Zombie Cliche Lookout: Appreciation
Surviving in zombie stories is often a team effort. As they say, no man is an island, and we all need to depend on others in different ways. Maybe we need someone to watch our back while we’re sleeping, or to catch us when we’re having an off day. Surviving with other people is going to be a lot easier than being a lone wolf. Of course, there’s always a chance that those other people are going to be just as big of a stress factor as the lack of supplies and constant moans of the army of the undead, but still.
It might be a little thing, but taking time to say thank you and acknowledge that you depend on others can do wonders for your outlook.
About this Episode:
There was a comment in the last episode about whether Ted’s wife would be jealous or resentful of Barb, and for some reason that really bothered me. It annoys me when women are always displayed as petty and jealous, as if the only thing of importance in their world is making sure their man is focused on them. No, to be fair, this was by no means the comments tone or intent. At any rate, that sort of thing bugs me, so I wanted to address it immediately. I figured it dovetailed in pretty nicely with the last episode anyway, with the survivors getting a moment to enjoy their little success.
Discussion Question: Annoying Things in Popular Culture
So as I mention above, I’m always annoyed at women’s portrayal as petty and jealous, so now I’m curious what sort of things like this annoy you guys? Meathead heroes? Stereotypical nerds? There’s got to be some sort of pop culture detritus that gets under your skin, so share it with the group and we’ll all have a good cry.
Hipsters.
The fact that I enjoy Starbucks, take my iPhone everywhere I go, have a book instead of a tablet, and prefer glasses over contacts doesn’t make me hate-able. Makes me fabulous.
I like this. Unironically.
little kids that say dude
Dude, what do you mean?
What’s wrong with dude? Or is it okay for me to say since I’m 32?
Kids and teens who speak as if in 3rd person or worse “It falls on floor.” “It slaps face.” (Actual quotes) And stupid people who won’t listen to anyone else but themselves.
I’ve not heard people talking like that, and with any luck I never will. Good lord.
AND MOST OF ALL PEOPLE THAT CUT U OFF IN TRAFFIC
I’d say everyone and anyone on the road. I hate drivers. Other drivers, that is. and yes even friends and relatives too.
As someone who just spent six hours in traffic, I couldn’t agree more.
its even worse down in Mississippi (where i live) they have NO common sense or courtesy toward others on the ROAD!
Me? When teens think they can go in and be big men when they sure as hell can’t. I might portray myself as a big tough guy here, but that’s for shits and giggles. I got guys my age drinking shots and beers, thinking they’ll get laid or made the cool guy of the group. Matter of fact is, they look pretty stupid. Or when one dude “mans up” and tries to fight another guy. I don’t know if the think they’ll be Chuck Norris, when in reality they look like a cat high on catnip with the reflexes of a turtle. Also, when girls (dont want to be offensive here) think they can conquer boys by being “daring”, to avoid a more descriptive word, and think they rule the world because of their breasts. So yeah. That’s what grinds my gears.
By the way, Dave if you edit this I won’t get mad, I’ll have an idea why.
Also the people in Omegle. Site as an idea is cool, but the amount of stupid people is too damn high.
I’m too old to know what that is. Sadface.
For one, its a good thing, and for another, you’re missing out on laughing at some people.
i myself am a teenager, and i HATE kids who think that because their teenagers, they can go be all big and popular like the kids on TV, well i’ll tell you this, theres a damn good reason why those kids have awesome friends and unlimmited popularity, its a freaking TV show! i want everyone to know that.
I think it’s just part of growing up for a lot of people. It’s a process of discovering who you are and how you work.
But yeah, it’s super annoying. I was an annoying teenager too.
i also hate that until your 14 years old, the only jobs you can get are lawnmowing, shoveling driveways, and newspaper stuff. most of our parents don’t give allowence anyway, so the only way we can get anything is from those chores i just listed, i just dont get why our parents cant spare a dollar once a week for things we do around the house.
That always bothered me too. I actually got a job working under the table at a restaurant for a couple years before I could legally work.
how much did you make a month? i make a hefty paycheck of $65 a month from lawnmowing, its actualy not to bad considering that i spend it all on junk food. But still, id like to know.
