Dilbert - C or D?

This is kind of off-topic — but I remember when Mike Judge (who, unlike Adams, seems like an OK guy and who has done stuff I really like) made that movie Extract, he talked a lot in interviews (like this one) about how that movie was kind of a “bookend” to Office Space, sympathetic to “management’s” p.o.v. this time, as he’s been on both sides:

...suddenly, with Beavis and Butt-Head, I had thirty to as many as ninety people, at one point, working for me. And you know, seeing it from the other side, I suddenly became really sympathetic to the bosses. But to me, I don’t get any pleasure out of telling people what to do. But what I do like is seeing a big project through, and steering the ship and all that. And being the boss just kind of goes with the territory: that you sometimes have to tell people to do what they don’t want to do. But, you know, the bosses in Office Space are the types, the mid-management-types, that actually get off on the power of having people underneath them. [quiet laugh] They’re not really about the satisfaction of creating something, or manufacturing something.

In other words, I do think it’s possible for a single artiste to work both sides of the fence satirically — but it’s gotta be better than “They are all dumb.”

(Now, Extract isn’t necessarily as good a movie as Office Space, but I don’t think that’s a factor of its specific workplace pov.)

xxp it's kind of wild that in 1996, Berkeley Breathed had recently quit (now back, regardless of whether the return is as good), Nancy wasn't even mentioned because the long-running franchise was in a rut, and web comics were yet to really become a thing

The comparison with Cathy is interesting, in that Guisewite's strip never made sense to me until later in life when I realized that for its target audience, Cathy is real. There's a long-running anxiety under the humor that makes it relatable. The long-running undercurrent under Dilbert, once you get past the topical cubicle jokes and riffing on dumb managers, is loathing, imo.

the whole idea presented in dilbert is that there are a lot of stupid people who can be easily manipulated to a ridiculous degree. i think he likes trump because trump's success could be taken as a demonstration that dilbert isn't satire.

One of the things that bothered me about his early books was that he seemed to think that manipulating dumb people was something to be proud of. I think that's what surprises so many people about his (in retrospect, not so sudden) turn; they didn't get that Dilbert wasn't really supposed to be a satire. He gets *some* stuff right about Trump - he knows that emotions carry more weight than facts, he's good at sloganeering and name-calling, and he's really good at drawing attention to himself. The part where he breaks from everyone else is the idea that these are actually *virtuous* qualities because they fall into this weird umbrella of "persuasion" which means he can actually accomplish more than a mere mortal. And this is where the massive cognitive dissonance sets in - Trump hasn't really accomplished anything you could point to as "good for America" - his legacy will be the kiddie concentration camps, the refusal to act on climate science, the tax cuts for the rich, the rapist Supreme Court judge, and the many, many crimes committed. He's not popular, and he couldn't get more votes than Hillary Clinton, the least popular Democratic nominee ever. So Adams spends his days spinning his wheels, championing non-existent accomplishments, explaining how his many many many missteps are all part of some brilliant long game, coming up with theories as to why his approval numbers are misleading, and basically blaming everything on the media for telling it like it is.

I don’t think he was self-aware per se, he easily spoofed management junk that’s often received knowledge when there’s no understanding *why* management would do those things.

True, but something definitely happened to him between Dilbert's 90s heyday and now. Every month or so he says something incredibly dumb on Twitter and spends days defending himself, and inevitably someone will post an old Dilbert strip mocking the very concept that Adams is proposing. I still think some of the 90s strips are very well-written; that doesn't mean much in the world of newspaper comics and his sense of humor doesn't really translate well to anything else but he at least understood the mechanics of a joke back then. When I see recent Dilberts I see someone pointing in the general direction of a joke but doesn't have the cleverness to pull it off. He doesn't get irony anymore. He doesn't understand why using the Pointy-Haired Boss as the "voice of reason" defeats what many thought was the point of the whole strip.

xp I'm also cackling at the idea that Red Meat would ever become a newspaper daily. Maybe in the world where OK Soda is still available?

