Condemned by History cleanup thread

I feel like at this point anyone who watches the English dub knows what they're getting into? I know my friends and I have sought it out intentionally because it's just dumb fun.

Yeah, cut that. The dub is still beloved as a shitpost and most people agree the original is boring. No one's taking it as a serious dub or as trendsetting, it's beloved for being a weird outlier in the scene.

Edited by PhiSat on Mar 18th 2024 at 12:24:36 PM

May I say something? Some pages ago someone spoke of the entry for Sonic and the Secret Rings. I think it counts as part of CBH, but only on a gameplay level and the entry should only talk of the gameplay as the main reason why the game is CBH.

Aesthetic wise, music wise, story wise, the game is well liked in the community. Secret rings is full on an example of Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game, despite the YMMV not having it as an example.

And I feel the "the plot was seen as more ridiculous, with Sonic being trapped in One Thousand and One Nights now seeing the same dismissal and skepticism as him becoming a werehog or wielding a sword, with the additional problem of lacking Black Knight's saving graces of Sonic's characterization and its Hard Truth Aesop" is wrong. I have seen criticism of the story, but not because of the concept.

Pariah, a reviewer who speaks fondly of all Sonic games, does admit the game is pretty bad now at days.

Edited by Tomodachi on Mar 18th 2024 at 11:43:38 AM

Secret Rings does seem more like an Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game-type. I’ve never heard gameplay talked about beyond its So Okay, It's Average design and Mario Party minigame collection. The whole “story is absurd” angle does seem nitpicky, especially since this is a series where a teenage blue hedgehog fights a mad scientist, and Sonic of all characters has had weirder installments.

I mean, nitpicky though it may be, if it's a legitimate criticism the game has received, we can't just dismiss it.

Light bump.

Edited by RWBYraikou888 on Mar 18th 2024 at 6:11:33 AM

Not familar with the series but wouldn't the later run just fall into Fanon Discontunuity

It's to the point where fans of the earlier eras of the comic would prefer not to read any of it, not just the far-right Author Tract era, so Condemned by History may make sense in this case.

Yeah, it's basically abandoned any past character arcs and even characters all together, as major characters like Slick, Criminy and Squigley rarely appear and when they do they are out of character interchangeable mouthpieces. (Even the radfem era despite also being filled with Author Tract comics at least continued arcs/storylines with the characters and had characters keep their personality). So, fans say there is no real reason to read the older comics since if you like the characters and stories they will all disappear by the end. (Some people even go as far to say that the comic was never good even in the classic days and that it was only liked due to not being a lot of webcomics out at the time so it was more novel and unique)

Let me see if I can offer a solid writeup with this consensus.

• Sinfest was originally considered one of the most influential webcomics on the internet, with its Black Comedy and likable cast of characters providing what many considered a fresh experience compared to other webcomics at the Turn of the Millennium. However, most of its audience started feeling alienated at the start of The New '10s when it took a Filibuster Freefall and dedicated most of its time to a serialized narrative that mostly covered radical feminist topics, seemingly losing sight of what made the comic work to many. The last straw would be when, in 2019, it was transformed into an Author Tract for far-right conservative topics, with most of the characters fans liked from the early days being heavily Out of Focus, and any and all fans from the comic's start having given up due to the undesired shift in tone. This alienating of the audience ended up having the caveat of the early comics being put under scrutiny, with many coming to the conclusion that they were nowhere near as good as remembered, as most of what made Sinfest stand out became standard practice in the webcomic scene throughout the rest of the 2000s, and knowing how the fan-favorite characters would become sidelined down the line, it makes seeing their early ventures come across as All for Nothing. As a result, Sinfest is seen nowadays as a work that wasn't anywhere near as influential as was originally believed, and only got worse as time went on.

Looks good!

