I want to define a new term that will be useful in the discourse.
Imagine you landed in a foreign country with dogs, but with no word for dogs. You would see these things, and want to talk about them. You would like to be able to tell people whether they can bring dogs into your house, but you can’t, because there isn’t any word for “dog.” You’d like to ask if you can pet someone’s dog, but you can’t do that either, because when you ask “can I pet your dog?” they say “pet my what?” It would get pretty frustrating.
This is how I feel about a certain phenomenon I’ve noticed over... (read 2456 more words →)
Support for this theory:
For a long period of time, maybe 13 to 15, I was strongly socialized to gross internet culture of precisely the sort you describe. I was deeply unfunny, my attempts at humor mostly grotesque, my political opinions malformed and underdeveloped, my style of discourse deliberately rude and provocative. I laughed at the idea that an issue could be "Complicated." Those dirty scoundrels on the other side were wrong, my social circle was right. What could be complicated about that?
Then, around 16, I rediscovered my childhood love of reading. I started with Stephen King and moved on to Terry Pratchett (a childhood favorite.) I read HPMOR, and moved on to... (read more)
I wasn't excluding evil deaths on the grounds of being simplistic; I was referring to a depiction of death that appears for a few minutes in a cartoon to chase someone down, or something of that nature. I'm sure I've seen a Bugs Bunny cartoon where he's chased by the grim reaper, and I have a few childhood memories of cartoon characters being chased by Death on TV. But none of these depictions lasted more than a few minutes. I'm excluding them not on the grounds of being simplistic portrayals, but on the grounds of them making very brief appearances with little lasting significance.