[2013-Feb-18] Hating the player/game

[zubrin]

Political Science: Don't hate the player, hate the institutional design in which their preferences are channeled towards particular kinds of behavior.

Functionally, that is the game.

[Lethal Interjection]

How many times has Zach done this comic with various catch phrases (then adapted to various fields of study)?

My guess is at least 3.

[Gila Monster]

I'm thinking it's a bit more than that.

[Ratel]

How could you miss:
Computer Scientist, "Don't hate the game, hate the end user!"

[ThePeople]

What's sad is that the amount of success Zach has had throughout his career as a web cartoonist is almost exactly the opposite of how good the comics have been.

perhaps this could be represented in some way...perhaps a graph DO NOT DRAW A GRAPH

[kemisanna]

What's sad is that the amount of success Zach has had throughout his career as a web cartoonist is almost exactly the opposite of how good the comics have been.

perhaps this could be represented in some way...perhaps a graph DO NOT DRAW A GRAPH

I took your advice and drew a graph.



The demand curve for humor tends to favor a relatively low amount of time needed to receive the humor, including subcosts of topic knowledge and time restraints of video length, etc. Most people don't need to move very far to find humor- the television, pets, youtube. This humor is often a) accessible- it doesn't need to be linked to you, it has names that are directly relevant to the content of the humor, and it generally satisfies your needs. To look for higher quality humor, you need to spend more time- and you need to know what you are looking for. The other example, politics, has a lot of research to be done about the topic to understand the humor of it all. What's all this talk about a deficit? +2 hours reading and listening to podcasts. Who is Harry Reid? More research.

Then, we get to Zach Weiner.

Zach definitely has quality work, but he has a few factors most people don't consider when reading his comics. One, he uses scientific, mathematic, etc concepts that requires some knowledge about the subject from the reader. I've been lost on some of the jokes, and that makes me feel like I did not spend enough time preparing for the humor- judging that many are unfamiliar with science just as I am unfamiliar with history, there are a large number of readers that cannot be included as 'potential' readers- they don't have the willingness to buy something they don't understand.

Second, Zach runs a a)webcomic called b)saturday morning breakfast cereal. The name (b) does not imply humor, it implies crunchy grain products and milk on a weekend. And, because it is an (a) webcomic it is something someone has to look it up. When I look up 'dark webcomic','science webcomic','satire webcomic' and 'humor webcomic' I do not get a hit for SMBC; I must be linked by another website or user to know what it is about. And that, my friend, is the reason why webcomics have such a small audience: they far too often are not accessible to the consumer. This is the reason why television makes money, and often (with exceptions, such as SMBC) webcomics do not. It's a simple matter of time and accessibility.

[Surely you guest]

I don't think you understood the question.

[kemisanna]

I don't think you understood the question.

He asked why Zach wasn't a super-popular Jon Stewart or the sort, despite being talented and funny. I supplied a response, one that generally holds true for any webcomic artist. Relatively, he's a famous webcomic artist. To the general population, not as many know his name.

I do think I understood the question, but it was intended as rhetoric. Since I intentionally used it as a serious question, I did not respect the wishes of the one asking the question. I grant you this win, but only on grounds of technicality.

[Surely you guest]

I don't think you understood the question.

He asked why Zach wasn't a super-popular Jon Stewart or the sort, despite being talented and funny. I supplied a response, one that generally holds true for any webcomic artist. Relatively, he's a famous webcomic artist. To the general population, not as many know his name.

Well, ok, technically it wasn't a question. His point was that Zach was funny but unknown at the outset of the comic and is now pretty well-known and successful but produces irredeemable dreck that merits only obscurity and shame. He has devolved to the opposite of talented and funny.

[Edminster]

He asked why Zach wasn't a super-popular Jon Stewart or the sort, despite being talented and funny.

Okay at first I thought you were just stupid, but now I know you are so illiterate that you loop around to being able to read but fundamentally unable to suss out that the sentence 'What's sad is that the amount of success Zach has had throughout his career as a web cartoonist is almost exactly the opposite of how good the comics have been' could possibly mean anything other than 'Zach is incredibly popular despite the fact that his comics of late are utter shit that should not be tolerated by any good and loving person, and this is a mournful state of affairs'.

Perhaps it is not your fault. Perhaps it could simply be a massive conspiracy of everybody in your life telling you that the definition of 'opposite' is 'completely in line with'. If that is the case then I am sorry for my comment debasing your reading skills, because I did not realize that the real culprit is your loathsome social circle. The real crime here is that everybody in your entire life are allowed to exist, because such a fell and vicious act as convincing you that words actually mean their antonyms is far crueler than allowing someone naturally that feeble-minded to access the internet.

[GUTCHUCKER]

What's that off in the distance? It looks like a...
Pony gif thread. Huh, weird.

[ThePeople]

Your new name is Mr Idiot

[kemisanna]

He asked why Zach wasn't a super-popular Jon Stewart or the sort, despite being talented and funny.

Okay at first I thought you were just stupid, but now I know you are so illiterate that you loop around to being able to read but fundamentally unable to suss out that the sentence 'What's sad is that the amount of success Zach has had throughout his career as a web cartoonist is almost exactly the opposite of how good the comics have been' could possibly mean anything other than 'Zach is incredibly popular despite the fact that his comics of late are utter shit that should not be tolerated by any good and loving person, and this is a mournful state of affairs'.

Perhaps it is not your fault. Perhaps it could simply be a massive conspiracy of everybody in your life telling you that the definition of 'opposite' is 'completely in line with'. If that is the case then I am sorry for my comment debasing your reading skills, because I did not realize that the real culprit is your loathsome social circle. The real crime here is that everybody in your entire life are allowed to exist, because such a fell and vicious act as convincing you that words actually mean their antonyms is far crueler than allowing someone naturally that feeble-minded to access the internet.

I'm afraid I'm too illiterate to read that. I can also 'suss' or 'infer' that you do not like his new comics. A shame, because others do.
(On a side note, thank you for the new word 'suss'. My English teacher challenged me to improve my lexicon before the end of the semester, and suss is such a lonely word.)

[ThePeople]

guys, I think this man is

[GUTCHUCKER]

I was seriously hoping for a pony thread derailment. Oh well.