Just wanted to rework the Steve Cutts section a bit in CondemnedByHistory.Web Original:

• Steve Cutts' earlier animations were acclaimed in the internet thanks to his unique animation styles and short films exploring human nature and society, such as MAN and Happiness, which resulted in Moby hiring Cutts to make a music video for "Are You Lost In The World Like Me?" song from the album These Systems Are Failing, winning a couple of awards in the process. As his audience grew up, however, they became more critical of them for several reasons: Most of his videos showcase the flaws of humanity, but never ever show any sort of redeeming factor for them, going all in for the Humans Are Bastards trope, resulting in the supposed examinations of human nature actually being full-blown criticisms about humanity and that nothing can be done about it. Second, some of the "mistakes" humanity has made actually were benefits: For one example, a particular message in "Are You Lost In The World Like Me?" is that mobile phones are causing people to rely on Social Media Before Reason- yet the same phones have allowed them to view more areas in places where traditional media outlets could not, such as police brutality. The final nail in the coffin is that his animation style for MAN, Happiness and "Are You Lost In The World Like Me?" have not aged well at all, with the latter's rubber hose style being seen as a shallow representation. Nowadays, opinions of them is that they were primary made as depression porn and not as interesting as it used to be, with the exception of Cutts' newer animations such as A Brief Disagreement, and that's only because they tend to focus more on Black Comedy rather than sending a message.

Is it good? If so, is it a bit too long or close enough?

Looks good to me. More descriptive than what's already there.

Anything I need to shorten?

I think it's reasonable length.

I have one that could possibly add:

• So... You're a Cartoonist? was a very popular webcomic about the author Andrew Dobson's challenges as an unemployed cartoonist. However, the webcomic soon devolved into Author Tracts about feminism, race and homosexuality. Things didn't get any better as the artstyle took a dip in quality due to Dobson refusing to put in any effort to change his style, instead making strips portraying himself in the right and his detractors as strawmen. As Dobson's past with inflation art was unraveled and his behavior online worsened, the webcomic's output began to dry up until Dobso disappeared from social media and removed all of the So... You're a Cartoonist as well as his other works. Nowadays, the webcomic is now hard to find except in blog posts about Dobson.

The Twilight Saga is currently listed on the Literature page, but it's a work that's always been infamous for having a huge hatedom, even at the peak of its success, so it can't count even if the series' defenders have since turned against it.

Yeah, its even Vindicated by History to a degree, if not undergone Critical Backlash.

But is the comic now seen as worse than it was back then? My impression is that it was always seen as a sometimes-amusing gag comic with decent art and still is, and it's Dobson's own behaviour more than anything in the comic that makes it so notorious.

Yeah, Twilight shouldn't count. It was viciously mocked when it was first released, and, if anything, opinions have softened on it in later years.

Remove Twilight.

x3 The issue is Dobson's own life bled heavily into the comic and led it to being ridiculed when the reality behind a bunch of situations was dug up. One of the most infamous examples is a full Straw Feminist Author Tract strip where Dobson fantasized about beating photographers taking photos of a cosplayer with a baseball bat. He portrays the photographers as creeps and him coming to the cosplayer's defense, but in reality she was fully consenting and happy and he was scowling in the background.

Edited by PhiSat on Mar 20th 2024 at 4:52:49 AM

Even the Twilight example has this in it’s beginning:

That is just an admission that the example doesn’t fit.

Phi Sat, I dont agree the original ghost stories is boring. I watched it dubbed faithfully in Latin American Spanish and I am far from alone that the original stands on its own as at LEAST So Okay, It's Average, I agree with you that the ADV dub is NOT Condemned by History but I DO NOT agree the original is boring.

RE: Ghost Stories, while we do have a fuller context behind the English dub and why it exists, and that a lot of the claims made by its director are largely BS (as the example spells out), I'd say fans are more just split by either "I know, but I still enjoy the dub" vs. "I hate this, why did we ever think this was funny?" than a unified hatred against the dub. I wouldn't count it as an example, it feels like it's written so a troper can try and build a consensus that they hope can be more widespread.

Edited by harryhenry on Mar 22nd 2024 at 8:06:26 AM