, and to wonder what the world would look like in terms of out people if there weren’t so much prejudice.
For Nicki Minaj specifically, she said that she had just said she was bisexual for attention– which isn’t great. But it also might be like you said, in a less prejudice world, she might position herself differently.
I’m very in favor of people discovering their identity, so that includes someone who thought they were bi and then learned they were straight (whether that’s a change in their understanding or if their sexuality changed)– and then it could change again at a later point. Just don’t love the “made it up for attention” angle.
Right, but like. Is there any other denial she could have used that would have worked?
“I only pretend to be bi for male attention” also feels like something a lot of not terribly straight girls tell themselves while they drink exactly enough alcohol to plausibly deny their genuine interest in kissing other girls at parties.
I’m not absolving Hypothetical Minaj of anything here, internalized biphobia still hurts other people.
I’m just also. Skeptical that anyone has ever actually pretended to be bi “for attention”. The attention it gets you isn’t fun.
For your first question, like… yeah? “I realized that wasn’t me,” “Was still figuring things out,” “Loved so many people in the community I thought I might be, too.” Different denials could also connect to various biphobic ideas, unfortunately, because there are a lot of them. But I do think more considerate phrasing could have been chosen. At the same time, it’s a lot to have to navigate in the public eye as part of celebrity status.
I do think people might pretend for attention– the way people will pretend a lot of things for attention. I’m actually pretty sympathetic to this because it seems to come from a place of internal struggles and not being able to figure out how to get your needs met.
I keep trying to keep this from being a massive response and failing!
— I think I specifically meant what other denial would have truly convinced everyone: especially homophobic/biphobic fans, for whom the idea of wanting to be part of the community will never make sense. Doesn’t make it less shitty of her to have said, though! If anything, it would make it worse: a deeper betrayal.
— Agree to disagree. I genuinely don’t think I believe anyone ever pretends to be a marginalized identity just for attention (at least not when they’re attaching that identity to their real life instead of an online sock puppet); but it’s not exactly something we can prove one way or the other.
Minaj says she’s straight and that’s all we’ve got. Pointless to disbelieve her, and definitely doesn’t make the whole debacle any better. Either way, really, I feel sorry for her, but that sympathy doesn’t outweigh the harm she’s done to other people.
Im only a fan in passing so take me with a grain of salt and anyone else feel free to correct me here, but Chapell Roan is a very queer artist that’s had a huge boost in her career the past year or two, she won a Grammy this year. She has a song called good luck babe about having a lesbian lover who is in denial and still insists on dating men, that’s so popular it plays on the radio in *my* homophobic ass country. And ik Billie is bisexual so she’s not inherently making herself miserable by dating men but it’s still an incredibly funny irony to me
…what, did you start to read a webcomic ten years in? Don’t do that. Go to the beginning, binge till 4 am a few times, and then read daily. Otherwise, lots of things will never make sense.
The problem with that strategy is, when you inevitably catch back up to reality, your brain is stuck in the comic’s world and you wan to know more but you’re stuck waiting like everyone else.
Help! I’ve looked this up in lots of ways but still not sure. What does ‘a flex’ mean in this context? A boast? A ‘look I can do this’? Showing off? A bit like flexing ones muscles only in art?
From Chappell? I wouldn’t say so, Chappell’s remained pretty relevant, especially since she just put out The Giver. Sabrina’s obviously a big deal, too, but both of them are quite current.
Maybe it’s like when you want to get into horror movies so you look up what the most horrible, depraved, gory one is available because surely if you can take that you can take anything, and if you can’t that just means you dial it back a notch and try again.
Or was that just me.
Hellraiser, for the record. As an old horror pro, I can safely say that even at the time there were worse things on the shelf than Hellraiser, but none that my peers knew about.
My wife refused to watch horror movies because she assumed they’d be traumatizing. I then pointed out she read the most sadistic, violent, crazy crime fiction imaginable. True crime documentaries as well.
When she finally saw horror movies for the first time, she just laughed them off.
I still think that a lot of horror movies depend on background sound/music and ambiance. You can make something that wouldn’t normally be scary with the right ambiance (ie: going into the bike shed on a sunny day with birds singing and everyone chatting vs on a very windy night, with a full moon and the power is out). You add something like yackety sax or fellow movie viewers laughing, and it tends to ruin any fear you might have.
I am personally not a fan of jump scares, as I just normally find them a reflex test and startling but not actually scary (I have seen some in video games that are well done, not overused and don’t feel cheap). I prefer more atmospheric horror. In general, I find stuff in real life to be more horrifying than anything a horror movie normally does. People can do horrific things to each other. A documentary on 9/11, the Holocaust, or a real life stalker is more likely to give me nightmares than a horror movie about a ghost or some other supernatural thing.
The bbc panel show QI does an excellent and hilarious breakdown of this concept using shark footage. andit is hosted by sandi tosvig and steven fry, to great gay comics!
I lived a horror movie, I don’t need to watch another one. When I was 13 we had a shooting insurrection blow up around us as the locals tried to change their form of government from a monarchy to an Islamic republic, and the king didn’t take many prisoners, and those that were taken lost hands if they were lucky or heads if they were unlucky. And that was one of the milder horrors I went through as a child.
I still get shot at but that’s just where I live, people get drunk and fire (mostly) pistols randomly, usually in the air, but there was a domestic violence murder less than a quarter mile away. And I have lost count of the TVs left out for trash pickup with one or more bullet holes.
But yeah the genre of story I’m in now is generally non-violent, sort of a slapstick comedy where I fall down a lot, generally when I don’t have any pants on. And I do all my own stunts.
Oh Billie/Jennifer, when are you going to wise up that being into Star Wars isn’t nearly as “nerdy” as it used to be? Besides if Alice liked you back then when she knew more about you then presumably just being yourself; then dropping the mask is the way to go.
I guess at this point in the sliding timescale Star Wars has fallen kinda out of place in popular media? Not disappeared, but it’s been a while that it’s close to a generation behind.
When this comic started, the prequel trilogy came out during Billie’s childhood. Currently, Rogue One came out during her childhood.
In a few years, we’ll get a flashback to Billie getting a stuffed Baby Yoda for her 6th birthday, and her holding it tightly in bed because her parents’ consistent absence made that the closest she could get to actually hugging them.
Last Jedi’s almost eight years old at this point and that’s the point when it became clear that Disney’s Star Wars would not be the unstoppable juggernaut that Force Awakens and Rogue One seemed to be heralding.
Honestly I could buy Jennifer having basically any opinion on the post-TLJ canon so long as it’s strong.
This is definitely a timescale thing. At this point Star Wars stuff is definitely mainstream. The Mandolorian and Andor both being extremely popular and award winning series even my parents have seen some of. Andor is even getting season 2 in like a month. The nerd factor is probably watching a lot of the extended stuff. Ahsoka, Acolyte, any of the animated stuff which is really the only way you’d know who Kit Fisto is.
Star Wars has always been somewhat mainstream, but I do think the D+ shows represent a slump period. Doesn’t mean it’s something obscure that only the super nerds follow, it’s still got a place in pop culture, but it’s not utterly dominant in the way that Star Wars can be in a peak period.
Problem with making shows that cost 230 million is that it becomes a much bigger potential loss to continue with a show that had an awkward first season and didn’t immediately light the world on fire.
No, but if a show ON Disney+ then it falls on Disney for not making movies instead of streaming service shows.
And the only place to watch the streaming service shows are….their streaming service.
(This isn’t a criticism, I think a major financial failure of Disney was the fact Hawkeye, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Ms. Marvel should have been movies)
I don’t think the problem is that they were shows. I think Disney just overestimated and oversaturated audiences with Marvel stuff because they needed content for their streaming service. People just aren’t gonna watch everything.
