Our rules have been updated and given
their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it,
follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
Strip Search - Training Day
Posts
every episode there's a new piece, but its repeated constantly for every other segment, which gives it a monotonous feeling, if the training is scored the same way as the final.
This one's not even so much of a comic as it is a reaction image. It got reposted by some teenager talking about school, and ended up with some thirty thousand notes. Because tumblr.
And this one made it out of tumblr into one of those meme/joke aggregate sites. Halolz, I think? At least they credited me for that one.
I know not everyone is taking it the wrong way, but it wasn't meant to be a bragging point. I knew I could do x (short amusing comics), but because of y (my much more elaborate illustration work) I was worried people would think z (that I posed a much bigger threat than I actually did). Looks like I was right!
Yep! I drew 14 cards for the core set, alongside Alexandria Neonakis and Steve Hamaker. Sure didn't help me play actual ping pong though, I tell you what.
I'm dismayed that if a contestant shows confidence some people label them as "unlikeable." All the Artists have been pretty open about what they think are their strengths and weaknesses. Strip Search does not have "bad guys" and "good guys" it has people. People that READ THESE COMMENTS.
Google+: http://gplus.to/kathleen
Cat Comic: http://thingsmycathates.tumblr.com
No, ping pong tables are sadly pretty rare here in the US. The best you can generally hope for is a friend with a table in the basement, and if you ever reach even a moderate level of competency you'll have no one to play against. Unless you're near a big university with a bunch of foreign students.
Seriously, ping pong in the US is a joke. Our best players suuuuuuck on the international stage- they won't practice together because they don't want to "show their serves". Can you imagine if a countries best tennis players wouldn't train together for international events to try and maintain an edge in national ones? Or basketball players? Or hockey players?
Shit's fucked.
Yes, traditional penhold had/has a problem with the backhand, which is why the reverse penhold backhand was invented. However, at this level I don't think it makes much of a difference. Monica just noticed that Lexxy's forehand was good and her backhand was weak, so she aimed for Lexxy's backhand.
You and me both. There's no one and no where to play here at my uni...and the robot gets pretty old pretty fast ;_;
Also, Monica cosplaying as Tavis in the next episode is awesome. :-D
As for all of you naysayers, I thought for duffers at ping pong they did very well. It's not a very popular game in the US except for very specific instances so I don't find it unusual that many people have not played. It is quite enjoyable, and I love playing, but I'm not very competitive at it since I don't approach it as a win at all costs game, but it is very fun to have a few beers and just hit the ball back and forth.
I'm kind of curious about the prize Katie won. And the teaser just makes me hunger for the next episode. This show has really kept interested to see what exactly happens each time.
Grats to Katie!
I've been weirded out and confused about the preview of the next challenge... then I finally realized, the PA staff have ping pong related shirts on and one of them is holding a ping-pong paddle case. So they aren't actually... you know... hitting and kicking each other next episode. Phew.
That being said, I have a feeling that getting smoked in ping-pong by the PA staff might land you in a hospital just the same.
"Fire."
TEAM TANGENT!!!
That's a bingo. Confidence does not equal arrogance. Mike, Jerry, Khoo, Scott, Kris ... a bunch of our heroes are confident in their skills. It's part of what's cool about them. Part of what's cool about some of these contestants is that they are also confident in their skills. Because have you seen their skills? They're fucking great!!!
Peeps have to stop letting their own insecurities make them delusional in their judgment of other peeps and maybe they'd have a little more fun and happy feels in their lives. Like a super smart dude with a Sam Rockwell avatar once said on an internet message board, "Don't let very capable people intimidate you, let them inspire you."
(And just in case it's not blatantly obvious, this is not in any way an underhanded shot at Katie's comments in the episode, it's an overhanded shot at some commenters in the comments.)
I'd like to build on this. I've seen a couple of the other subforums, and what Kathleen is bringing up is also why some of the contestants do not post in this subforum. Lexxy took it well, Amy's taken it well, but several of the others are cringing watching their new friends have to take that kind of abuse. There aren't villains here. There aren't going to be any. Khoo kicked out all the potential villains before they even set foot in the house. Stop trying to create villains out of thin air.