God, I don’t remember. That was twenty years ago. I generally worked two days a week, probably four hours a day. It wasn’t a ton.
alright then, but to think about it, i only have to work 5 hour a month. but yea i’ll drop it.
I think you win Phantom.
Did Dave get in a fight? haha :S
Not in many years.
No edits. If that’s what bugs you, rage on.
well i agree that you shouldn’t be able to say dude until your ten, whoever the hell said that, but what bugs me is when people take a shit with the door open, or don’t lock their stalls, its discusting! Or when at public pools, and the men in the showers can’t keep their freaking swimsuits on for 3 minutes to take a shower. Show off to someone who cares.
Speaking of public pools/showers, I got a lot of hate for all the old dudes who just sort of hang out naked in there. What’s up with that?
I hear you on that one Dave. I used to think it was just older guys that had immigrated to the US from other countries were there is less of a stigma about that kind of thing. (Anybody who has been to the beach in Europe knows what I mean) But now I wonder if its just changes in our culture here in the US. A lot of these old guys were in the military or went to all male schools, maybe they are just more comfortable with being naked around each other. Or…maybe theyre just old and dont give a damn any more. Ever seen the locker room scene from “Major League”
well every time i’ve gone into a public pool, once i even saw a guy on the top bench with his towel on, nothing underneath. i amagine an old person’s shower is like a nightmare for little girls
I see what you did there…
“Stereotypical nerds?”
5 reasons I don’t watch The Big Bang Theory right there…
Although another one that bugs me even more is when movies/tv can’t get technology right, most especially video games and gamers. Gamers are still portrayed as basement-dwelling 30 or 40-something males who still live with their parents and don’t have jobs or social lives, which is all wrong on so many levels.
I also hate how the games themselves are portrayed in other media; no matter how advanced graphics, storytelling, immersiveness, etc. get in actual games, they always seem to be stuck in 1989 in most movies and tv shows. There’s of course that infamous episode of CSI: New York where the CSIs have to log in to Second Life to catch a suspect and end up chasing him across the digital landscape when he could have just switched worlds or logged off the game completely to give them the slip, but there are other far worse examples.
Pretty much anytime a video game was portrayed in the 2003 series of TMNT (especially in the awful Fast Forward season), it was blindingly obvious the writers haven’t played a video game since the 1980’s as the most advanced games in 2105 had more to do with the Atari 2600’s Frogger and Pitfall than anything coming out even in 2006. Hell, even their version of “Halo” – called “Helix” – was on a cartridge (even though consoles hadn’t used cartridges for 5 years by that point) and featured gameplay more like Tank on Atari than Halo ever did. Even the dialogue showed how dated the writers’ knowledge of games was because they kept talking about level numbers and high scores, two things that haven’t been seen in serious games since the 90’s.
Every time a tv show tries to portray video games, I groan inwardly and try to resist the urge to bitch-slap the tv and yell, “That’s not how games are made anymore dumbass!”
Oh god, most movies and shows are so out of touch it’s not even funny. I get that a lot of them play up stereotypes because their audiences find that comforting, but it’s pretty damn annoying.
Gotta go along with Darg on computer games in the media. Also, the constant portrayal of dads on commercials as being incredibly stupid/clumsy. I don’t pretend to be the world’s best dad (far from it), but the dads that are portrayed on TV commercials mostly shouldn’t have been allowed to reproduce.
Oh man, that’s a damn good one. I hate that all TV dads/husbands all have to be bumbling doofuses that depend on their wives for everything. Marriage and parenting in a team effort, folks.
Agreed, Im betting its because women are a more important demographic for advertisers then men.
That could very well be.
marage is a team and no one is better, except the fact that moms are better parents 80% of the time, but otherwise… yea its teamwork
That’s a pretty bold claim. I work very hard to be both a good husband and a good dad. My wife and I have different abilities and different problems. She’s better at some things, I’m better at others. Working together, we’re able to overcome our personal weaknesses most of the time. If it was just her or just me, my kids wouldn’t be in as good of a place in life.