But let’s suppose that a million people became Disney+ subscribers specifically to watch Falcon and the Winter Soldier or She-Hulk. Even if they only stay subscribed for a month, that’s still the equivalent of a lot of movie tickets…
But basically impossible for anyone to prove. Which makes it harder to sell executives on future projects. Which means a lot of one-season-only shows that don’t get to tell their full story. Which leads to the same self-fulfilling death spiral Netflix Originals are so often in, where people don’t want to watch them until they’re complete, and they don’t get completed because no one’s watching.
On the flip side, Eternals should have been a TV series. It really needed more space to world-build. As it was, it ended up being way too long and simultaneously not long enough, with a bunch of important character development being just back-filled in flashbacks.
Forget all the non-linear storytelling nonsense. Just start with the Eternals arriving on Earth, and have the first five episodes be moving forward in through (pre)history, each episode having all of the Eternals in it, but focusing on a different pair of them, to illustrate what they do and why they’re there. Have episode six be the team fracturing, ending with them breaking up and scattering across the world.
Then episode 7 could pick up where the movie started, which makes Sir Not Appearing In This Film just some dude Circe hooked up with during the timeskip, not the obvious everyman POV character, wait, no, sorry, he’s just here to set up the Black Knight movie which is probably never actually getting made, you’ll see him again in three hours, and Ajax’s death an actual wham rather than, “Oh no. Someone we don’t know is dead.” End episode 7 with the big reveal and the heel turn, and have episode 8 be the climactic confrontation and denouement.
@John Campbell I actually think nonlinear storytelling would’ve worked just fine in a TV show. But yeah, The Eternals was absolutely crying out for a TV show. IIRC it didn’t even do anything super fancy that would’ve strained a TV show’s budget. Just… Marvel’s preemptive answer to Zack Snyder’s Justice League, for some reason.
Amazi-Girl/TMNT crossover. It can also feature Daredevil, since they share a universe.
(If you’re one of today’s Lucky 10,000, congrats! TMNT started out as a parody, which is why the turtles learn from Master Splinter (instead of Master Stick) and fight The Foot (instead of The Hand); the same chemical spill that blinded Matt Murdock created the turtles.)
Yeah, back when I was a Harry Potter fan and so were a lot of people around me, most of them still weren’t familiar with wizard rock. Really what Jennifer needs is to learn that “nerdy” =/= “bad.”
Blech about Nicki, but that’s admittedly moreso for who she is as a person than as an artist, like I am not going to shit on someone for being into her music, even if her best days are well behind her at this point.
I’m kind of behind the times on music so all I really know about her is that she voiced Sugilite in Steven Universe, but even that is… pretty old knowledge now
There is a distinct difference between “good” music and “enjoyable” or “beloved” music.
There is objectively “good” music, i.e. music that requires exceptional skill and capacity to perform and play. This has always had that ‘wow!’ factor, even going back to the days of Mozart… But, objectively “good” music is often not especially enjoyable, because it lacks everything that makes music easy to enjoy.
There is music which objectively requires a higher skill level to perform, but yeah no, that doesn’t make that music objectively good.
It’s art. Like all art, it has aspects like symmetry and dissonance which you can absolutely use to simulate a purely intellectual appreciation, but there’s also something raw and personal in there that will appeal to Person A absolutely, and for Person B will be nails on a chalkboard.
Unless it’s AI art. Then it’s objectively bad, because at least for the foreseeable future, “AI” will never be capable of creating what we mean when we say “art”.
Did you know that by shaving a large carrot into little strands, shoving those strands into your urethra, and pissing extra extra hard to shoot the carrot strands at a wall, you can write something more valuable than this needlessly judgemental comment?
I also don’t really think that the sect that Joyce was a part of would have really listened to them.
On a side note, a capella in something like a cathedral can be really pretty to listen to. Two steps from hell has a song named cathedral that is pretty too.
Seems like Billie’s being flippant and insinuating Joyce is the one who knows Gregorian chants, so Billie is unable to offer any suggestions about those since she doesn’t know any, and therefore she’s glad Joyce is asking for something that’s not Joyce’s usual fare, the assumed changes in question. It doesn’t make any sense for her to randomly call Gregorian chants non-Christian in this context.
subtley redirecting us away from the first panel foreshadowing that amber/amazi-girl has made it to this building’s ceiling and is watching these guys now
I got my taste in music from video games so if it wasn’t for stuff like tony hawk’s, gregorian chanting really would feature a lot more heavily in my playlists (thank you, halo)
Ah, yes. The strange and wavy patterns of campus flooring and bus seats…
I like the perspective in the first panel, it’s a great establishing shot for the available tight space
How far behind is Joyce’s music experience? Has she even heard like Starships since Nicki Minaj was mentioned? Cause that’s like a decade old. It’s kind of hard to imagine someone isolated from pop culture music since it is so widespread.
It’s pervasive, but outside of stores that might be playing music on the speakers, it seems pretty easy to think she avoided it. There is a lot of Christian music her family and community could go with instead, and Christian radio stations and such. She didn’t watch a lot of things on TV, either, it seems, especially things that would have popular songs playing in the background.
I know who Megan Thee Stallion is because she was on She-Hulk and all the dudes who get mad about that kind of thing got mad about it. That’s all I know.
I have heard the words “Nicki Minaj” before, but couldn’t even tell you in what context.
More as a musician who was appearing on a TV show. Some of what I assume was her music was featured. There was twerking. A bunch of incels had aneurysms. It was all good.
But, I mean, I wouldn’t have known that she was any more a real-world personage than, say, Lila Cheney if it hadn’t been for all the incels having aneurysms.
(Though Lila Cheney gets weird, because she’s appeared with Cats Laughing, who are real-world people… though I mostly know them as authors. I’ve got a shelf full of Emma Bull and Steven Brust here.)
Was all ready to make a joke about jizz but a quick Google search tells me that Crysanthe Tan is a real person who makes Star Wars-themed music and not an obscure EU character as I had initially assumed, so no dice.
Yeah, is this the first we’ve seen Jennifer reference a specific piece of Star Wars fan media, instead of just a specific EU gag or background prequel character?
I find it kind of interesting that I always see the DoA comment section talk about not even having heard of a lot of big pop culture stuff. I feel like Willis stuff is pretty heavy on pop culture jokes, and sometimes they’re not even about transformers or batman!
The joke in this particular strip is MOSTLY the Star Wars artist slipped in there with more “legitimate” artists, it would work equally well with any other group of random names. The fact that the group is also full of queer artists only requires Willis to google “lgbtqia+ pop music [current year]”.
I think it’s currently more an omniscient narrator’s POV on Dorothy really, since she seems to be burying her nascent sapphic feelings in Walky’s abs, possibly at the expensive of both of their happiness
Based on the strip from a few days ago, the tables are, in fact, pretty tiny, so it’s not a perspective issue thing. Just a “colleges buy shitty furniture” thing (I assume these are based on real tables there).
Honestly all we really know about her musical tastes is that she used to be embarrassed of them; she tried to tell Danny she liked death metal, before being more open.
Yes that is the “before being more open” part of my sentence. I doubt folksy/country/mournful is her full musical tastes catalogue, though, and Willis didn’t give us any specific examples. That’s what I meant.
You just have to mentally find and replace. It’s always the current year, and it’s always been the current year. Every name except the Star Wars artist should be mentally replaced with whatever’s cool in 2098.
(Willis has no plans to ever reach sophomore year, last I heard.)
I bet every time Willis pops a name into one of these strips, they’re also crossing their fingers: “Please don’t do anything SUPER FUCKIN’ WEIRD OR AWFUL for the next year!”