Editing is definitely getting better with each episode, and it wasn't bad to begin with. I haven't had even the most remote interest in reality television since The Mole ended way back in 2002, but I've been pretty hooked on Strip Search since around Episode 3. It feels good to have a show of this style to look forward to again, and hope that it gets picked up for a second run.
As for the music, yeah, the lack of variety hurts sometimes, but I think a bigger issue is that most of the music just lacks flavor. Bearing that in mind, the reason I originally delved into this thread was to post how much I liked the track that starts around the 05:20 mark for this episode, very chill, awesome take on a frequently used track. Are they any plans to make any of the music used for the show available in the future?
The thing is though, just because this is a small-scale show with a slightly different process and endgame from most reality tv shows, it IS a reality TV show. And whether you are trying to deliberately manufacture drama or not, there both -is- drama being shown, -and- you're fighting against 13 years of Survivor, and Big Brother, where this is what you DO.
Instead of deciding that the unwillingness of some contestants to post in this forum is indicative of the fact that the haters are doing a bad and wrong thing and chasing them away, you should consider it a mark of the success of the show that it has such a polarizing effect on the viewers. Someone may appear to HATE a contestant, but I think even those people are able to understand that the persona being presented (no matter how genuine you are trying to make it) is still a persona that is the result of extremely limited information.
I think a thing that would mitigate the drama-creation and hostile posting for future seasons would be another episode each week that was -just- the comics hanging out challenge free, just interacting. When all we really get to see is competition, and comments on competition, the idea that we're attributing a stronger competitive drive to them than they have shouldn't really come as a surprise.
My middle school (in north seattle) had a ping pong table in the activity center, and there was always a line to play at lunch.
Some schools here have a tough time paying for books.
Personally, my interactions with the various contestants via the forums, twitter, reading their comics, etc, have all had different effects on how I view each one of them. Some I liked based just on the show, and then given other experiences I ended up forming a more neutral or negative opinion. Some haven't seemed, based on the show, like people I might like, but then after those other interactions my opinion became more positive. Just because they're real actual people doesn't mean they're immune from opinions, positive or negative. Just because I think they're all probably pretty decent human beings doesn't mean I have to like or dislike each one either.
tl;dr: in a limited context, some people are going to interpret things differently from other people.
paxprank.org | paxcommunity.net | Steam | XBL
I mean, it's one thing when people are saying stuff that's obviously out of line—which has been pretty swiftly dealt with—but the rest is just criticism of people/characters common to well, any show. Really not sure what kind of dialogue you're (Kathleen) expecting people to have over a competitive show with favorites and the like. They voluntarily put themselves on a show which put them in a position where others may or may not say nice things about them based off what they do and how it's presented to us...
The thing is, though, it isn't polarizing except in this specific subforum. Everywhere else, other subforums, other websites, it's overwhelmingly positive commentary. Everywhere but the Hub.
With respect, I'm not sure what you're arguing here. It seems as if you're arguing that there is a significant percentage of people on the PA forums that have a vendetta of some kind against the contestants, and I have a hard time believing that. I'd instead argue that since this is the "official" discussion area for new episodes, most of the folks that are inspired to comment at length on new episodes are going to come here to do it, resulting in a wider variety of different opinions.
And two, I also expect peeps to be sophisticated enough to realize that the artists probably would like to read these threads and so commenters should be cool enough not to want to make those artists feel bad about how they might be coming across on the show. Especially when, given point one, we don't have any genuine reason to want to make the artists feel bad. I also expect peeps to realize that artists can be some of the most sensitive people around, which often is why they're artists. Their sensitivity is their greatest strength when it comes to being creative, but it also can be their Achilles' heel when it comes to receiving feedback.
Three is simply that the only other reality TV I watch with any regularity is The Ultimate Fighter, and if you think anyone on Strip Search is arrogant or odious in any way then you ain't seen nothing. You have to have lived a pretty sheltered life to find any of these Strip Searchers arrogant or unlikable. What makes it most weird is that in the wake of their time on the show these artists clearly all still like each other a whole bunch. If anyone was really arrogant or off-putting would they still be palling around like they so clearly are?
She said on her tumblr that she's half-Chinese. I didn't really see it either, but there you go.
I don't understand why people take direct shots at other people based on something that doesn't involve a direct interaction. Never really have.
