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I‘m not sure who drew the cartoon above, depicting the travails of a long-suffering “nice guy” as he tries to break down the emotional wall put up by a woman he has a crush on an obsession with.
It’s been floating around the internet for a while; on Twitter it’s been accompanied with the mocking caption: “A rare picture depicting the day to day life of our brothers in the friend zone.”
I doubt the original artist had any idea just how unsettling this cartoon really is. The pastel colors and delicate lines don’t save it from its inherent creepiness; if anything, they make it worse. Why is this dude so determined to tear down the wall his unfortunate crush is working so hard to construct? What’s he going to do once he breaks through, murder her with his love ax?
That last question isn’t even a joke, really.
Earlier this month, the cartoon was posted on the awesome blog A Good Cartoon, an ongoing catalog of cartoons that are not actually good at all, where it got the epic takedown it deserved.
One commenter asked:
how you gonna draw some shit that makes you look like Jack Nicholson in The Shining and still feel like you’re the victim
Another added:
I DON’T *CHOP* UNDERSTAND *CHOP* WHY *CHOP* YOU CAN’T *CHOP* JUST *CHOP* LET ME *CHOP* BONE YOU *CHOP* ON AN INDEFINITE *CHOP* EXCLUSIVE *CHOP* BASIS *CHOP* WHEN *CHOP* I’M *CHOP* SO *CHOP* NIIIIIIIIIIIICE *CHOP*
But it was someone called Digital Discipline who offered the ultimate retort, in the form of a poem (“The Craven”) by Edgar Allan Bro:
Incessantly, I heard a smacking,
as of some entitled dipshit whacking,
whacking on my chamber door.Resignedly, I placed another layer,
voicing a quiet, repeated prayer,
“This dude thinks he’s a player,
but I am not a point to score,
he should f*ck off and bother me no more.”Quoth the friendzoned, “F*cking wh*re.”
THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE
H/T — @catmara73
Haven’t these guys seen The Shining?
Oh wait, they probably think Jack Nicholson’s character is a role model.
I recall this from agoodcartoon quite fondly.
-waves arms at @dlouwe-
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!
Badly drawn ax or badly drawn sledgehammer? Super-creepy, regardless…
I’m not quite sure how this started or when this shit’ll end
But I think it turned around when my phone to him I did lend
After I got it back seems he was blowin’ it up
And upon no meal could I sup
without his
Gaze beatin’ down on my body through the window
Nobody’d fucking ask for this
I don’t know why he’s doing this, but it doesn’t matter all that much
When he swears up and down to give me something tangentially resembling “bliss”
…. . .-.. .–. — .
So… why am I getting the worst sense of déjà-vu I’ve ever had, and why does my brain believe so strongly that I’ve already seen that cartoon, and read that poem, a pretty fucking long time ago ?
I’m gonna whip out the google-fu now to figure out where and when, before I start questioning more of my own sanity.
@Judas Peckerwood
It’s a hamaxe.
Not to be confused with the picksaw.
ETA : @Troubelle
Nice one ! Weirdly enough, I’m hearing this to the tune of Knopfler’s Heavy Fuel. Go figure.
….mwee, that’s today’s scratch out. I swear I’ll warm up again soon.
Glad to see I was far from the only one who instantly thought of The Shining!
Or else that season 3 episode of Angel with the half human half demon who’s blood turns men into violent misogynists. Billy. That was the scariest episode in the whole Buffy/Angel universe. Even more than Hush.
That cartoon doesn’t look friendly to Nice Guys, to me. I could be wrong, but—to me—even that bizarre day-to-day-life-in-the-friend-zone caption doesn’t make the image look sympathetic to the dude. The image makes the caption seem tacked-on and oblivious instead.
That poem restores my faith in humanity.
Truly great. (Even the moniker “Edgar Allan Bro” was brilliant.)
That girl should really take a few ques from Rogal Dorn. Either the guy would be discouraged and leave because he can’t pierce her impenetrable fortress, or he turns to Chaos, thus giving the girl the moral victory of not submitting to a creepy guy who can’t hear the word “no.”
Dude, a bit of friendly advice – if she’s actually building a wall to keep you away from her, it’s seriously time to put down that ax and move on.