I have so much trouble giving music recommendations because I like a lot of music from lots of artists and genres. I have trouble narrowing it down to just a few artists or genres of music.
One time I was getting an MRI, and they asked what my favorite genre of music was so they could play it on the headphones they gave me, and I remember stumbling over trying to answer that more than anything else about the procedure.
(I ended up saying “indie pop,” and then I wasn’t even sure if that was right– like, if that’s how a lot of music I like would be classified– but when the songs started I was like, “Oh, okay, yeah, this is solid.”)
based on what little I know about how MRI machines work, I’m honestly surprised one could make headphones that are both safe and functional inside one.
Yeah, it’s interesting, but it seems like it’s pretty standard for MRI labs to provide MRI-safe headphones now. Helps a lot of people be calmer. (And MRIs are loud, so you need some kind of ear protection anyway.)
A friend keeps mentioning this “King Gizzard”, but I’ve yet to give it a listen. Probably should, because she’s also compared my stuff to them when I send demos of what I’m working on, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.
I hear you! My music runs from the Stones to Triumverat, which is stupid hard to find on streaming services. I also like Electric Swing, trance, polyrhythmic drumming to meditate to, original Swing, some J-Pop, a few K-Pop pieces, some Pagan chants, neo-Punk, Progressive rock, whatever genre Tubular Bells is, ditto Blue Man Group… I crashed the algorithm on YTM so many times back in the early days of that service it ain’t even funny.
I have troubles recommending music because I listen to bassically no popular artist, just fan songs I find on YouTube and occasional actual song that I find my accident ( I heard no children from the mountain goats because I was watching moral Orel, know literally no other songs from them)
I’d probably be recommending artists/groups like Weird Al or They Might Be Giants or The Lonely Island or MC Frontalot or Tenacious D or Starbomb. Some of those probably would be appropriate for Joyce. Some of them… perhaps less so.
How about starting with someone who does sing about getting railed, like Aqua or Duran Duran or Caramell or Unique or Nine Inch Nails or Elton John or Eurythmics or Jack Black?
have you not heard Closer by NIN, referred to by rolling stone and others as the sexiest of all time, and one of the only weird al polka covers to be bleeped
Why no, I certainly haven’t, and especially not the Neil Cicierega mashup with “Love Rollercoaster”, and definitely not several dozen times in a row starting at 3:26pm CST on a Thursday afternoon.
The Hu would be a good choice. “Yuve Yuve Yu” and “Wolf Totem” put them on the map, and “Sell the World” is really good along with their cover of “The Trooper”, while you just know that Jennifer has “Sugaan Essena” on her phone.
Also, side note: I have a hard time giving people suggestions of music cause my catch-all playlist goes from 70’s classic rock to 10’s gangsta rap before randomly converting to Wicked and then Bring Me the Horizon.
I’m similar except I start with ’60s rock to Aughties, then throw in some classical, mostly classic cartoon soundtracks, and a few pieces from Lemmings.
I’ve had the opposite experience. I was honestly spoiled on music variety, growing up, so I’m constantly discovering new artists and bands in a massive range of genres, decades, and languages. If somebody asks me for a recommendation, I tend to give a few at a time, because if you don’t like Foo Fighters or The Offspring, you might at least like Fireflight.
If we’re doing “how out of touch we are”, here’s how well I know these artists:
Dua Lipa: Did that Elton John mashup thing.
Nicki Minaj: I think I heard she posted a weird antivax claim on The Twitters?
Megan Thee Stallion: Was in She-Hulk: Attorney-at-Law.
Chrysanthe Tan: No idea, but if she’s Star Wars music I might check her out.
Chappelle Roan: Oh, “Hot to Go”, they play that on Radio 2 all the time.
Maaan, I have no idea who any of the people Jennilly listed are, but the one that embarrasses me in the bunch is Chrysanthe Tan. I hang my head in shame for my failure as a Star Wars fan.
Steam Powered Giraffe
The Cog is Dead
Unextraordinary Gentlemen
Mc Frontalot
Mc Lars
Mr. B
Professor Elemental
Caravan Palace
Against Me!
Aurelio Voltaire
In Love With A Ghost
Otyken
Dyke Drama
Kirby Krackle
Queer Renfair Dance Party
Theolonious Monk, ZZTOP, Fats Waller, Sons of the Pioneers…what? That stuff she might not wig out to and stuff I was listening to at that age. I didn’t even TOUCH the stuff she’d loose it over. Bad enough when she figures out ZZTOP or Fats. Not even going there with Queen ACDC or Golden Earing.
Considering how much care Willis puts into not making the strips immediately outdated, I’m surprised he straight up named so many artists. I wonder how it’ll read in 10 years, or two months in-comic time.
Pop artists tend to die far harder and far quicker than musicians from other genres, you *might* be able to name three pop stars from the year 2000- but most people couldn’t, especially if the stipulation ‘no Britney, NSYNC, or Backstreet Boys’ was used. Whereas, take rap- it seems like there are many big names from then, who are still major today; or rock- the same, there aren’t many big new bands, but the big ones from then are still around.
I mean, “pop” has an extremely loose definition, by design. Lots of artists on this list that you’d probably argue aren’t pop, but they were still part of the commercial music scene and being on the billboard hot 100 list shows they had broad appeal.
Can’t we just collectively state that pop is a genre because the music “pops” as opposed to just a shortening of the word popular? I want it to make sense if I say I listen to indie pop (which I do)
Also it seems to me that it would be hard to list three musical artists from any genre from any specific year 20+ years ago after you’ve eliminated the three most famous artists of the era.
80s and 90s pop had Michael Jackson and Madonna; Cyndi Lauper pops into my head next, but that’s my mom’s music tastes showing. I think Boyz II Men was also about then.
Do you not consider Prince and Bowie pop? I doubt most people would call them “rock”…
What’s Linkin Park? Does that go into the nebulous “alt” category? What about Smashmouth? I personally listened to a lot of Alanis Morissette, but I think she’s considered “alternative”, even though she has a lot of the same musical stylings as her pop contemporaries.
If you haven’t heard it, I encourage you to seek out early Alanis Morissette because it’s definitely her but it sounds so much like typical 80s pop, it’s wild what specific synths can do lol.
while it may not be sludge metal, there is a very good chance she has been introducedto Deamon Hunter, the Christian metal band that got big enough to have merch at sunrise records 15 years ago
Whoops, Jennifer accidentally let herself be genuine for a moment. It’s going to really throw her for a loop when Joe and Joyce don’t mock or condescend her for it.
You they should launch joyce off the music deep end. Faith No More, every genre out there covered, sillyness is present, half the 1st 2 mike patton albums could double as horror movie sound tracks, and one of the 1st openly gay metal band members (Roddy Bottom you magnificent bastard). also billy gould is top 5 all time base players
counterpoint, it’s fine to ask your friends what kind of music they like if you want to learn about new-to-you music, and you’re going to get less of a firehose of options than you’d get from a streaming site.
I mean if Joyce reviewed music the same way she reviews food, it would go like this:
“Review: all of 90s music. I listened to the one band I already know I like, and they’re good. I’m not listening to anything else, it all seems weird to me. End of review.”
