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How Much Damage Do You Think Was Done By The Simpsons And South Park By Normalizing The "Both Sides Are The Same" Bullshit?

DrForester

DrForester

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,176







How many times have you heard someone say "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos", or "it's just a douche and turd sandwich". These two shows have firmly lodged these moments into the pop culture legacy.

I can't help but wonder how much damage it's done, how many people were turned off to politics by buying into this bullshit. 2016 was such a close race, maybe things like this helped get people to stay home by buying into it. Hell, the Simpsons one was there in time for 2000.
 
Keldroc

Keldroc

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,554
Not much for Simpsons. They haven't done that for a very long time, honestly back when it was much more true than now.

South Park I think did do a fair amount of damage to that specific age group that sort of grew up watching it and taking a lot of its points of view as gospel. I hear a lot more "centrist" dipshits quoting South Park than just about anything else.
 
Platy

Platy

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Oct 25, 2017
21,918
Brazil
South Park made a huge damage but that is because they do this with EVERYTHING

like they do this even for basic human rights
 
Z-Beat

Z-Beat

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,940
I don't think the people who believe and parrot that owe their belief to South Park or Simpson so much as they've learned to use everyone's general dislike of politicians to mask their shit opinions, like when you're religious and have a lot of premarital sex so you go all in on homophobia being worse to make yourself look better by comparison even though there's no sin tier list for that kind of thing...actually that's kinda the reverse but the point remains
 
Earthstrike

Earthstrike

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,028
South park definitely way worse. With simpsons, there is a constant cultural bombardment of some of societies underlying factors that make it skew anti-intellectualism. Most of simpsons criticisms also come from a point of commenting on politics in a way that skews progressive. Namely, the incompetence and general lack of backbone of Dem leadership, which is characteristic of them some of the time.
 
MisterHero

MisterHero

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,637
People have hated politicians for all of history. People hate authority but need policy. I dunno
 
iapetus

iapetus

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Oct 26, 2017
2,704
Both sides are the same is also a message pushed hard on Facebook. I'll let you hazard your own guesses as to where much of that material originates.
 
Volimar

Volimar

volunteer forum janitor
Member
Oct 25, 2017
21,876
I'd put more on South Park since they've gone in a lot on normalizing that kind of both sidesing that you see today. But it's more like a "nothing really matters" attitude that's so common among younger people. An easy attitude for disaffected young white men to have since they're not affected by many of the things Republicans have or are trying to do.
 
808s & Villainy

808s & Villainy

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Oct 27, 2017
26,391
Lol what. I don't think anyone gave a shit or was affected by either of those shows and like Slay said, the "normalization" was more just a typical dislike of politicians in general

Now South Park shitting on Al Gore and his warnings of global warning, along with the rest of the media back then, definitely hurt
 
Cipherr

Cipherr

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Oct 26, 2017
8,101
Wasnt just them pushing that though. The whole "X is pretty much just as bad as Republicans" started coming from a LOT of places alongside general apathy.

And it hurt ALOT. The fact that its still around even now and tried to pop up in the damndest discussions is proof of it.
 
poptire

poptire

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
4,527
Anecdotal but every millennial libertarian I know is a huge South Park fan. Also Family Guy for some reason.
 
UberTag

UberTag

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
11,537
Kitchener, ON
EAUA said:
The Simpsons said the Republicans were literal evil villains.
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Fun fact... a good portion of the warped youth of today have openly criticized the political segment that will kick off this Sunday's Treehouse of Horror special for NOT both sidesing this election and depicting Trump and the Republicans for the monsters that they truly are.
 
Garlador

Garlador

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
14,132


Beaten, but I'd say things have... changed... in the nearly thirty years since Simpsons started.
 
Apathy

Apathy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,677
While the Simpsons poke fun of Democrats, by and large they really paint the Republicans as evil
 
Almighty

Almighty

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Oct 25, 2017
3,589
Don't know about the Simpsons, but South Park really did a fucking number on people in my age group. I still get references to that episode in the OP when voting comes up. 16 years later from people now in their 30s to early 40s.
 
Big Fan of Sleep

Big Fan of Sleep

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,579
poptire said:
Anecdotal but every millennial libertarian I know is a huge South Park fan. Also Family Guy for some reason.
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Eh, I'm Gen Z, but most of the people I know who are leftists really enjoyed South Park. Hell, one of my friends is the biggest environmentalist I know and he still thinks the Al Gore Manbearpig bit is funny. Now, we can argue that that should be contradictory, but for most people I know, South Park really didn't influence political leanings whatsoever.
 

Nola

Member
Oct 29, 2017
3,709
Youngfossil said:
None. Seriously... No one gets political advise from these shows.
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Yeah gonna have to hard disagree on that one.

Cant tell you how many people in my life grew up influenced by the humor of these shows(and others like The Daily Show) but around 20-28 when they started creeping into politics incorporated a lot of their pop culture humor and outlooks into their politics.

