The bad part is that the original image with the bold, sans-serif text was perfectly fine. It needed no addition at all, but then some jackass decided to turn it into a motivational poster, even though there is absolutely nothing remotely motivational about it. And the joke doesn't even fit the motivational poster format of "pretty picture, pithy phrase, pithy explanation." Basically, I'm mad at people who are taking perfectly good jokes and driving them into the ground with a hackneyed format that does nothing to improve on the original joke.
I think you're being too constricting in your interpretation of the format. Things will be remixed and reimagined in ways you would never have imagined, and just because you can't appreciate it, due to saying "this format only applies to this small set of things" doesn't make it so.
It's very much like language, as much as it seems abhorrent to see words change in meaning and their spellings to be mangled, it is the nature of the beast. People will do as they please with things and their meanings and interpretations will change, regardless of your feelings on it.
Look at the current debate with that movie critic guy saying videogames will never be art. Obviously he's delusional, but the paralells between his stance of "this is what [thing] is and any other interpretation of it is WRONG" and yours on this are easy to make.
Maybe, but the Despair stuff is parody. That is why it's funny, not because it's white Times New Roman text on a black background and then a picture of something. The thing that irks me most is that people use the motivational poster format to completely spell out the joke, like it's not OK to figure things out. You've got to tell me exactly why this is funny, and you know what Mark Twain said about explaining the joke.
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The bad part is that the original image with the bold, sans-serif text was perfectly fine. It needed no addition at all, but then some jackass decided to turn it into a motivational poster, even though there is absolutely nothing remotely motivational about it. And the joke doesn't even fit the motivational poster format of "pretty picture, pithy phrase, pithy explanation."
Basically, I'm mad at people who are taking perfectly good jokes and driving them into the ground with a hackneyed format that does nothing to improve on the original joke.
Reply
It's very much like language, as much as it seems abhorrent to see words change in meaning and their spellings to be mangled, it is the nature of the beast. People will do as they please with things and their meanings and interpretations will change, regardless of your feelings on it.
Look at the current debate with that movie critic guy saying videogames will never be art. Obviously he's delusional, but the paralells between his stance of "this is what [thing] is and any other interpretation of it is WRONG" and yours on this are easy to make.
Reply
The thing that irks me most is that people use the motivational poster format to completely spell out the joke, like it's not OK to figure things out. You've got to tell me exactly why this is funny, and you know what Mark Twain said about explaining the joke.
Reply
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Reply
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