Maybe I'm just an old misery but I can't help but think this official TF April Fools is undercut by the fact that last year saw the release of Transformers-flavoured protein powder.
you can't go "hoho wouldn't THIS be silly" when you've already reduced your brand to that level of slop for real
it would be funny if they released it but it was just a cinema painted on the side of a cliff
DiscussingFilm@discussingfilm.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
‘COYOTE VS ACME’ has been officially saved by Ketchup Entertainment, who bought the film for $50M
They plan to give the film a worldwide theatrical release in 2026.
do y'all remember when they found all that tf art in Osamu Tezuka's drawer post-mortem because I think about it often
anyway keep chasing your bliss and draw weird shit, god knows we need that right now
Today in #9ChickweedLane I learned that I have to weigh which is worse: the cartoonist already forgetting what this guy looks like one daily strip later, or that, yes, he's actually meant to be an old man, not a victim to an older cartoonist forgetting what young people look like
Like any average American, I’m for universal basic income and abolishing the police. I can’t get on board with these ultra-leftists calling for the universal hive mind, though!
maura quint@mauraquint.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
going to start calling myself a centrist and then listing all my leftist views as proof, just going to start moving the overton window by force
I've spent the past few days reading through the entire archive of @damnyouwillis.bsky.social's Dumbing of Age and this has been stuck in my head for about 90% of that time.
Steve Williams @skillagesteve.bsky.social ⋅ 19h
DiscussingFilm @discussingfilm.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
maura quint @mauraquint.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
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⚧️🦖
Comms Open
Awful lot of queer acts there, straight girl Jennifer. What can one say but good luck, babe?
Wait, they are?
I am clearly behind on my queer artists then cause the only one there I’d heard of was Minaj and I didn’t even know she was queer.
I don’t know if they meant Nicki, pretty sure she’s straight.
Nicki Minaj is straight (years ago said she was bi, but has since walked that back), Megan Thee Stallion and Chappell Roan are queer, I think Dua Lipa is straight herself but has a large LGBTQ+ fanbase.
I mean I think Nicki is also quite popular with the gays. Honestly if you become a big popstar without amassing a large queer fanbase you’re probably doing something wrong.
That might have waned a bit for Nicki in recent years, since she’s been doing a lot of things wrong lately, but certainly during her peak years
Yeah, it just seems Dua Lipa’s on another level from Nicki with that, where Nicki seems more at the standard pop star level.
the only thing I know about Dua Lipa, is if you scroll through her albums it’s largely just covers of other people’s music, and I only know this because of a youtube channel called FrankyFade that covers (heh) a lot of different music that’s been covered and recovered over and over again (seriously, there are no original ideas anymore) ~<3
Not arguing on any of this, just musing that a lot of artists have walked back coming out as bi only to later reconfirm their identities, and to wonder what the world would look like in terms of out people if there weren’t so much prejudice.
For Nicki Minaj specifically, she said that she had just said she was bisexual for attention– which isn’t great. But it also might be like you said, in a less prejudice world, she might position herself differently.
I’m very in favor of people discovering their identity, so that includes someone who thought they were bi and then learned they were straight (whether that’s a change in their understanding or if their sexuality changed)– and then it could change again at a later point. Just don’t love the “made it up for attention” angle.
Right, but like. Is there any other denial she could have used that would have worked?
“I only pretend to be bi for male attention” also feels like something a lot of not terribly straight girls tell themselves while they drink exactly enough alcohol to plausibly deny their genuine interest in kissing other girls at parties.
I’m not absolving Hypothetical Minaj of anything here, internalized biphobia still hurts other people.
I’m just also. Skeptical that anyone has ever actually pretended to be bi “for attention”. The attention it gets you isn’t fun.
For your first question, like… yeah? “I realized that wasn’t me,” “Was still figuring things out,” “Loved so many people in the community I thought I might be, too.” Different denials could also connect to various biphobic ideas, unfortunately, because there are a lot of them. But I do think more considerate phrasing could have been chosen. At the same time, it’s a lot to have to navigate in the public eye as part of celebrity status.
I do think people might pretend for attention– the way people will pretend a lot of things for attention. I’m actually pretty sympathetic to this because it seems to come from a place of internal struggles and not being able to figure out how to get your needs met.
I keep trying to keep this from being a massive response and failing!
— I think I specifically meant what other denial would have truly convinced everyone: especially homophobic/biphobic fans, for whom the idea of wanting to be part of the community will never make sense. Doesn’t make it less shitty of her to have said, though! If anything, it would make it worse: a deeper betrayal.
— Agree to disagree. I genuinely don’t think I believe anyone ever pretends to be a marginalized identity just for attention (at least not when they’re attaching that identity to their real life instead of an online sock puppet); but it’s not exactly something we can prove one way or the other.
Minaj says she’s straight and that’s all we’ve got. Pointless to disbelieve her, and definitely doesn’t make the whole debacle any better. Either way, really, I feel sorry for her, but that sympathy doesn’t outweigh the harm she’s done to other people.
Chrysanthe Tan is non-binary and queer
Megan’s straight? Goddammit there go my infinitesimally slim chances.
I… think she’s queer. That’s what I said in the comment you’re replying to. So… you still have a shot!
Im only a fan in passing so take me with a grain of salt and anyone else feel free to correct me here, but Chapell Roan is a very queer artist that’s had a huge boost in her career the past year or two, she won a Grammy this year. She has a song called good luck babe about having a lesbian lover who is in denial and still insists on dating men, that’s so popular it plays on the radio in *my* homophobic ass country. And ik Billie is bisexual so she’s not inherently making herself miserable by dating men but it’s still an incredibly funny irony to me
Billie is bi but she’s being a repper at the moment
Never mind the real artists.
What’s this “straight girl Jennifer” business? (New reader, I guess?)
Jennifer is back into denying she’s queer. Since things ended with Ruth, basically, it seems.
…what, did you start to read a webcomic ten years in? Don’t do that. Go to the beginning, binge till 4 am a few times, and then read daily. Otherwise, lots of things will never make sense.
The problem with that strategy is, when you inevitably catch back up to reality, your brain is stuck in the comic’s world and you wan to know more but you’re stuck waiting like everyone else.
re: alt-text,
I mean it looks okay at the very least to me? :0
really don’t see what wrong with it
Likewise. Panel 1 looks pretty damn good to me.
So I’m going to take it as a flex, and there’s nothin Willis can do about it but be complimented.
Help! I’ve looked this up in lots of ways but still not sure. What does ‘a flex’ mean in this context? A boast? A ‘look I can do this’? Showing off? A bit like flexing ones muscles only in art?
Yeah, it’s showing off what you can do artistically, in this case drawing a panel from an uncommon perspective.
Pretty much, yeah.
A flex is saying “look at this difficult thing I did the hard way just because I’m capable of doing so!”
I’m just stuck on the little tables. I mean, seriously, I have plates bigger than those tables.
Joe’s face in panel one is something special. Zoom and enhance.
A lot better than I could do without the help of sophisticated software.
Willis was great in first panel. Someone who lives next to him, please, give him a hug in my name.
I’m really interested in Jennifer’s opinions on modern Star Wars. How does she feel about Visions?
If we clutch it with the Studio Trigger episode we can probably get Jennifer to watch Kill La Kill, which will result in… something?
She: “Uugh”
Also, she: “Look, it’s not like The Mandalorian, but…”
Haven’t most of the pop people moved to Sabrina Carpenter?
(Speaking of, after what’s felt like an eternity, David Archuleta recently released a new single and it’s felt kinda Espresso-like.)
From Chappell? I wouldn’t say so, Chappell’s remained pretty relevant, especially since she just put out The Giver. Sabrina’s obviously a big deal, too, but both of them are quite current.
Not a fan of that sort of music, but I did enjoy watching Carpenter and Ortega in their gory video.
Yeah, that video really elevated the song.
based on the current billboard hot 100, doesn’t seem like it
I feel like Joyce would really like Sabrina Carpenter for some reason…..
You can like both.
Like Katy and Taylor!
*is pelted with garbage*
Long ago in a galaxy far far away there were rad chicks with space psychic powers and space swords.
