Skip Navigation

Comic Strips @lemmy.world

lawrence @lemmy.world

5mo ago

Envy

Author: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8-DuLPOEXX/

68 comments

Social media sucks
- People call stuff like Lemmy, 4chan or Reddit social media too but to me it's always these Facebook or Instagram style self-presentation platforms. All of them suck ass.
  
  I'd categorize these as forums rather than social media. I mean there isnt that much socializing happening around here
  
  True those are definitely worse
- Envy has existed far longer than social media, none of these things would go away if social media doesn't exist. Social media just amplifies it.
  Comparison has always been the thief of joy.
  
  Yep, "keeping up with the Jones's" was a phrase I heard growing up in the 1980s
  Also, attachment leads to suffering
- Communication is a good thing.
  But that's not what most social media facilitates. The mainstream platforms were about staying in touch with friends and family, once, but now they are about parasocial celebrity worship and broadcasting your life in a fake light of endless positivity. All the while secretly hating the habit of feigned contentment, never realising everyone else is doing the same.
  Social media could be about sharing our passions, forming real and meaningful connections with other individuals around the world, as well as truly coming to know ourselves as a species on a global scale.
  Some small parts of it are exactly that.
  Those are the parts I'm trying to perpetuate and nurture, and though they are a tiny part of the whole thing right now, it does mean it isn't all bad.

I think this lesson can be valuable but I also feel like it can be flippant to the point of implying everyone's situation is equally bad or good, which is very dismissive of those in truly bad positions in life.
- especially since this comic includes a poor dude and it goes like "at least his dog is still alive", bruh
- Verging on toxic positivity.
- Judging what a bad position in life is is pretty subjective.
  There are some we can probably all agree on as a bad position, but none of those portrayed here fit those.

Comparison is the thief of joy
- Nah that would be Bill, who stole my bottle of Joy when he house sat.
  
  buy it in bulk my dude, just use any ol squeeze bottle. Those bottles of Joy are easy come easy go

I too drive with my cellphone in one hand and my gut in the other.
- Cars can be parked!? Big if true...
  
  Or LA traffic. Which, now that I think about it, is the same thing.
- I ride a motorcycle and can confirm that most drivers use this method.

Then it cuts to the dog using social media looking at skeletons.

sobbing over my phone because I couldn’t stop a friend from pairing full-bodied red wine with lobster

This is like that other comic about 'girls only like guys who treat them right' (i dunno the name) but actually good.

Grass is brown all the way around

You know you're fucked up when seeing things that are happy makes you sad and angry.
- Yeah, the last three panels actually bug me (though for different reasons).

This hit me just right today. Good reminder to be grateful for what we have.

One of these is not like the others

Ha yeah everybody is miserable.

Fuck

I find this sad yet soothing song very fitting.
We have lost our hearts
Trying to feel good
Unkle - Persons & Machinery (feat. Autolux)

Oh is there a im14andthisisdeep instance now?
- What’s 14 about a such a common issue countless adults face?
  
  it's more of a saying I guess it has something to do with adolescence and hormone nonsense
  like all this stuff https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/im-14-and-this-is-deep/photos
- You're in it!

Look at that new car!

Unless you're a republican from South Dakota, then you shoot the dog and dump it in a gravel pit and publicize it so others can be envious of how truly American you are.

Is this loss?

sorry, drinking, can you help me out?
the 6th panel is chubby man's son?
why is young couple from first panel in last panel?
i thought it was a generational story.
their dead brown dog is related to the white dog in panel 7?
I'd love to know how my drank messed me up, thanks.
- Top panel sees Marta w/ new BF, is sad.
  Next guy sees buff guy, is sad.
  Next guy sees guy eating lobster, is sad.
  Marta & BF see dog, miss theirs, are sad.
  Everyone wants what someone else has.
  
  thank you.
  art style and similar physical features had me thinking it was generational rather than simultaneous.
  appreciate it.

I get the idea and I like it; but please don't put poverty in this comics. Poor people aren't envious of richer people, they deserve to live normally.
- As someone who was poor and now is not poor, that’s bullshit. I was for sure envious of well-off folks around me. Now I absolutely don’t take it for granted.
  
  It wasn't envy. It was a normal reaction to an unjust situation.
- I mean, same for all the other examples.
  
  Poverty shouldn't exist.
  Edit: someone disagrees with this, apparently
  
  To loose a dog, to be overweight, to see a relationship end are sad but normal things. Poverty isn't.
- boooo
- I think its a valid example though. Sometimes poor people can save up to go out once and splurge on lobster. People tend to post the highlights of their lives on social media. I think the point here is to not buy into it so much
- You're assuming he's poor, and not just shit at cooking, or too apathetic to try or learn.
  
  How likely do you think it is that the auth9r meant that and not that he was poor...?
  
  Look at the walls.

68 comments