:gigachad:

  • bananon [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    If your comic has paragraphs, it’s not a comic, it’s an essay with some doodles.

    Also

    Whataboutism? What about it? :big-cool:

  • Snackuleata [any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    One of the biggest refugee crisis in history

    Aside from being grammatically incorrect (*crises), only true if you somehow discount refugees from the third world.

  • RNAi [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Biggest refugee crisis in recent history

    Lemme check the numbers on the Libyan and Syrian refugee cris.., oh you meant white people don't you?

  • AFineWayToDie [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    "Yes, we're bad. But they are saying we're bad. You don't want to follow their narrative, do you?"

  • ThisMachinePostsHog [they/them, he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    The term "whataboutism" was coined by Americans who didn't want to hear what Russians had to say about our treatment of marginalized people. Like, yeah they were Russian talking points, but that's because nobody in the West would acknowledge them.

    • MasterShakeVoice [undecided]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I think the wordiest "meme" I have ever seen was hiding the entire text of Mein Kampf in image file metadata so rightwingers once again are just worse

    • StellarTabi [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      Honestly this comic got so long winded I couldn't keep focus and understand it's core message.

  • DrBeat [they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Visual metaphor??? No I just draw people enacting my post-argument shower ruminations now.

    • MasterShakeVoice [undecided]
      ·
      3 years ago

      If I was that lib artist I would depict a dying blonde blue-eyed Ukrainian child for three panels, and then the "Focus Shift"-bro steps in front of them to say "BUT WHATABOUT TRANS RIGHTS?"

      Then people would call me names, and rightly so

  • flowernet [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Yeah, I'm engaging in whataboutism

    What about grinding every fascist into Bolognese is wrong?

  • Hoodoo [love/loves]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    Iraq invasion was much larger.

    They had an army 5x the size of Ukraine.

    Libs will pretend it never happened, apparently. This only escalates if NATO declares war on Russia.

  • Omega_Haxors [they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    The problem about using whataboutism is that the original whataboutism was actually true. They were lynching negroes, that's the point.

    Using "whataboutism" to deflect from criticism is both erasing the bad thing and doing the very thing "whataboutism" is supposedly bad for.

    Put concisely: The correct response to "you are lynching negroes" is not to say "no I'm not, shut up, that's a soviet talking point"

    • LGOrcStreetSamurai [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Sadly, it's still a legit critique now. We are still lynching black people (figuratively and literally) and liberals still are more concerned with "BuT RuSsIA!"

      • Omega_Haxors [they/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        It's worse. The lynching have upped in scale to the point it's become systemized.

        • LGOrcStreetSamurai [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Yeah. Shit bums me out. Which is why I hate liberals, they have the ability to recognize the evils of their system but willingly forfeit any ability to do something about it.

        • AcidSmiley [she/her]
          ·
          3 years ago

          also, the "whataboutism" thought terminating cliché isn't something used by US diplomats at the UN general assembly, it's something randos yell at you on twitter.

  • LGOrcStreetSamurai [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    The messed up about the liberal use of “Whataboutism®©℗™” is that they are doing a shitty job of forcing you to accept a plainly false premise. Even in the damn comic “Yes our media definitely have racist biases which should be addressed, However it's also the Russian propaganda machine has been touting…”. The Russian propaganda machine didn't make our media racist. Libs understand and recognize that our media is racist and gross, but "now is not a time to address cause need to do a war". Like what the fuck?. It's just plain hawkishness to dress up in warmer colors. The “Focus shift” is a shift to a legitimate issue, one that we can actually impact and improve. Worse yet, that “focus shift” actually demands liberals, actual y'know, do something. Actually doing something about transphobia, racism, or anything addressable social evil would be a much greater use of time and resources than cheering to awaken the infernal engines of war. There is no real desire to make positive change, they just want an excuse to do Imperialism.

    Liberal “Whataboutism®©℗™” also fails to even be effective rhetoric in that within their false premise they are encouraging the very “Whataboutism®©℗™” they oppose. They aren't even laying out a good trap for you to fall in, if anything they are falling in the trap and getting mad at you for it. She acknowledges that “Biggest Refugee Crisis®©℗™” which just begs the question of what about the all the other refugee crisis? Why do we suddenly care about this one and not the others? Their inability to actually grapple with a complex idea is what gives the room for critiques of their bad ideas.

    They are so bad at being effective, they even bad at being bad.

    Lib mindset is one of ceaseless failure. Lib grindset is one that lacks bitches.

    • wrecker_vs_dracula [comrade/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Also the act of calling out whataboutism is perversely a focus shift in itself. It functions as a dog whistle as well, because the term is only ever used against communists and Russians.

      • AFineWayToDie [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        "Communism killed eleventy brazillion people."

        "That's a lie. And capitalism has killed (insert actual number here.)"

        "WHATABOUTISM"

        • wrecker_vs_dracula [comrade/them]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          This is The Dialogue. Except sometimes “holocaust denial” is used in place of “whataboutism “. For instance, questioning the relative intensity of famines reported under communist regimes is often labeled as such. It’s also used to silence discussion of the necessity of political purges, and the resulting prison population’s size relative to the prison population in today’s United States.

          Edit: or The UK

          • BolsheWitch [she/her, they/them]
            ·
            3 years ago

            It’s also used to silence discussion of the necessity of political purges, and the resulting prison population’s size relative to the prison population in today’s United States.

            :very-intelligent: “have you considered tho that stalin personally strangled all the bolsheviks with his asiatic hordes after doing a heckin trade deal with one of the hitlers”

              • BolsheWitch [she/her, they/them]
                ·
                edit-2
                3 years ago

                There was some weird anticommunist ranting even here about that shit on a Stalin post a couple days ago and I was just like

                :wut:

                I don’t think I even dunked on them, I just logged off. Everyone else seemed to have it handled lol

  • FirstToServe [they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    Whataboutism is when you shift the focus away from the thing you can't change and aren't responsible for towards something you are responsible for and should change.

    And what's the author's point here? That Ukraine is important? Okay, cool?

    • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I'm guessing the whataboutism isn't even something unrelated, like they're pretending it is, it's probably people pointing out that the difference in how refugees are treated in media and by politicians is blatantly racist.

  • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    it's funny that i can tell which character is supposed to be "fool (wrong, dumb opinion)" and which is supposed to be "me (correct, good opinion)" based on the rhythm of the comic and how the characters are posed, yet pink shirt's argument isn't actually better on its surface

    • buh [she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      they should've made one of the characters a soy wojak and the other a yes chad

  • AcidSmiley [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    so what are they telling me? that NATO propaganda taking up more than 50% of the front page on some news sites in my country doesn't detract from other issues at all? seriously? ukraine not giving a shit about many trans women being barred to leave the country due to ukraine's deeply transphobic laws also is an issue suspiciosuly absent from the western press outside of LGBT media, and it's a blow to my face that these liberal fuckheads cheer on the arming a bunch of nazis who have routinely assaulted LGBT people in Ukraine for seven years now with the government constantly looking the other way , but go off about how we have to worry about Russian disinfo campaigns, champ.