However, when Lexxy says, "I had a couple of comics go viral on Tumblr," what I think is, "Man, they're making her look like a jerk." I don't have any reason to think she really is a jerk- what jerk helps make brownies for a bunch of people she just met a week ago, much less people she's competing with for a pretty sweet prize? But when that's pretty much the whole sound bite, and we don't see any of the context around why she may have said that, it sounds like a weak-ass internet kid boast.
It's not a unique occurrence, either. I can't pull them out of my brain right now, but there have been other times something has been picked out where what she says goes past a simple "I'm confident" and into a place where, if someone talked like that all the time, you would want to stuff them in a garbage can and roll them down a hill. The fact she almost certainly is not that kind of person doesn't change the perspective of her that the show is sometimes giving. So it doesn't surprise me if some people take the short route to thinking she's unlikable rather than viewing it as the editing making her seem that way.
Mind you, I don't think y'all are doing a bad job, far from it. I'm loathe to even criticize the editing of Lexxy's parts specifically because I don't know what you have to work with. It's entirely plausible that those are sometimes the most interesting or relevant comments she makes, even though they're a much smaller percentage of what she says overall than of what we see. And I absolutely believe that negative comments need to be carefully worded to be constructive and not douchey. But if it bothers you that people are seeing her, or whoever, as a "bad guy"... I'm sorry, but it's definitely not unreasonable that someone might end up with that opinion.
As much as I've railed against negative reactions like that I do get where they're coming from because in all honesty, my instinct is the same. I get that same snarky spark of, "Oh look at you Miss Big-Time Viral Tumblr Cartoonist", so I know what that feeling is. I don't have a heart of gold.
But I do have a brain of brain matter which then tells me, "Wait a second snarko, this person isn't taking anything from you, this person is simply expressing happiness at something good which happened to them as the result of a TON of hard work and years of study, and if you can't enjoy your successes then what's the point of all that hard work and study?" And then I realize that of course the problem isn't Lexxy's hard-earned success or her expression of happiness at it, it's that for that initial instant it sets off a defense mechanism in my brain which is trying to protect me from feeling like a lesser person for not yet having had the success Lexxy has had.
So do I agree with a lot of your post Spiffy, I just disagree with your final thought that "it's definitely not unreasonable that someone might end up with that opinion", because I think that opinion comes not from reason, but from instinct. From irrational kneejerk defensiveness. If we use reason it seems far more likely to me that we come to the opinion that Lexxy is almost certainly not a "bad guy" at all, just a victim of imperfect instinctual prejudices in some people which aren't helpful or constructive or ever going to lead to any actual good stuff happening. What she really is is an extremely talented and hard-working artist whose successes, and the joy she has with her successes, would much more intelligently be regarded as a pretty damn sweet source of inspiration.
It did seem a bit contrived in that fashion rather then wildcard! so I suppose there's a bunch of people hanging out to see her go to elimination again. Which, put me down for it, unless she or Monica win immunity, it's going to be her and Monica next up.
Which - put me down for Team Monica because I discovered Settlers of Catan thanks to her comic!
Everything you say here is correct, and I want to be careful not to get wrapped up in a semantic argument. Maybe it would have been better to say we shouldn't be surprised if someone ends up with a negative opinion of Lexxy, because those instincts you refer to form our baseline perceptions of people, and not everyone has the inclination to analyze why they feel how they feel about a person.
I fully believe if someone is going to express a negative opinion of someone on the show, they should take enough time to think it through and understand why that feeling exists. But when you have a large audience for something, the only way to make sure no one lashes out due to some automatic defensiveness is to not give them reason to feel defensive. And given that Kathleen is the one making this rant, I think it's important to point out that the way Lexxy's words are cut into the show may be as important as the words themselves in triggering that reflex. Or not. It really depends on what else of hers they had to work with.
If we look at it a different way: These people are users of this forum, and there are rules about what you can say about users of this forum that aren't being followed.
I assumed from the first time I saw a pic of her when they posted bios that she was half-Asian, but then I know a lot of half-Asians. I'm curious, those of you who are surprised, did you think she was just white?
Also, gotta agree with MicroMagic, she has been adorbz the last couple episodes. Hope she survives her first elimination!