Ha, I remember seeing this a while back.
@Troubelle
*tosses away scrap paper* Is that…is that morse code?
Sinkable John: I think it’s been… er…. tumbling around tumblr for a while now, and resurfaces on agoodcartoon.tumblr.com when something interesting gets appended.
@SinkableJohn
I think AGoodCartoon actually put this cartoon up quite a while ago, and that addition to the post is from the original go-around. It’s been gaining tumblr traction again lately and so AGC has been reblogging it with some of the new additions that have been popping up, which is I think probably why Dave thought it was quite new. I never get sick of this one, though, so I’m happy to see it posted here.
Ninjaed a couple of times ?
@ramen
Remember, we’re talking about a bunch of dudes who think that threatening to murder judges is good PR.
@Jack:
Yes, and it appears to read “HEL<AR>”. I don’t know what that means.
@leftwingfox & Viscaria
That explains everything, including why my reverse searches only turned up pages I’d never visited before.
THANK YOU. I was actually, seriously starting to question my already-failing memory even more and I was fucking crying for fuck’s sake. This day’s really looking for the most egregious ways to get any worse.
What bothers me the most about this is that there are people who believe the girl is the one who’s being an asshole in this cartoon…
@Laughter at Bigots
*retrieves scrap paper* I got Helrte, whatever that is…
(If it is morse code Troubelle knows my weakness and she must be eliminated. You ALL must be eliminated. No one must know my love of deciphering things.)
@JSun
The one thing that frightens me about that image is how isolated the entire scenario is. There isn’t anyone who is noticing or intervening so this girl is forced to build her barrier until someone comes and lends her a helping hand and drive him away.
EDIT: Wait, that said “help me”? Google kept telling me that the code was for “eel”
The code says HELPME. Aww, Troubelle, I thought it was great <3
((The font here translates a double-dash as an em-dash, and compresses ellipsi into a single character. Otherwise, you can translate here))
As for the original post? Have seen that cartoon before, and the poem (which is awesome). I blame our cultural position on love, really. Men are supposed to pursue women until they finally “lower their barriers”. ‘Cause women are prizes that guys win by putting in enough effort.
Fuck every rom-com and every romantic drama piece ever. Eugh. And fuck every guy who doesn’t have the empathy or werewithal to realize that they’re watching a goddamn movie, and standing outside of a womans’ apartment in the rain after she’s thrown you out isn’t romantic and it won’t win her back, it’s just gonna creep her out and confirm to her that she made the right choice.
I am acidic today, jees!
I wandered lonely as a bro
That won’t do less than a HB8,
When all at once I saw a chick,
That was too hot to even rate;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
It wasn’t creepy when I begged her,
“Pay attention to me please”
I put her on a pedestal
I pretended that I was her friend
But only did nice things for her
As a means to an end
I gazed and gazed but little thought
That relationships are not bought:
Niceness coins as currency
For sex, makes perfect sense to me.
It must be that she likes bad boys,
and superficial, shallow toys.
These grapes aren’t sour, I just don’t want more,
I’m a Nice Guy, You’re a whore.
GASP Troubelle it was AMAZING tho.
http://33.media.tumblr.com/d7e447482fc9bb9f18472aa44d2a6542/tumblr_na6db864421rz6w0do2_500.gif
I love your songs.
..- .-. .- -. . .-. -.. .— -.- .-.. — .-.. -… ..- – ….- .-. . .- .-.. -.– ..- –. . -. . .-. -..
@Ooglyboggles, I dunno if I get the same from it, myself. I get a look of determination or at least resignation from the girl. She knows the drill. Get up, get dressed eat breakfast, lay down another course of bricks, head to school. Dude looks oblivious, like he’s tearing the wall down so he can fetch the wallet he left behind it.
The sad thing for me is exactly that, though, really. How normalized it is for the both of them. She’s building defenses as the everyday chore it is, he’s battering away obliviously, thinking about what he’s gonna get on the other side and not that she’s putting those goddamn bricks there for a reason.
The anime art style is about right, though. Rom-com anime is basically a primer in how to treat women as objects with value only along certain axes. Apologies to anyone who likes it, but I can’t bring myself to watch any of that stuff.