#exaggerating his cruelty to cartoon villain status

[mcybree]

Disclaimer that this is just my personal experience on my side of things

As someone who got into the fandom right before dl, i also saw a significant amount of unhealthy fh content when ranchers became a thing. Part of it was just ship fighting but considering this fandom tends to not have “ship wars” (ugh hate that term) I think there’s more to it. The impression I got was that because part of the ranchers lore was “wow someone is finally being nice to Jimmy”, that implied that Scott wasn’t and so the perception of his actions in 3l went from silly teasing to serious. In fact, because of my personal avoidance of ship fighting, my involvement with the abusive fh interpretation was a very slow burn, even after I watched Scott’s 3l and came to a lot of the same conclusions as you. Seeing ur blog was the tipping point for me because it stopped feeling like ranchers angst fuel and became interesting analysis on it’s own.

Yeah yeah what you described here is generally what I noticed too… I remember a couple of very angry posts at the time about toxic fh interpretations when it popped up again in limited life LMAO, as it was never detached from ranchers so people assumed that it was purely an unsubstantiated shipping thing… Which was honestly a fair assumption, considering scott was often made a purely evil entity in those fics and unnecessarily cruel to the point of mischaracterization, which is directly opposed to the most widespread interpretations of his character (“he is the most loyal and reasonable person there he’s so nice” type takes), so explaining toxic fh away as people either baselessly inventing it just to make Ranchers look better or it being a result of homophobia was probably just what made sense at the time.

I was already a toxic fh truther when all this was happening, but I personally stayed quiet because a.) I didnt have a spine back then and b.) neither side was appealing to me. I can assume there were other people who held similar opinions on it, but fh was still fairly popular (gestures to the entire wcsmp tag pre-Milo reveal LMAO) so making posts about it in That Economy felt like a bad idea. Making my fh posts has so far felt like tossing seeds on the ground and luring everyone out of the bushes.

[skipygmod]

Commentary - Why is Spongebob Squarepants currently TERRIBLE

What the hell happened, man? I remember when old and young ones said you were undeniably the best cartoon ever, I remember when they said that you were an improved version of Rocko and Ren & Stimpy.

They used to put you next to icons like Spiderman or Superman, now you’re not what you used to be. What happened? I understand that when a new concept lengthens so much, it stops being what it used to be. But that’s not the problem, Spongebob not only is not what it used to be, it’s just terrible. First the biggest and the most obvious problem is:

Flanderization: What is Flanderization? It is the most desperate resource of every mediocre writter. When a series has been aired for years, and now they’re out of ideas, the medicore writter resorts to turning the characters personalities up to eleven.

I’ll give you an example of what Flanderization is. Picture that I created a character, Totu. Totu is a soccer fan, he practices an hour everyday and values his friends and family. When the show has been airing for 6 years, the original writter leaves and now the medicore writter makes Totu to have soccer as his main trait to the degree of playing soccer naked on his backyard, at dawn, eventhough it’s snowing; sending his friends and family to hell. If they interrupt his soccer practice he’ll probably beat them up, and it’s insinuated that he probably has had sex with his ball and you get the idea.

What it used to be a relative nice and relatable character, now it’s a one-dimensional character, whose representative feauture is Soccer and his hobby is so over the top that it turned out nasty and obnoxious.

Another example of Flanderization is that a character whose favorite food is pie. As the show keeps going, he becomes a pie obsessive. Everytime he appears, he has to do something pie-related. He goes to pie convensions, he wears clothes with pie pictures on them, and he only talks about pie.

To this point is clear what Flanderization is about, and how you noticed, a lot of sitcom series suffer from it. I guess many of you see how this fits perfectly with New Spongebob.

Spongebob, who was a naive, but smart kid, now he’s idiotic as Patrick. Being an idiot never was his trait, he was just naive. He was devoted to his work, because he was a dedicated and industrious person. Now there’s an episode where he falls in love with a fucking hamburger.

UGH.

He bothered cranky Squidward because of his naiveness and for the most part because he was asking for it before, now it looks like he’s in love with Squidward, he spies on him and even breathes heavily in front of him.

In another episode, Spongebob buys a new pet as company for Gary, that pet transforms into a monster and is about to eat Gary, when Spogebob arrives he nags Gary because he thinks Gary is bothering the other pet.

Spongebob wasn’t that stupid in the past, he was able to recognize danger and he even risked himself to save his friends. This is not funny, it doesn’t fit with the show’s humor. It’s sadistic and maddening to the point of satiation.

What’s with the emphasis in making the characters to act like sadistic assholes? What’s the point of it? Patrick also has his problems, he was an idiot before, he didn’t truly affect anyone. He said dumb things and did harmeless idiocy.

Now Patrick is a danger, he’s no longer an idiot, he’s an asshole.

In this scene Patrick is “helping” Spongebob pouring glue so he can be stuck forever. NO really, he’s actually “helping him”

Everything he does ends up in Spongebob or Squidward getting hurt.

“Hahahaha! How funny, his best friend did this to him” – Current writers.

Making emphasis on how doesn’t Patrick realize on the physical or moral harm he’s doing.

I’m not surprised that the Internet hates him so MUCH right now.

Or even worse, making emphasis on how he doesn’t give a fuck about all of these. New Patrick’s levels of assholeness are so high that many episodes can be considered he’s got a villain status since his only function is to torture the characters. And of course, getting away with it.

It’s not like the good old days where karma existed on the series and whose do bad deeds ended up paying the price. Now the point is that the assholes get away and the innocents end up paying the price.