Going straight to Megan Thee Stallion would be… something for Joyce
Maybe it’s like when you want to get into horror movies so you look up what the most horrible, depraved, gory one is available because surely if you can take that you can take anything, and if you can’t that just means you dial it back a notch and try again.
Or was that just me.
Hellraiser, for the record. As an old horror pro, I can safely say that even at the time there were worse things on the shelf than Hellraiser, but none that my peers knew about.
The Hellraisers definitely had some impact on the goths I was adjacenting with back then.
My wife refused to watch horror movies because she assumed they’d be traumatizing. I then pointed out she read the most sadistic, violent, crazy crime fiction imaginable. True crime documentaries as well.
When she finally saw horror movies for the first time, she just laughed them off.
I still think that a lot of horror movies depend on background sound/music and ambiance. You can make something that wouldn’t normally be scary with the right ambiance (ie: going into the bike shed on a sunny day with birds singing and everyone chatting vs on a very windy night, with a full moon and the power is out). You add something like yackety sax or fellow movie viewers laughing, and it tends to ruin any fear you might have.
I am personally not a fan of jump scares, as I just normally find them a reflex test and startling but not actually scary (I have seen some in video games that are well done, not overused and don’t feel cheap). I prefer more atmospheric horror. In general, I find stuff in real life to be more horrifying than anything a horror movie normally does. People can do horrific things to each other. A documentary on 9/11, the Holocaust, or a real life stalker is more likely to give me nightmares than a horror movie about a ghost or some other supernatural thing.
The bbc panel show QI does an excellent and hilarious breakdown of this concept using shark footage. andit is hosted by sandi tosvig and steven fry, to great gay comics!
I lived a horror movie, I don’t need to watch another one. When I was 13 we had a shooting insurrection blow up around us as the locals tried to change their form of government from a monarchy to an Islamic republic, and the king didn’t take many prisoners, and those that were taken lost hands if they were lucky or heads if they were unlucky. And that was one of the milder horrors I went through as a child.
I hope your life is far more peaceful, and the genre you prefer now.
I still get shot at but that’s just where I live, people get drunk and fire (mostly) pistols randomly, usually in the air, but there was a domestic violence murder less than a quarter mile away. And I have lost count of the TVs left out for trash pickup with one or more bullet holes.
But yeah the genre of story I’m in now is generally non-violent, sort of a slapstick comedy where I fall down a lot, generally when I don’t have any pants on. And I do all my own stunts.
Cannibal Holocaust
Maybe she needs a shock to the system?
The “Girls in the Hood” mated to the Powerpuff Girls music video on Youtube would probably hook Joyce.
“Megan Thee Stallion but it’s The Powerpuff Girls” was uploaded 4 years ago, so I think it would be findable in universe.
Oh Billie/Jennifer, when are you going to wise up that being into Star Wars isn’t nearly as “nerdy” as it used to be? Besides if Alice liked you back then when she knew more about you then presumably just being yourself; then dropping the mask is the way to go.
and dropping the mask is the way to go.*
I guess at this point in the sliding timescale Star Wars has fallen kinda out of place in popular media? Not disappeared, but it’s been a while that it’s close to a generation behind.
When this comic started, the prequel trilogy came out during Billie’s childhood. Currently, Rogue One came out during her childhood.
In a few years, we’ll get a flashback to Billie getting a stuffed Baby Yoda for her 6th birthday, and her holding it tightly in bed because her parents’ consistent absence made that the closest she could get to actually hugging them.
Last Jedi’s almost eight years old at this point and that’s the point when it became clear that Disney’s Star Wars would not be the unstoppable juggernaut that Force Awakens and Rogue One seemed to be heralding.
Honestly I could buy Jennifer having basically any opinion on the post-TLJ canon so long as it’s strong.
This is definitely a timescale thing. At this point Star Wars stuff is definitely mainstream. The Mandolorian and Andor both being extremely popular and award winning series even my parents have seen some of. Andor is even getting season 2 in like a month. The nerd factor is probably watching a lot of the extended stuff. Ahsoka, Acolyte, any of the animated stuff which is really the only way you’d know who Kit Fisto is.
Star Wars has always been somewhat mainstream, but I do think the D+ shows represent a slump period. Doesn’t mean it’s something obscure that only the super nerds follow, it’s still got a place in pop culture, but it’s not utterly dominant in the way that Star Wars can be in a peak period.
They did a listing of Disney+’s viewers.
Star Wars and Marvel were the entirety of the top ten viewed shows except for Percy Jackson. The Acolyte was #2
https://luminatedata.com/blog/franchise-frenzy-or-fatigue/
People watched Acolyte? Then why did it get cancelled?! I’m still pissed about it!
Problem with making shows that cost 230 million is that it becomes a much bigger potential loss to continue with a show that had an awkward first season and didn’t immediately light the world on fire.
Acolyte being a streaming only platform meant that it had a smaller potential audience for the amount of money being spent on it.
All the reason listen above plus all streaming platforms had become a cancer on creative works.
Disney+ does not represent the entirety of pop culture.
No, but if a show ON Disney+ then it falls on Disney for not making movies instead of streaming service shows.
And the only place to watch the streaming service shows are….their streaming service.
(This isn’t a criticism, I think a major financial failure of Disney was the fact Hawkeye, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Ms. Marvel should have been movies)
I’ll +1 this even though I really like them as TV shows.
I don’t think the problem is that they were shows. I think Disney just overestimated and oversaturated audiences with Marvel stuff because they needed content for their streaming service. People just aren’t gonna watch everything.
Maybe?
But let’s suppose that a million people became Disney+ subscribers specifically to watch Falcon and the Winter Soldier or She-Hulk. Even if they only stay subscribed for a month, that’s still the equivalent of a lot of movie tickets…
But basically impossible for anyone to prove. Which makes it harder to sell executives on future projects. Which means a lot of one-season-only shows that don’t get to tell their full story. Which leads to the same self-fulfilling death spiral Netflix Originals are so often in, where people don’t want to watch them until they’re complete, and they don’t get completed because no one’s watching.
On the flip side, Eternals should have been a TV series. It really needed more space to world-build. As it was, it ended up being way too long and simultaneously not long enough, with a bunch of important character development being just back-filled in flashbacks.
Forget all the non-linear storytelling nonsense. Just start with the Eternals arriving on Earth, and have the first five episodes be moving forward in through (pre)history, each episode having all of the Eternals in it, but focusing on a different pair of them, to illustrate what they do and why they’re there. Have episode six be the team fracturing, ending with them breaking up and scattering across the world.
Then episode 7 could pick up where the movie started, which makes Sir Not Appearing In This Film just some dude Circe hooked up with during the timeskip, not the obvious everyman POV character, wait, no, sorry, he’s just here to set up the Black Knight movie which is probably never actually getting made, you’ll see him again in three hours, and Ajax’s death an actual wham rather than, “Oh no. Someone we don’t know is dead.” End episode 7 with the big reveal and the heel turn, and have episode 8 be the climactic confrontation and denouement.
@John Campbell I actually think nonlinear storytelling would’ve worked just fine in a TV show.
But yeah, The Eternals was absolutely crying out for a TV show. IIRC it didn’t even do anything super fancy that would’ve strained a TV show’s budget. Just… Marvel’s preemptive answer to Zack Snyder’s Justice League, for some reason.
Oh, that reminds me, there’s a new Daredevil on.
… or two new Daredevils, apparently.
Daredevil/Amazi-Girl crossover!
+1!
Amazi-Girl/TMNT crossover. It can also feature Daredevil, since they share a universe.
