Is the age of "nihilistic" adult cartoons over? Everyone seems to agree with Smiling Friends' philosophy over Rick & Morty's/Bojack Horseman's.
>>144638748Ricks nihilism is an in-universe flaw, his misanthropy is to keep himself sane in a fundamentally uncaring universeWhile morty has gotten much more jaded and cynical over the course of the show, he still tries to find meaning in the things in his life rather than become fully like rickEven bojack eventually finds meaning in his life, teaching acting to othersAnd this is where he finds true joy in the end, helping his fellow prisoners put on playsAnd one of the few moments of fulfillment he had before was in holding a teaching class
>>144638748I've seen a bit more love for superman with all those star man memes. Think we were living in a age of apathy, where caring was seen as cringe. So I think we might see more hopeful mcs to adult series.
I don't think there's ever been a truly nihilistic show that managed to get popular. Rick and Morty shows Rick as a hypocrite retard who shouldn't be taken seriously regarding his "life is meaningless" rants and Bojack is basically nothing but a struggle for him to find meaning in things.
>>144638923>shouldn't be taken seriouslyBut...
>>144638869People want to have hope now.
>>144638748People are starting to realize that being sad doesn't make you cool or smarter than everyone else for realizing that life sucks, it just makes you sad.
>>144639208And it kills you. It rots you on the inside. So when you do it to yourself for no good reason, who's the real moron?
>>144639291No, you see, I'm AWARE of how toxic it is so therefore I'm in control of it and can utilize it to criticize everyone else and thier silly beliefs. That's just science
>>144638748THE ENTIRE FUCKING POINT WAS THAT RICK AND BOJACK WERE WRONGRick finds happiness again by choosing to love his alternate universe family (except maybe Jerry) and literally beats the bloody pulp out of the version of him that does nothing but harp about nihilismBojack chooses to fucking liveThat's how the show endsHis life keeps getting fucked, he always ends up back in square one, and he's at a point where he's going on separate paths with almost all his friends but he chooses to still live
>>144638748The population requires any sort of hope whatsoever in their lives at this pointWe all know how terrible things are nowLike, the mask is off for everyoneMight as well tell stories of worlds where things are going better
>>144638748Smiling Friends is nihilist.
>>144638748Smiling Friends has no philosophy, it's just ATHF for zoomers.
>>144638748Now that the money has run out, yes. Now you need to actually care in order to get stuff made and can't just bad faith your way into production.Rick & Morty and Bojack Horseman were honest about their cynicism and nihilism. Everything that came after were just lies and pretenders.
>>144639340this is true of every piece of media that gets labelled "nihilist" by online critics. I legit can't think of an exception to the rule.
>>144638748The point of Bojack is that you need to stop fucking up, because there will be a point where you mess shit up where you can't fix it and you will need to live with it foverer. Which is a message the modern world really needs to hear
>>144639699>Everything that came after were just lies and pretenders.Like what?
>>144638923The Good Place's ending really felt like it was going for optimistic nihilism. Essentially showing that even if you go to your own ideal heaven for all eternity, you will eventually get bored and want to erase yourself.Feels like cope to me, but whatever.
>>144639705I would go so far as to say that Smiling Friends is MORE nihilist than Rick and Morty and Bojack Horseman. Those shows had more clear messages and meanings from episode to episode, Smiling Friends is a bunch of random stuff happening most of the time. The message you mostly get from Smiling Friends is that the world is a chaotic mess. People hyperfocus on the episode in the OP but "lol he pissed his pants" is not some kind of deep anti-nihilist message, it's not a refutation, it's just silly bullshit like the rest of the show. Even the creators are open about that fact, they are not trying to do something with a coherent message, anything that comes across is just a result of Zach/etc being part of the terminally online gamer sphere.
>>144639690>ATHF for zoomersThat's some high fucking praise right there.
>>144639797If it was praise, I'd say Smiling Friends was actually good.
>>144639797The "for zoomers" part makes it shit
>>144638748I hope so.
You know, I'm going to be thankful that SF didn't have any FNF references.
>>144638748Smiling Friends feels 10 to 15 years too late
>>144639820And those "Zoomers" will be praising long after your boomer ass is gone. Like I said, high fucking praise.
>>144639844Well yeah, that's because it's Little Helpers with slight tweaks.