frogbs, I'd agree that he doesn't get what made earlier strips funny. Dilbert's point seemed to be that a lot of work is worthless, and the only useful things are accomplished when workers subvert or work around management in pursuit of goals. The lesson he's picked up in the long term seems to be that management's role is to cause chaos and ensure this unstable environment because workers are only useful when their employment and goals are in a constant state of managerial chaos and uncertainty.

by that metric, Trump is the best president for sure. it's uncertainty and rousing the chaos all day

also worth noting that he flirts a lot with philosophical theories like "what if YOU are the only person in this universe and the secret to life is bending it to your will?" which may explain why he seems to champion hedonism at the expense of others

constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown because he thinks problems in reality are because time isn't linear and he's personally responsible for bending the universe

I'm also cackling at the idea that Red Meat would ever become a newspaper daily. Maybe in the world where OK Soda is still available?

"Ten years ago" seems exactly right though - Blue Velvet meant Angriest Dog got picked up across the country, the first two Life In Hell collections came out, and Zippy itself became a mainstream daily. Plus the first giant Bloom County treasury was blowing through print runs, and Bill The Cat dolls were in chain stores and tat shops alike. The culture was absolutely ready for more weirdo strips in regular newspapers, and if they'd been given it then, Red Meat might have found a broad home by 1995, when OK Soda was still available.

We got Foxtrot

In other news, for several years I have been tracking a Master Wizard that I believe lives in Southern California. It seems he has trained a small army of attractive women in his method. The women create a specialized style of porn video clips that literally hypnotize the viewer to magnify the orgasm experience beyond anything you probably imagine is possible. Hypnosis has a super-strong impact on about 20% of people. And a lesser-but-strong impact on most of the rest.

Once a customer is hooked, the girls use powerful (and real) hypnosis tools to connect the viewer’s enjoyable experience (a super-orgasm, or several) to the viewer’s act of giving them money, either directly or by buying more clips. Eventually the regular viewers are reprogrammed to get their sexual thrill by the act of donating money to the girls in the videos. There are lots of variations tied to each type of sexual kink, but that’s the general idea.

My best guess is that 10% of the traffic that flows through their business model literally cannot leave until they have no money left. The Master Wizard is that good. The women are well-coached in his methods.

The fascinating thing is that the videos fully-disclose what they are doing, in clear language that is often repeated. The women explain the hypnosis methods they are using much the way I have been dissecting Trump’s technique. Nothing is hidden, at least with this one set of practitioners.

That makes customers feel safe that the hypnosis is just for fun and not actually rewiring them. But it doesn’t work that way. Explaining the technique as you do it actually deepens the effect. Hypnotists learn to do that.

The Master Hypnotist behind all of this found a great loophole in the law. If humans understood how effective these videos are, they would be illegal in the same way gambling is illegal in most places. And the Master Wizard hides in plain site because the Internet is so littered with fake porn hypnosis (women waving watches and saying YOU ARE SLEEPY) that no one expects a real one to sneak into the mix. And this Master Wizard is a polymath of some sort. He also knows how to do high quality video production, data analytics, and A-B testing.

When you combine hypnosis, sex, and A-B testing on a large population, the results are unimaginably powerful. The customers in this situation are getting an insanely good product. The only issue is the price.

If a court ever tries to make this business illegal, the star witness will be the Master Wizard himself.

No jury will ever convict him.

Now THAT’S a business model.

Maaaaaaster Hypnotist
Hypnotist with la-dies

what in the hell

ok but where's the link to the operation

https://66.media.tumblr.com/7cf42e6fa14c0712165287419d15b6ea/tumblr_n3ourkMWP21twyuqxo1_400.png

just another case of fake porn hypnosis

i've heard you can only be hypnotized if you want to be hypnotized but i want to be hypnotized but it has never worked i think bc i want to be hypnotized against my will that would be very interesting.

