2: The sickness is inside you, then.
You just don't get it, do you, Cryptic Ned?
Truthfully, neither do I. I'm pretty sure "taste the curb" is a reference to that infamous scene from "American History X."
I heard of that before American History X.
I was curbing dudes before it was popular.
I get the second one, but I don't get the first one.
I was waiting for that to get posted here. That should pretty much put the nail in the LOLcats coffin, eh?
I hope "DO NOT WANT" doesn't get tarred with the lolcats brush. That concept has some real behind it.
I first saw curb-stomping mentioned here. I think it was written shortly after "American History X" appeared on video.
There is no finer, smoother tar delivery vehicle than lolcats. Furry, funny friends, I welcome your thousand year reign.
Goddamn that second comic is awesome.
"Your" S/B "you're" for consistency of tone.
I heard about tasting curbs back on usenet.
On in your Unfogged,
Usenet-pwning you aall.
pls substitute "I'm" and "all" into my last comment, for words of your discretion.
I heard about curbing when I was 12 from the skinhead in my homeroom. I'm fairly sure it dates to the early days of hardcore. Oh, those kids.
Overwrought explanation for the second strip here. Although personally I find Helvetica more worthy of hate. Truly the totalitarian jackboot of fonts.
lest I be taken seriously, let me note that 13 is a lie.
What about 14? Does 13 remain a lie after the requested substitutions have been made?
the requested substitutions have been made
(assuming you intended, "I'm all about tasting curbs back on usenet.")
Given the untruth of 13, is fourteen to be believed either? For that matter, how can we now take 17 in good faith?
After the author has expressed himself, the truth of his statements is in the hands of the reader.
Comment threads on Unfogg'd are beyond truth and falsehood.
Curb jobs are the preeminent skinhead urban legend. All skinheads claim to know someone who has actually seen it done. And, being that they're skinheads, it's very hard to make the kind of meta-textual "that's just an urban legend" argument to them, so it never burns itself out.
American History X is for wankers anyway. You want you a real skinhead movie, Romper Stomper is the way to go.
Romper Stomper is a very good movie. It's even better if you see it before you've heard of Russell Crowe.
So could someone please explain the first one for me?
24: needless to say, the 12 year old skinhead claimed to have witnessed it himself.
I would have enjoyed Romper Stomper more if I hadn't chosen to watch it while thinking that it was going to be Roger Dodger. Fortunately it didn't take very long before I realized I would have to adjust my expectations.
Tamm and d^2, both ex-skinheads, should be reporting shortly.
26: Roast Beef is very internet-savvy, but on the whole insecure and sensitive. For him, LOLcats came and went ages ago with barely an eyeroll. He does not wish to go through the whole LOLcats thing again with his friend Ray. In their social circle, Ray is generally one of the arbiters of what's cool (although it's possible he's feeling less secure in that role of late) but knows that Beef holds the authority when it comes to matters of the internet, so he is defensive and snappy. The alt-text for the comic, "He shouldn't have yelled at him. He shouldn't have yelled at his friend. Not about this." is therefore particularly poignant.
I assume Labs' post is in support of the message "when Ray gets into an internet meme, that internet meme is officially over".
Frog: dissected.
31: See, now, I interpreted the strip as an exploration of the role of members of the underclass as consumers of and active participants in media that trades upon exploitive stereotypes. Ray's shame isn't from being snubbed by Beef, whose outburst was likely one of genuine concern, but from his (apparently willing) participation as a subject of lolcats, the very form of which degrades him as a feline.
From my limited experience with the strip I thought the characters were not actually cats, they just happened to have faces that resemble cat faces. Of course, a lot of comic strips contain anthropomorphized animals, but they usually retain some aspect of the animal (e.g. Catbert likes to purr and claw things). These guys are just people with cat faces.
(a way of universalizing the characters, like the stick figures in xkcd)
They are cats. He doesn't talk too much about it anymore, but they are intended to be actual animals (or, a couple of them are toys). He has a whole back story for where they live, shop, etc.
He has a whole back story for where they live, shop, etc.
And now this thread is suddenly creepy.
It also explains why they're underground in the comic sans strip.
No, they're cats. Witness the various offhand references to feline cultural experiences of spaying and neutering, Ray's pride in his status as an American Curl, the way the cats do occasionally speak of those they live with as being explicitly humans, etc etc. That Onstad never falls into the trap of making them perform themselves as "Cat", as Other, is a testament to his empathy and breadth as a writer.