>>144639845Zoomers will forget about it five seconds after the next shiny new bandwagon media property pops up. They have no cultural memory
>>144639208Exactly, it pisses me off when I go through some old things and remember what a crybaby bitch I was as a teen/early 20s, wasting my youth obsessing over things that didn't matter instead getting laid with prime pussy and doing cool shit with my bros. That's why I don't complain when I see zoomies doing dumb shit, at least there having fun
>>144640013It's not like I chose to be sad.
>>144640066Neither did I, that's why I take Trintellix.
>>144639918>no cultural memoryCause most of the "culture" they've gotten is shit. They need stuff like Metalocalypse, Venture Bros, etc. that they can have an attachment to.And Steven Universe sure as shit didn't cut it.
>>144639764>People hyperfocus on the episode in the OP but "lol he pissed his pants" is not some kind of deep anti-nihilist message, it's not a refutation, it's just silly bullshit like the rest of the show.Honestly, Rick and Bojack eventually find meaning in the things and people that they care about while Smiling Friends is just "look at this cringey faggot humiliate himself lol"
>>144640114Meanwhile I grew up on the likes of Ren & Stimpy, so I'm one of the few Zoomers who's probably safe.
What is Smiling Friends "philosophy"? It's just lulrandom tomfoolery and people stammering and saying funny words. It's practically the same as Rick and Morty.Bojack Horseman had actual characters with actual arcs and pertinent social commentary. It's not just "Hoo boy Glorp, look, Glorp, we need to help Horkdorker make a plumbus, Glorp!" bullshit.
>>144640195Smiling Friends can't even top>normal words, but a horse guy
>>144638748We just moved on from pessimist like Rick and Bojack saying "nothing matters" as an excuse for their behavior to Charlie and Pim's "things may suck, but we can still be good people"
>>144640393I dunno, I'd argue Charlie is the least charitable.
>>144639753Good Place is just cringy writers not really thinking about what Heaven is and just saying "if everything is perfect then welp, it'd be pretty boring".
>>144640066But you can choose to be a bitch about it.
>>144640417He's better than Bojack and Rick considering he works at a charity. He may be less enthusiastic about helping compared to Pim or the Boss but he still does help. Look if the 4 of them saw a homeless man, Rick would kick him for sitting in the sidewalk, Bojack would just say "I know how you feel man", Charlie would search his pockets for loose change and dump whatever he got, and Pim would pull out a crisp $20 bill and give it to him.
>>144640503In that case, Allan might be the least charitable one since he sprayed Gwimbly with dir-t brown wah-tur.
>>144640436I think there was some fun stuff when it didn't feel preachy or philosophical and just felt like a weird sci-fi comedy attempt at creating an afterlife that tries to cram all the different mythologies and belief systems in there. But it often just felt like it was built around validating the creator's specific world views. And that often took priority over the actual characters.
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>>144640682Criticism isn't whining, though.
>>144639764If anything, Smiling Friends is textbook absurdism - the world is a chaotic place where things happen for no reason, but getting upset about it and not living your life is stupid.
>>144640725Honestly it'd hold more weight if Charlie and Pim weren't explaining jokes and/or pointing out exactly how weird their situations are. It was fine once, but they do it too much now.
>guys, guys>gh.......hehehehe>NORMAL WORDS>AH AH AH AH AH>BUTANORMAL GUY!>AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH
>>144638997Audiences have begun to realize that the people that tell you everything is fucked and you can't do anything about it, that you shouldn't even try, are not your friends. They are your abusers, counting on your inaction.
>>144640195>It's practically the same as Rick and Morty.In what way? Rick's a mad/sad scientist who spent his whole life building high concept scifi shit while dragging his layman family along for the ride. That's not in anyway nihilistic because Rick did almost everything with a purpose in mind. Charlie is a slacker working a dead end job for an eccentric old man while giving lackadaisical lectures about dopamine hits and nihilistic apolitical beliefs.
>>144638748>Is the age of "nihilistic" adult cartoons over?I hope so. Criticism of anything that traditionally gave us hope and a meaning to our lives have been so abundant that it became boring. Even though I don't like its message, if something is good then I'll end up enjoying it. But literally everything was doing it, and it ended up in degradation. It's not coincidence that the last season of one of my favorite shows doubled down on this, and it was an awful season. Full of the same jokes and plots, over and over againBut funny and good situations aren't boring. What's boring is how could they develop
>>144640141You’re a faggot for thinking you even need pre-2010s culture to thrive. Be a bigger man and stop buying into what a bunch of retarded millennials assume about your own generation. >t. 20-yr-old zoomer
>>144641734You're right, I also enjoyed a lot of modern toons as well. My taste isn't exactly restricted to a certain era.