OK, while were at it…THAT pisses me off. Turdinators comments (I think he might be joking actually) reflect a larger idea in our society that dads are somehow un-necessary and disposable. In the interest of supporting single moms we have advanced the idea that kids are just as well off, or maybe better off, being raised by mom alone becasue most dads don’t parent or are lazy drunken idiots. I thinnk some of what Old Grenadier is sounding off about rises from this same trend in thinking, that dads are just morons and aren’t needed. Anyone who has watched (or been though) a divorce when there are kids involved can attest to what I mean. The courts place the kids with ther mom 90+ percent of the time regardless of whether or not the dad con provide a more stable home. I could go home today and have my wife announce that she is leaving me to go join some communal White-Wicca coven or something and within 6 months (with the courts help) I could potentially go from being a daily influence in my kids lives to seeing them every other weekend while whomever she winds up with becomes more of an influence in their lives then I do. All of this grows out of the brain-dead notion that moms play a more important role in parenting then dads do. I will admit, I wasn’t much help with the whole breast feeding thing, but other then that its a 50/50 proposition.
well im just saying, i found this ad online that said “Did you know that moms make better parents 80% of the time? click here to find out more.” But i think that girls are more paitent then guys, or maybe the mom’s are just around more often, i dunno
@Turdinator Yea. Girls more patient than guys. Uh-uh, yea so spend one day with my teen cousins and tell me girls are more patient than guys. Btw, my uncle is doing way more for his kids than his meth-addicted ex-wife could do with Bill Gate’s salary.
alright, no need to get your uncle into this, i just saw an ad, alright?
Ads are probably not the best place to cite facts from.
@Darg I SO agree. On some shows that are based in the present still have video games with carts. Another thing I hate on TV is how gamers act. I know this was kind of talked about above but this is my thing personally. Whenever the gamers on tv go on a date or something they end up talking about some game and screwing it up. It’s not like that girls hate or dislike video games or something.
What about all those atari-era sound effects on games people play on TV. That usually just makes me laugh rather than annoys me, but it’s a weird one too.
People get under my skin.
Hah, just in a general sort of way?
Basically.
The thing that will probably annoy me the most are those people who are perpetual drunks and the nymphomaniacs. That the only way to ever have fun is to be constantly drunk or high or have sex every time they turn around.
In real life, or in movies?
Both.
i hate people who say their feeling out loud, i also hate cucumbers, if they kept it to theirself, i might not mind them so much
Okay, I’m all for hating on annoyances, but not on groups of people. I edited your comment to remove that.
yea, its alright, but what bugs me even more then my dad or “cucumbers” are those stupid pick-up lines, my brother knew some guy who went up to some girl and said “I can’t see the stars in the skies, but i see them in your eyes.” and all the girl could say is “…thanks?” yea never use pick up lines their not hot, just annoying.
What pisses me off is how men are portrayed as cheaters. Sure, some guys do cheat. But the media makes it out that either guys cheat more than women or for a guy to cheat on a girl is worse than the other way around. Hell, my girlfriend accused me of cheating once just because “it happens”.
That’s kind of a crappy thing for your girlfriend to do.
I’m not sure if this counts as popular culture, but I also hate how people thinks that when a guy and a girl goes out on date, that the guy should insist on paying for everything, no matter what the girl says. It’s one thing to offer to pay once in awhile to be nice. But if the girl says “no that’s okay, I’ll pay”. Then let her pay for her movie, meal, or whatever.
Fair enough. I think this one is slowly dying anyway.
I think the thing that bugs me the most these days is grown men in their 30’s watching My Little Pony. It’s targeted at little girls, stop being creepy.
On the topic of women, I have to say, women do get petty and jealous of other women… I’ve caught my wife playing the jealous girl more than once, and making it clear to someone who was not a threat to her in any way that I’m taken and she wouldn’t stand for it. (For example, the only time I took her to a favorite lunch spot at work, she referred to me as ‘my husband’ to the waitresses whenever possible, and each time her voice raised on those two words to drive home the point). I tease her when she does things like that, telling her to stop peeing on me (animal marking their territory). But it does happen, like it or not.