(If you’re one of today’s Lucky 10,000, congrats! TMNT started out as a parody, which is why the turtles learn from Master Splinter (instead of Master Stick) and fight The Foot (instead of The Hand); the same chemical spill that blinded Matt Murdock created the turtles.)
Watching Star Wars has never been nerdy. Writing Wookiepedia entries about Kit Fisto has always been nerdy.
Just because Star wars is mainstream, doesn’t mean fan bands are not an extremely nerdy choice for favorite music
Yeah, back when I was a Harry Potter fan and so were a lot of people around me, most of them still weren’t familiar with wizard rock. Really what Jennifer needs is to learn that “nerdy” =/= “bad.”
Blech about Nicki, but that’s admittedly moreso for who she is as a person than as an artist, like I am not going to shit on someone for being into her music, even if her best days are well behind her at this point.
I’m kind of behind the times on music so all I really know about her is that she voiced Sugilite in Steven Universe, but even that is… pretty old knowledge now
I fully believe that Nicki is an artist that Jennifer would be into.
Plus, COVID never happened in this timeline, so Nicki never had to tell us about vaccines and her cousin’s balls.
I do not follow pop music at all so today’s comments certainly are an education.
*Laura furiously takes notes, looking up these names and bookmarking them for future reference…*
Dua Lipa
Nicki Minaj
Megan Thee Stallion
. . .
(…On the hacked Grafonola…)
Two more:
Chrysanthe Tan
Chappell Roan
(…played on the hacked cafeteria PA system…)
…Laura is just hacking the entire atmosphere tonight…
I guess that this list is here to show how shallow Billie/Jennifer is ?
She apparently doesn’t even know that good music exist ?
Being into popular pop music doesn’t make someone shallow, and it’s kinda mean to casually insult so many people’s musical taste like that.
Whole lotta people you’re gonna annoy by claiming this list of artists shows she “doesn’t know good music exists”, lol.
There is no objectively good music. Beauty lies in the ears of the beholder.
There is a distinct difference between “good” music and “enjoyable” or “beloved” music.
There is objectively “good” music, i.e. music that requires exceptional skill and capacity to perform and play. This has always had that ‘wow!’ factor, even going back to the days of Mozart… But, objectively “good” music is often not especially enjoyable, because it lacks everything that makes music easy to enjoy.
No.
I’m not at all sure “difficult to play” is a objective trait of good music.
There is music which objectively requires a higher skill level to perform, but yeah no, that doesn’t make that music objectively good.
It’s art. Like all art, it has aspects like symmetry and dissonance which you can absolutely use to simulate a purely intellectual appreciation, but there’s also something raw and personal in there that will appeal to Person A absolutely, and for Person B will be nails on a chalkboard.
Unless it’s AI art. Then it’s objectively bad, because at least for the foreseeable future, “AI” will never be capable of creating what we mean when we say “art”.
Did you know that by shaving a large carrot into little strands, shoving those strands into your urethra, and pissing extra extra hard to shoot the carrot strands at a wall, you can write something more valuable than this needlessly judgemental comment?
I mean, Nicki’s still talented, Dua Lipa and Megan Thee Stallion are pretty hype. Dunno about the Star Wars musician.
Joyce, get you some Enigma!
Or Alice In Chains.
That’ll do ya right.
Enigma may be good, I’d say Enya may be better.
Then there is Moby.
There is always Moby.
In the beginning, there was Moby.
As it was in the beginning, is now, ever shall be, world without end…
Yeah, Enya is good stuff. Fewer chants, though.
Gregorian chants aren’t non-christian, unless she means the
Benzedrine Monks of Santo Demonica. Way before her time though.
In fact, they are extremely Catholic, not just generically Christian.
Yes, I expected Joyce to say something like, “I don’t listen to DEMON music, Jennifer.”
“So no heavy metal.”
“No, I mean those cultish monk people and their perverted castles.”
I also don’t really think that the sect that Joyce was a part of would have really listened to them.
On a side note, a capella in something like a cathedral can be really pretty to listen to. Two steps from hell has a song named cathedral that is pretty too.
Gregorian chants rock hard, yo’…
Gregorian trap remixes –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T_-zun4jEM&list=PL_AUzVZ_tSMp6h6PH9fBpMct-wFMvSu7J
Gregorian rock covers –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-BkYI-r998&list=PL9273639526C16285
Catholic Lofi – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfrsowuUE28
*Laura plays ’em all from the hacked cathedral pipe organ…*
Nun Fight – https://youtu.be/hxHtZJphmGA?si=m_-RiDjd1HCxFzJX
AMAZING!
Whoa, excellent callback!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA0uJR6p9d4&list=OLAK5uy_leX2XANOpKtwnBdgcTlxiquTYzHRMXyqc
*Played from the hacked clouds*
Seems like Billie’s being flippant and insinuating Joyce is the one who knows Gregorian chants, so Billie is unable to offer any suggestions about those since she doesn’t know any, and therefore she’s glad Joyce is asking for something that’s not Joyce’s usual fare, the assumed changes in question. It doesn’t make any sense for her to randomly call Gregorian chants non-Christian in this context.
subtley redirecting us away from the first panel foreshadowing that amber/amazi-girl has made it to this building’s ceiling and is watching these guys now
I got my taste in music from video games so if it wasn’t for stuff like tony hawk’s, gregorian chanting really would feature a lot more heavily in my playlists (thank you, halo)
Ceiling Amber is watching you matriculate.
Ceiling Amber is watching them masticate.
I had not thought of interpreting the first panel in that fashion. That is super clever.
Ah, yes. The strange and wavy patterns of campus flooring and bus seats…
I like the perspective in the first panel, it’s a great establishing shot for the available tight space
How far behind is Joyce’s music experience? Has she even heard like Starships since Nicki Minaj was mentioned? Cause that’s like a decade old. It’s kind of hard to imagine someone isolated from pop culture music since it is so widespread.
It’s pervasive, but outside of stores that might be playing music on the speakers, it seems pretty easy to think she avoided it. There is a lot of Christian music her family and community could go with instead, and Christian radio stations and such. She didn’t watch a lot of things on TV, either, it seems, especially things that would have popular songs playing in the background.
I dunno, maybe I just got lucky(?) but this feels a lot more like Laurie Anderson than Star Wars.
She apparently has a Star Wars podcast.
Rock on!
*Plays Chrysanthe Tan’s renditon of “Battle of the Heroes” from “Revenge of the Sith” on the hacked movie theater speakers:*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se7GRRLFmcg
At least her Star Wars music slip up wasn’t announcing that sue’s a huge fan of jizz.
*she’s
I don’t even know any of those names
Really? I am not even American and even heard of Nicki Minaj at leas.
Making me feel a little less out of touch with the zeitgeist, because I knew all of them except the one who is clearly a deep cut.
I know who Megan Thee Stallion is because she was on She-Hulk and all the dudes who get mad about that kind of thing got mad about it. That’s all I know.
I have heard the words “Nicki Minaj” before, but couldn’t even tell you in what context.
So you know Megan Thee Stallion as mostly an actor.
More as a musician who was appearing on a TV show. Some of what I assume was her music was featured. There was twerking. A bunch of incels had aneurysms. It was all good.
But, I mean, I wouldn’t have known that she was any more a real-world personage than, say, Lila Cheney if it hadn’t been for all the incels having aneurysms.
(Though Lila Cheney gets weird, because she’s appeared with Cats Laughing, who are real-world people… though I mostly know them as authors. I’ve got a shelf full of Emma Bull and Steven Brust here.)
Was all ready to make a joke about jizz but a quick Google search tells me that Crysanthe Tan is a real person who makes Star Wars-themed music and not an obscure EU character as I had initially assumed, so no dice.