I need to know how much money this dude spent on the camgirl website

In the old days, movies were mostly entertainment with a bit of social mind control sprinkled in. But our skills at movie-making kept improving along with our mind control skills. In 2020, a movie like Joker can rewire an entire nation into seeing things in its frame.

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) June 3, 2020

I'm willing to bet 90% of the protestors have seen Joker. It is so powerful and well-made that it bounces around in your brain and burrows in, forming a dominant go-to pattern for your thinking.

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) June 3, 2020

Can one movie nudge a young person into violence and anarchy? A bad movie can't. Even a good movie can't do that. But Joker can. That movie is next level, persuasion-wise.

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) June 3, 2020

Galaxy Brain: the George Floyd protests are actually about the 2019 hit movie, Joker

he's rich, must know what he's talking about

amazing

i mean.... imagine watching everything that's happened in the last week and that's your takeaway

Also no way 90%

blood on Todd Phillips' hands, thank goodness you have a very good and very strong president who is unafraid* to bring down military force to quell the effect of this movie

I didn't see it, I was wondering why I wasn't looting but now it's all clear to me

Maybe I haven’t been keeping up, but this seems like a new level of cluelessness from this insufferable moron.

he’s reading tea leaves but it’s really whatever dust and stem scraps he poured out of a lipton tea bag

lmao he's the least self aware person on the planet

Occupation...writer https://t.co/nDBTgWWlnc

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) June 4, 2020

pic.twitter.com/fCcVAvqaCp

— Paul F. Tompkins (@PFTompkins) June 29, 2020

Before the strip was syndicated, Dogbert's name was "Dildog".

whats funny is I used to read this guy's books as a teenager and I distinctly remember numerous passages where he brags about how good he was at avoiding work. guess it didn't go unnoticed! (also, I am pretty sure he never lost a job, just got passed over for promotion, and yes even in the 90's he blamed this on black people)

I remember the Dilbert TV show being alright but the ratings were terrible. if you wanna talk about an actually good cartoon adaptation getting cancelled too quickly how about Clerks the Animated Series, which was cancelled after 2 episodes. say what you will about Kevin Smith but he never tried the "it's cuz I'm white" defense

this man is unwell

Has anyone published tips on defending a home from a mob? For example, it would not be obvious to me when to fire in self-defense and who to target first for maximum impact.

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) June 30, 2020

If Biden is elected, there's a good chance you will be dead within the year.

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) July 1, 2020

who to target first for maximum impact

It's a little unnerving to watch the titular character's mind come unglued in his new tweet-borne iteration of Dilbert. But the absence of 'artwork' is a plus, at least.

I know people joked about how Biden would magically become a socialist in the eyes of the right the instant he got the nom but even still I did not expect this take

he for sure is going to go out from a self-inflicted firearms accident, right? he's gotta have so many dumb expensive guns

wikihow "how to defend your home from the mob"

Yeah no one is gonna be commando-crawling up your driveway and coming for your fucking Dogbert action figures, Scotty; no one is coming to rob you of your precious bodily fluids.

Though you richly deserve it.

shouldn't a certified Genius already know these things

would be pretty funny if his twitter shittery inspired some gun-toting lunatic to come after his collection of collectable mousemats or whatever

"Dilbert" creator Scott Adams uncover the hidden satanic symbolism in Joe Biden's name. https://t.co/gjyHQasTL6 pic.twitter.com/3JJt0aybSt

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) August 26, 2020

god damn if only Dilbert was a fraction as creative as that

backward sex and upside down sex are some of my favourite types of sex, I mean B is where I hide my sex. so yeah, I'm voting Biden.

breaking down the symbolism of joe biden's name while sitting in the dilbert-shaped house he designed, just normal stuff

http://www.aaaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/4As-Subliminal-ad.jpg

well i think it's clear from the ad that the american association of advertising agencies are a bunch of tits

66 6IDEN(TITY) wow, it's been right under our noses this whole time

did you mean to say 66 6IDEN(TITTY)? because that would explain like, everything

so says poster breastcrawl

lol touché