The term for them is Bronies btw and I 100% agree is extremely creepy
I have friends who are Bronies, and while I respect them as an independent fandom/nerd entity…I refuse to become acquainted with the show at any level, outside what they tell me themselves.
And yes, the older ones are creepy. Being in high school, I have thankfully never had to deal with them personally.
This is seriously a thing?
I had heard about it, but I though it was just one of those internet rumors
As did I.
Unfortunately…Yes. It’s a thing.
there was even a minecraft mod called my little brony, it makes you… well you know, at scouts i had to listen to a brony the entire time i was trying to go to sleep at wildernes survival. (For those of you who don’t know what wilderness survival is, its when you’ve gotta make a shelter out of sticks and nothing else and sleep in it for one night.) He even took the only shelter we could make in time before it got dark, i might’ve been ok with it if he bothered to help at all. So.. yea me no likee
Maybe we’ve taken the ‘anti-bullying” thing too far.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Little_Pony:_Friendship_Is_Magic_fandom
The list of things that annoy me include, but are not limited to: Communists, Socialists, Liberals, people that hate on Doctor Who (He is called The Doctor. The show is Doctor Who) Megabloks, and most girls in my age group.
The rest reflect my religious views and therefore would cause way too much debate.
Oh yeah, and the taste of coffee. It smells awesome…but…
yeah, i hear you sir marry, about the dr.who thing, i show my sister 1 episode then she follows me around saying “Rember when dr.who did this? remember when dr.who did that?” “Yes Aimee, and his name is the doctor.” “Whatever, oh rember when dr.wh-” ARRRGHQQASFJ_-MBFFTTYHGDSVVBVCZSUKMIDICKHGFSFGHNBBVZASDDFVCDFFVVGGTRFGHHHAADHJHHJKKIOPYHGGGRRFGBITCHEJMNVXCVFGGFDDFJOIUYT!!!! You know?
Definitely. I totally understand. How annoying.
I should warn you Sir Marius to NEVER bring up politics on this site. I am a left-wing Liberalist Jesuit who believes very strongly in my views. Just saying.
you know what? i might just call you merry man, but what also bugs me is those old movies and TV shows from the 80’s. I saw IT, and He-Man, ROTFLOLPCC its sometimes sad to see what kids looked up to those days.
Not trying to start a fight…Just stating what annoys me in intended sarcasm. My apologies. Tone is not easy to spot on the Internet…
Also, most of the Liberals I interact with are in high school and therefore are rude and self-obsessed teenagers who pick on me for what I think, but I think it’s time to leave the topic alone now.
Not easy to convey on the Internet.* Sorry. rewrote that a few times and a word wasn’t replaced.
I have to echo the politics thing. It never ends well.
People have their opinions. Some are based on careful consideration, some aren’t. It’s annoying that people can’t see eye-to-eye or discuss things on the same terms, but I respect that there are a lot of different ways to approach an issue. I may not agree, I may not like it, but I think we have to respect that other people’s notions are just as valid as ours.
you know mineaddicts, your like a constant downer huh?
I don’t think he (she? I’d hate to make presumptions here) is a downer at all, just stating that this is a diverse group and advising against possibly alienating people.
Whoa, major responses here. Anywho, in relation to the dislike of women who are portrayed as petty bitches, I also dislike “I have no idea how to write a strong female character but it’s all the rage, so I wrote up this one dimensional female version of Duke Nukem.” Yes, there are women like that, but sometimes it seems like it is being done to death.
We need a like button for this.
I worry that I do this. I honestly don’t know how to write realistic women. I try, but I’m sure my female readers do plenty of facepalming in my general direction.
i’ll never get most women, the one time i go out with someone, and shes a freaking jerk! But her dad works at 7-11 and i usually got discounts on my Taki’s, so breaking up was hard.
If you want some unsolicited advice, don’t let one bad experience sour you on things. People are people. Some are easy to get along with, others aren’t. Figuring out how to tell them apart is something that comes with time and experience.
I think a popular stereotype is how there’s always a funny guy, tough guy, smart guy, and leader. This is seen in tons of different shows, movies, and games.
Do you watch It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia? They had an awesome takedown of this.