Yeah, is this the first we’ve seen Jennifer reference a specific piece of Star Wars fan media, instead of just a specific EU gag or background prequel character?
Does Wookieepedia count as fan media?
this is not me making a joke, i would genuinely value input on this point
Yes, a wiki counts as fan media. I don’t know of any that are officially operated by the owner of whatever the wiki catalogues.
I find it kind of interesting that I always see the DoA comment section talk about not even having heard of a lot of big pop culture stuff. I feel like Willis stuff is pretty heavy on pop culture jokes, and sometimes they’re not even about transformers or batman!
The joke in this particular strip is MOSTLY the Star Wars artist slipped in there with more “legitimate” artists, it would work equally well with any other group of random names. The fact that the group is also full of queer artists only requires Willis to google “lgbtqia+ pop music [current year]”.
Exactly. Sometimes they’re about Star Wars.
And aside from Transfomers, Batman, Marvel, Star Trek, Star Wars and Dr. Who, there is no popular culture. And honestly, Dr. Who is kind of marginal.
All are great choices! All will make Joyce’s head explode!
She was singing Ceelo with Becky. Her head may stay intact. And hey Walky is maybe as close to Sal as one can get without getting her!
I feel like some songs might hit her differently… she’s going to listen to “Pink Pony Club” and start crying.
Okay…Chappell Roan opens up so much.
“Pink Pony Girl” is actually fairly accurate to Joyce, except it was student than lesbian dancer.
OR IS IT?
“Good Luck Babe” is actually a great story from Dorothy’s POV regarding Joyce.
I think it’s currently more an omniscient narrator’s POV on Dorothy really, since she seems to be burying her nascent sapphic feelings in Walky’s abs, possibly at the expensive of both of their happiness
At the end of this Joyce will either have the same music taste as when she started, or be a diehard Femtanyl fan.
Is that a typo or a reference to the all-girl punk band?
In this context I would assume it’s about a band and not the drug
Joyce would have probably enjoyed Stevie Nicks….
“That song title is racist against…” *looks in book* “Romani people!”
In my experience there are very, very few people who don’t enjoy Stevie Nicks.
Joyce should absolutely become a Chappell Roan fan
With regards to the alt text, my main thought on the first panel is how tiny those tables are. They seem like an unpleasant spot for dining
Based on the strip from a few days ago, the tables are, in fact, pretty tiny, so it’s not a perspective issue thing. Just a “colleges buy shitty furniture” thing (I assume these are based on real tables there).
Oh, I didn’t think it was a perspective thing. I just didn’t realize until we saw it from this perspective, you know?
There are booths. They’re just eating somewhere stupid because they’re young people who don’t know any better.
I’m weirdly reminded of the fact that Sal thinks of “Do Wap” by Hansen.
And Dan is the dirty thoughts of “WAP.”
Shows their music tastes.
Sal does not give the impression of being in tune with pop music.
Honestly all we really know about her musical tastes is that she used to be embarrassed of them; she tried to tell Danny she liked death metal, before being more open.
She actually does follow that up with a sincere request for something that fits her taste
Yes that is the “before being more open” part of my sentence.
I doubt folksy/country/mournful is her full musical tastes catalogue, though, and Willis didn’t give us any specific examples. That’s what I meant.
LOL maybe if Danny and sal did another ukelele rendition/duet of that in front of joyce she’d remember his name for once XD
Oh, Billie! Joyce is nowhere near goth enough for Gregorian chant
Joyce is a Nightwish fan!
As well she should be. Imaginaerum is a fantastic album.
AY
Ooooh I can actually absolutely see that!
My god, she is such a tryhard…
Fourteen years from now, when this storyline concludes and they move on to sophomore year, this is going to seem so outdated…
You just have to mentally find and replace. It’s always the current year, and it’s always been the current year. Every name except the Star Wars artist should be mentally replaced with whatever’s cool in 2098.
(Willis has no plans to ever reach sophomore year, last I heard.)
The only way to avoid that is to never admit anything or anyone exists.
I bet every time Willis pops a name into one of these strips, they’re also crossing their fingers: “Please don’t do anything SUPER FUCKIN’ WEIRD OR AWFUL for the next year!”
I have so much trouble giving music recommendations because I like a lot of music from lots of artists and genres. I have trouble narrowing it down to just a few artists or genres of music.
One time I was getting an MRI, and they asked what my favorite genre of music was so they could play it on the headphones they gave me, and I remember stumbling over trying to answer that more than anything else about the procedure.
(I ended up saying “indie pop,” and then I wasn’t even sure if that was right– like, if that’s how a lot of music I like would be classified– but when the songs started I was like, “Oh, okay, yeah, this is solid.”)
based on what little I know about how MRI machines work, I’m honestly surprised one could make headphones that are both safe and functional inside one.
Yeah, it’s interesting, but it seems like it’s pretty standard for MRI labs to provide MRI-safe headphones now. Helps a lot of people be calmer. (And MRIs are loud, so you need some kind of ear protection anyway.)
These days I just say “King Gizzard” and that basically covers all the types of music that I like.
A friend keeps mentioning this “King Gizzard”, but I’ve yet to give it a listen. Probably should, because she’s also compared my stuff to them when I send demos of what I’m working on, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.
They have a really huge and varied discography, so “sounds like king gizzard” doesn’t mean much, lol.
I’d recommend looking at live recordings on youtube if you’re interested. The (Evil) River is one of my favorites and one of their most distinctive.
Didn’t they just do some songs for ULTRAKILL?
So that tells me that you like some subset of everything
Exactly!
I hear you! My music runs from the Stones to Triumverat, which is stupid hard to find on streaming services. I also like Electric Swing, trance, polyrhythmic drumming to meditate to, original Swing, some J-Pop, a few K-Pop pieces, some Pagan chants, neo-Punk, Progressive rock, whatever genre Tubular Bells is, ditto Blue Man Group… I crashed the algorithm on YTM so many times back in the early days of that service it ain’t even funny.
I have troubles recommending music because I listen to bassically no popular artist, just fan songs I find on YouTube and occasional actual song that I find my accident ( I heard no children from the mountain goats because I was watching moral Orel, know literally no other songs from them)
I’d probably be recommending artists/groups like Weird Al or They Might Be Giants or The Lonely Island or MC Frontalot or Tenacious D or Starbomb. Some of those probably would be appropriate for Joyce. Some of them… perhaps less so.
I feel ya. How can I share my interest in Broken Signal, Phonk, Signalwave, and Tantric Chant?
As a Gen-Xer, all music pop music produced after 2005 might as well be a Sun Ra demo tape.
How about starting with someone who does sing about getting railed, like Aqua or Duran Duran or Caramell or Unique or Nine Inch Nails or Elton John or Eurythmics or Jack Black?
Chappell Roan sings about getting railed in Casual and Red Wine Supernova, and about railing in The Giver. Probably others tbh.
Damn it I typed “doesn’t”, I know I did. The entire bit hinges on that.
What are your favorite Elton John songs about getting railed? Just your top three.
“Can You Feel the Love Tonight” three times, GG no re.
have you not heard Closer by NIN, referred to by rolling stone and others as the sexiest of all time, and one of the only weird al polka covers to be bleeped
Why no, I certainly haven’t, and especially not the Neil Cicierega mashup with “Love Rollercoaster”, and definitely not several dozen times in a row starting at 3:26pm CST on a Thursday afternoon.
ah, this makes sense, my mistake lol
The Hu would be a good choice. “Yuve Yuve Yu” and “Wolf Totem” put them on the map, and “Sell the World” is really good along with their cover of “The Trooper”, while you just know that Jennifer has “Sugaan Essena” on her phone.
Too hard on the paint there, Jennifer, but Chappell Roan is a valid recovery.