Of course, Téodor and Phillipe are stuffed animals.
I guess I was mistaken because the only time people link to the strip is when they are acting out some sort of pop-culture or nerd reference rather than interacting in a character-driven way.
"they" being the characters in the strip, not the people who link to the strip. Note that I always use the anachronistic word "strip" because I try to resist saying "comic" about things that are not necessarily funny.
i don't see whats to hate about comic sans
i don't see whats to hate about comic sans
This is the comment equivalent of choosing the urinal next to the only other guy in the bathroom and striking up a conversation. Don't take the bait, peopoe.
It only occurred to me to look that up after I hit post.
Achewood: the Garfield of the new century.
Almost certain that the kerb-stamp is an urban myth. Throughout the 1980s, there was only one boot-related murder at a football match, and that was when someone jumped on his victim's head.
re: 51
One of my neighbours when I was teenager was arrested* for jumping** on someone's head.
* not jailed, though. Systematic witness intimidation took care of that.
** repeatedly.
Yes, his later slide into heroin addiction and shift from being a well-known and feared local hard-man to a widely mocked shadow of his former self was also fairly Scottish of him.
51, from reading Among the Thugs it seems like whatever murders might occur would not be necessarily at football matches.
That book wasn't full of lies was it? I thought it was amazing.
I'm eagerly awaiting the unveiling of the One True Font, since Comic Sans is so widely reviled.
re: 56
I don't know which font is the One True Font, but, without question, the Lord writes in a serif font.
I had gotten the impression that the font of the divine hand was an uncial one, which usually means no serifs.
uncial one, which usually means no serifs.
? The uncial I know is positively dripping with serifs. A little subtle, maybe but serifalicious.
The one true font is Times. Or Times New Roman, if you're myopic.
59 -- Huh, you're right. I was misremembering.
in re 59
serifalicious s/b seraphimalicious, for the words of the prophets written on the you-know-what.
I think Lunar Rockette's explication in 34 is more convincing than that of Hamilton in 31. Ray is ashamed to be participating in a medium which degrades his own kind. It has nothing to do with lolcats being "old", it has to do with them being degrading to cats.
Come on John, Doug and TJ, adopt some more creative usernames. Civic boosterism demands it, for a vibrant discourse.
34,65: While the LOLcat minstrelsy aspect may be the root of the conflict in panels 2-3, I think the alt-text makes it pretty clear that Ray's upset in the final panels is about yelling at his friend, not about being ashamed of LOLcatting.
(Hah: someone else has gone down that road, though: http://www.flakmag.com/misc/lolspeak.html )
I think it could be argued that Ray's shame at yelling at Beef is as much because of his shame at being caught in lolface, as it were: he understands that Beef was motivated by concern for him, not just unreconstructed anti-lolcat prudery and victim-blaming.
Also, er, forgive me if this is too identifying (and mods, please delete/redact if it is), but... Hamilton, you don't happen to work for a company that's named after a fish that features prominently in a non-Western cuisine, do you?
Hamilton works for Lutefisk Conglomerated?!? Who knew!
68: Ray, ashamed, has realized that his LOLcattery has led him to push his best friend away. LOL ruins lives. LOL destroys friendships.
I can't believe this turned into an actual joke explaining thread. Nobody even reads Standpipe's blog anymore, do they?
I refuse to cop to joke-explaining, in so far as anyone who thought the phrase "feline-American cultural experiences of spaying and neutering" could be meant seriously doesn't have a sense of humor with which to "get" said explanation.
Nobody even reads Standpipe's blog anymore, do they?
To be fair, I've been lax about updating it recently.
69: Nnnnnooooo, but I do work for a company which had a sushi-themed logo movie in a recent product.
And 2500 quatloos to you for "lolface".
Does today's achewood push anyone either way on their interpretation?
Hm, I think that swings the ball more in your direction, but who knows.
And... crap, that could go either way. Uhhh. Uhh. The company was not, in fact, named for a gangster term for "the feeling of being released from prison", that is A PUN on said fish used prominently in non-Western cuisine, that the founders of said company found out whilst eating said cuisine, shortly after parting ways from their previous place of employment, which caused them to appreciate this gangster concept/pun?
(And then they eventually sold out to their distributor and people stopped smoking so much pot in the basement, the end.)
Exactly so. The couple of times I was around when someone asked about the name, the answer was "I'll explain later", so I never actually heard the explanation, so you knew more about my company's name than I did!