Sandy of course, her only trait is science. Plankton to this point is now a buffoon that makes Mr. Krabs to look like the real villain of the show. Mr. Krabs’ exaggeration for money is so ridiculous that he chooses a few coins instead of his friends or even his own daughter. It’s not like in the past when he cared for spending time with his daughter, helping her on her prom or spending money for Mrs. Puff or worrying about Spongebob’s health.

No, now Mr. Krabs doesn’t give two shits about them and his fatherhood has been exterminated. Now money is more like a sick paraphillia for him. Squidward, well, he was an embittered individual, now he’s sank on depression and every one of his scenes are amazingly painfull to watch.

Yes, it’s not fake. They’re truly suggesting suicide in “Spongebob Squarepants”

Flanderization is undoubtedly one of the most distinctive problems with new “Spongebob Squarepants” but there are also other problems.

Bad Direction: Spongebob Squarepants’ soundtrack is one of the catchiest of any cartoon, however the direction nowadays are wasting its long music repertory to repeat them over and over again. It’s like they lost the rights of the music and they can only use four tracks instead.

What the flying fuck is that?

The habitants design are getting more stilted and humanoid

some of them don’t look like fishes anymore.

And in general, it feels like the show is not going underwater anymore. The references to maritime stuff are gone and instead of putting coral as trees, now they’re putting normal trees. Its sea vibe is absent.

On the other hand, the animation which is not bad, is no longer expresive or visually fun as it used to. They forgot the visual gags, and have replaced them with grotesque imagery and moments. The reason why Hillenburg wanted a storyboard and script based show, is because he wanted the visual jokes to well represented.

And the 3rd problem with this dog’s breakfast is:

Jokes are slow or they’re not even there: There are new episodes where comedy is non-existant and no joke is happening. Other episodes take their comedy on making Spongebob cry or making other characters scream. It’s not enough to say that it is not funny at all and gets so irritating, meanwhile the old Spongebob, you had joke after joke, with well-made dialogues and visual gags; here jokes take an eternity or basically they’re not present.

I won’t deny that the in the old Spongebob had kinda slow jokes too, but there weren’t moments were Spongebob started to count or cry for TWO whole minutes.

We also have to point out that the majority of its comedy is based on cruelty, grotesque and disgusting stuff, the old Spongebob had grotesque stuff too, but it wasn’t the focus point of every joke.

ALWAYS, but ALWAYS, the SAME THING: There are only three types of episodes in this shit:

 One where the focus is to torture a character, (especially, Squidward) and making emphasys on their pain.2)   An episode with a grotesque premise. For example: Spongebob getting pus out of his zits.3)   Plankton stealing the Krabby Patty formula.

An episode with a grotesque premise. For example: Spongebob getting pus out of his zits.

Plankton stealing the Krabby Patty formula.

Writers seem not interested to try something different. I kid you not that I can’t count the bazillion times that an episode ended in Squidward or Mrs. Puff getting arrested. It’s like the writers can’t think of a different wrap-up.“Oh, we tortured Squidward already, what else can we do? Oh, I know, arrest him for some stupid reason, that can be funny”To this point I’m 100% sure that these writers are apathetic of their job and they hate what they’re doing. And finally the last point and the one I hate the most:

The show reduced itself to be the most mean-spirited, unfair, crudest, cruelest, and darkest as it can be (Dark humour done wrong): Also translated to a Ren & Stimpy wannabe. Everybody in this show is trying to make miserable to each other. Everybody hate their lives, everybody are fucked up on the head,

And the biggest focus in the series is to make you uncomfortable with all the shit the characters has to put up with, now is seeing Patrick hurting Spongebob, seeing Squidward going through physical pain and punnishing the innocent. It’s like the show is trying to be a Ren & Stimpy wannabe.

In Ren & Stimpy, the tortures had to do with situation, here happen just because. Out of nowhere. Without a funny context in the situation. It’s just a show made for making the characters suffer most of the time. I know that Squidward suffered in the old episodes, but mostly was because he was asking for it.

He (Squidward) also had his glory moments like in “Band Geeks”. Now Squidward can’t sit down to relax because Spongebob and Patrick come to burn his eyes out, rip peaces of skin off, and of course ending up getting arrested or homeless.

I really don’t have nothing against sadistic humour, I think it’s funny in many series, but Spongebob Squarepants, whose humour wasn’t focused in that, and it had touching moments, it really feels forced and shocking.

The specific moment when the show started its decline was when “Good Neighbors” premiered. Like I said all the characters in the past had their well-deserved reward and well-deserved punnishment according the karma.

Now in the new episodes, Mrs. Puff and Squidward were in so many death-risk moments that they want to KILL Spongebob. It gets far from funny and it gets uncomfortable, disturbing and ruins the touching moments of the show.

“This is not funny, it’s INSANITY, it’s DISTURBING, seriously, this is not “Drawn Together” or “Family Guy”. This was supposed to be aimed to 8-Years old”

Meanwhile, in another dimmension

Like Mrs. Puff worrying for making Spongebob pass, Squidward felt sorry for making Spongebob cry or even Squidward cryied for Spongebob because he thought he was dead. And even when Squidward gave away his belonging on Christmas to make Spongebob happy

(Go to 9:37) Have in mind that it was SQUIDWARD who said THAT, which makes this triple as touching.

What happened to you, man? I used to be your fan, at the end there’s nothing else to see, another screw-up from Nickelodeon, and another show that doesn’t deserve new episodes, if the 2nd movie is either going to be good or bad, I really don’t know what to think, I hope I do, and it may be the finale, nevertheless, the damage is already done.

(Go to 9:59 of the video)