Also, side note: I have a hard time giving people suggestions of music cause my catch-all playlist goes from 70’s classic rock to 10’s gangsta rap before randomly converting to Wicked and then Bring Me the Horizon.
I’m similar except I start with ’60s rock to Aughties, then throw in some classical, mostly classic cartoon soundtracks, and a few pieces from Lemmings.
I’ve had the opposite experience. I was honestly spoiled on music variety, growing up, so I’m constantly discovering new artists and bands in a massive range of genres, decades, and languages. If somebody asks me for a recommendation, I tend to give a few at a time, because if you don’t like Foo Fighters or The Offspring, you might at least like Fireflight.
Alt text: Don’t worry, Willis. You’re doing great.
Re: Alt text
Weird flex, but okay.
Thanks Willis, I just spent over 3 hours listening to Chrysanthe Tan on YTM and Amazon Music. I’m adding her to my favorites on Amazon.
I feel like Joyce would enjoy Chappell Roan!
I’m honestly surprised no one’s suggested Amy Grant as sort of “gateway drug” to secular music.
Jill Phillips and Carrie Newcomer. Christian but not evangelical. A bridge to pop.
If we’re doing “how out of touch we are”, here’s how well I know these artists:
Dua Lipa: Did that Elton John mashup thing.
Nicki Minaj: I think I heard she posted a weird antivax claim on The Twitters?
Megan Thee Stallion: Was in She-Hulk: Attorney-at-Law.
Chrysanthe Tan: No idea, but if she’s Star Wars music I might check her out.
Chappelle Roan: Oh, “Hot to Go”, they play that on Radio 2 all the time.
So, I give myself a fairly solid 1/5 there.
Maaan, I have no idea who any of the people Jennilly listed are, but the one that embarrasses me in the bunch is Chrysanthe Tan. I hang my head in shame for my failure as a Star Wars fan.
Steam Powered Giraffe
The Cog is Dead
Unextraordinary Gentlemen
Mc Frontalot
Mc Lars
Mr. B
Professor Elemental
Caravan Palace
Against Me!
Aurelio Voltaire
In Love With A Ghost
Otyken
Dyke Drama
Kirby Krackle
Queer Renfair Dance Party
Lots of steampunk there and yet no Abney Park.
thet’re revolutionary steampunk, maybe they are fans of conformist steampunk
Hey I know the giraffe from the steam world games!
All good solid choices but no.. dang, beaten by Charles in adding Abbey Park.
Who, by the way, are kickstarting another online concert right now.
I also listen to Kirby Krackle when I write my Supervillainy Saga books.
“Great Lake Avengersssssss.”
Theolonious Monk, ZZTOP, Fats Waller, Sons of the Pioneers…what? That stuff she might not wig out to and stuff I was listening to at that age. I didn’t even TOUCH the stuff she’d loose it over. Bad enough when she figures out ZZTOP or Fats. Not even going there with Queen ACDC or Golden Earing.
Considering how much care Willis puts into not making the strips immediately outdated, I’m surprised he straight up named so many artists. I wonder how it’ll read in 10 years, or two months in-comic time.
I imagine it’s pretty safe with music. Worst case scenario it will “Ah so nostalgic, all these old school musicians.”
Pop artists tend to die far harder and far quicker than musicians from other genres, you *might* be able to name three pop stars from the year 2000- but most people couldn’t, especially if the stipulation ‘no Britney, NSYNC, or Backstreet Boys’ was used. Whereas, take rap- it seems like there are many big names from then, who are still major today; or rock- the same, there aren’t many big new bands, but the big ones from then are still around.
Posh Spice, Sporty Spice, Ginger Spice, eeeeeaassy
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_2000
I mean, “pop” has an extremely loose definition, by design. Lots of artists on this list that you’d probably argue aren’t pop, but they were still part of the commercial music scene and being on the billboard hot 100 list shows they had broad appeal.
Can’t we just collectively state that pop is a genre because the music “pops” as opposed to just a shortening of the word popular? I want it to make sense if I say I listen to indie pop (which I do)
Also it seems to me that it would be hard to list three musical artists from any genre from any specific year 20+ years ago after you’ve eliminated the three most famous artists of the era.
80s and 90s pop had Michael Jackson and Madonna; Cyndi Lauper pops into my head next, but that’s my mom’s music tastes showing. I think Boyz II Men was also about then.
Do you not consider Prince and Bowie pop? I doubt most people would call them “rock”…
What’s Linkin Park? Does that go into the nebulous “alt” category? What about Smashmouth? I personally listened to a lot of Alanis Morissette, but I think she’s considered “alternative”, even though she has a lot of the same musical stylings as her pop contemporaries.
If you haven’t heard it, I encourage you to seek out early Alanis Morissette because it’s definitely her but it sounds so much like typical 80s pop, it’s wild what specific synths can do lol.
Calling it now, Joyce really likes “Pink Pony Club” but thinks it’s about ponies.
Somewhere in the darkest recesses of Joyce’s soul, there’s a sludge metal fan struggling for freedom.
while it may not be sludge metal, there is a very good chance she has been introducedto Deamon Hunter, the Christian metal band that got big enough to have merch at sunrise records 15 years ago
I would hate to have to try to eat a meal at one of those tiny tables.
I hope Jennifer introduces Joyce to the original Star Wars. Movie night would be fun.
Side note: thank you “Star Wars,” tag.
I don’t know who half of these people are but given the context I bet they made songs for Star Wars
Nope, only the one Jennifer tries not to say. The others are just fairly famous artists at the moment!
Whoops, Jennifer accidentally let herself be genuine for a moment. It’s going to really throw her for a loop when Joe and Joyce don’t mock or condescend her for it.
You they should launch joyce off the music deep end. Faith No More, every genre out there covered, sillyness is present, half the 1st 2 mike patton albums could double as horror movie sound tracks, and one of the 1st openly gay metal band members (Roddy Bottom you magnificent bastard). also billy gould is top 5 all time base players
Joyce is going to listen to “Good Luck, Babe” and some part of her brain will explode.
We’re not sure how, or why this will happen. The Council of Lesbians needs more data.
Now how did Willis come to know of Chrysanthe Tan…
you’ve reviewed stuff before, Joyce, why not just tune into your local music streaming site and go off from there
counterpoint, it’s fine to ask your friends what kind of music they like if you want to learn about new-to-you music, and you’re going to get less of a firehose of options than you’d get from a streaming site.
From Star Wars Minute: The Podcast?
Or perhaps JoCo Cruise.
I mean if Joyce reviewed music the same way she reviews food, it would go like this:
“Review: all of 90s music. I listened to the one band I already know I like, and they’re good. I’m not listening to anything else, it all seems weird to me. End of review.”
lmao jennifer wooould listen to nicki minaj ….
Now does Jennifer like these incredibly basic popular girl artists or is she just saying popular names?
This is just such a typically dismissive of female interests and artists type comment. “incredibly basic” and “girl artists” lmao.
When I first read the comment, I skipped “basic” and it seemed fine enough… rereading it now, yeah, ugh.
Hey, I liked Chrysanthe Tan’s videos. Her violin skill are adorable
*their
I’m surprised we didn’t see a Lindsay Sterling reference.
I don’t know if she would count, isn’t she mormon?
(Which Joyce wouldn’t consider Christian but probably like, worse than?)
Old!Joyce definitely did.
I’m not sure how new!Joyce feels about them.
My feelings are: I’ve known some very sweet Mormons, and also the fundamental structure of Mormonism is very cult-y. It’s also difficult to leave.
I’m sure we aren’t really supposed to be worried about Agatha, but oof.
I genuinely like Jennifer.