There is probably no more tired reference that I hear around election season from at least a dozen distant friends and family than douche and a turd bullshit.
 
dabig2

dabig2

Member
Oct 29, 2017
5,116
I'd say the Democrats fumbling about doing evil and inane shit themselves for decades probably helped a lot more with normalizing the complete disillusionment that a lot of Americans have in regards to the main parties.

Not like pre 1988 we lived in some utopia where Americans were happy with the 2 parties, and saw the Democrats as a force of good relative to the dastardly Repubs. Especially because in those times the Dems would tag-team with the Republicans to fuck this country.

tldr, don't get distracted by the symptoms. Go after the cause.
 
Mekanos

Mekanos

Member
Oct 17, 2018
29,036
The Simpsons has treated the Democrats with kid gloves. What the hell are you talking about?
 
Gotdatmoney

Gotdatmoney

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Oct 28, 2017
13,248
UberTag said:


Fun fact... a good portion of the warped youth of today have openly criticized the political segment that will kick off this Sunday's Treehouse of Horror special for NOT both sidesing this election and depicting Trump and the Republicans for the monsters that they truly are.
Click to expand...
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Those pics are like not even wrong frankly.
 
Smokeymicpot

Smokeymicpot

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,536
I mean South Park Vote or Die episode is what 16 years ago. They had an episode a few years ago legit saying they were wrong. Matt and Trey been pretty clear with their views on Trump since 2015.

Everyone just hooks up old episodes and says the same things over and over.
 
Mekanos

Mekanos

Member
Oct 17, 2018
29,036
I'd say what's done more damage is Democrats thinking their party is above reproach just by being left of the Republicans.
 
Jarmel

Jarmel

The Jackrabbit Always Wins
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Oct 25, 2017
9,640
New York
South Park did way more damage but also Matt and Trey have also acknowledged they fucked up and it's clear they hate Trump viciously.
 
Pooh

Pooh

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,846
The Hundred Acre Wood
Satirical cartoons are so far down the list of things to be upset about when it comes to this that it's incredible to me that people here keep banging this drum.
Those cartoons are a reaction to politics, they didn't create it.

Blame modern media for its "both sides" framing for every news issue -- people (at least theoretically) go to those for information and not entertainment.

Blame the incestuous relationship between politics and corporations. Blame "let's move on" politics where the wealthy refuse to put any of their own in prison regardless of how many crimes they commit. Blame bailing out Wall Street and not Main Street in the aftermath of the market crash. Blame an ever-increasing military industrial complex and its subsequent police militarization. Blame politicians everywhere for not doing anything about it even in blue states. Blame DiFi for hugging Graham and thanking him for a great time as Republicans hypocritically ram through a hyper-conservative handmaid to the supreme court. Blame Lieberman for sabotaging the ACA. Blame politicians getting free top-shelf healthcare while the rest of us have to let our loved ones die alone from COVID. Blame them all for a generation locked into poverty because they wanted an education. Blame them all for dragging their heels on climate change, and kicking that can down the road for their children to deal with as the planet burns.


Or blame a couple of cartoons for satirizing political corruption, I guess.
 
thefit

thefit

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,166
Slayven said:
It is not even both siding, it is completely apathy. "Everything sucks so why bother" is their constant message
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Yeah its this especially South Park, the Simpsons started down the path of progressiveness a long time ago even before they weren't funny anymore. I got curious about the latest SP special and watched it thinking maybe something had changed since last I watched it but no its the same garbage.
 
Westbahnhof

Westbahnhof

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
9,459
Austria
Yaboosh said:
Isn't that family Guy?
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I can't find a full clip online that quick, but nah:
www.businessinsider.com.au

The Simpsons Brand Fox News: "Not Racist, But #1 With Racists"

The Simpsons has been taking ‘biting the hand that feeds you’ to a whole new level of late. A few weeks back the show handed over opening segment duties to street artist Banksy, resulting in an excoriating critique of ‘Simpsons, the global business.’ Last night the show dubbed Fox News “Not...
www.businessinsider.com.au www.businessinsider.com.au



EDIT:
The beginning of this video
 

Deleted member 4367

User requested account closure
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Oct 25, 2017
12,232
Westbahnhof said:
I can't find a full clip online that quick, but nah:
www.businessinsider.com.au

The Simpsons Brand Fox News: "Not Racist, But #1 With Racists"

The Simpsons has been taking ‘biting the hand that feeds you’ to a whole new level of late. A few weeks back the show handed over opening segment duties to street artist Banksy, resulting in an excoriating critique of ‘Simpsons, the global business.’ Last night the show dubbed Fox News “Not...
www.businessinsider.com.au www.businessinsider.com.au

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Huh, there's something about that picture that always made me assume it was family Guy. Never actually seen the source of it before.
 
BlueTsunami

BlueTsunami

Member
Oct 29, 2017
6,598
I feel there truly is a bit of a cross section of the political edgelord behavior regarding trolling and a generation being weened on South Parks shallow political insight. Of course South Park is not the sole reason but I feel it had a effect on how obnoxious the discourse could be.
 
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Joni

Joni

Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,294
The Simpsons punched hard at Republicans. Literally every time they portray them as pure evil.

 
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