149

Acknowledge
Posted on January 31, 2019 by David M Willis
January's first Patreon bonus strip is up, and it's about ALICE!  Everyone voted for Alice!  Remember Alice?  Anyway, all Patrons can go check out the new bonus strip at the Dumbing of Age Patreon. And, hey, you can also upgrade to seeing tomorrow's strip a day early every day! That comes in handy sometimes.

149 thoughts on “Acknowledge”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Curse you, social media revealing everything to my entire unfiltered audience!

    1. Doctor_Who

      What’s worse, because they tagged everything #GarbageRoof they keep getting ads for Hefty bags and shingles.

      1. Marsh Maryrose

        They tagged nothing, because Dorothy is lying. Walky’s last tweet was in 2015, Amber’s in 2016.

        1. ObiKemnebi

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/04-of-mike-and-men/steak/

          The actual Twitter accounts don’t keep up with the comics, unfortunately. Timeline confused me, but i think this is something like a week ago, in comic time. Ish. Roughly. I think.

        2. BBCC

          Nope. That was the day before yesterday in comic time.

        3. StClair

          Sounds about right for “earlier this afternoon”, comic time.

        4. Deadjolras

          You should look at their replies, too, instead of just their tweets. Dorothy is telling the truth and the tweets were made the same days Willis uploaded the strips featuring them. Their convo starts here: https://twitter.com/its_walky/status/1017984112282554369, and there’s another one here: https://twitter.com/its_walky/status/1018359269085908992.

        5. BBCC

          That only works if you have twitter.

    2. LeslieBean4Shizzle

      This is why I only use Twitter professionally. That is, for job related things. Likewise Facebook. My personal life is entirely undocumented online.

      I am the night.

      1. Zach

        You terrify me!

      2. Needfuldoer

        Agreed. Mine’s just random snark, actual personal stuff stays in meatspace. The mid-2000s taught me to not trust the web with real dirt.

      3. Delicious Taffy

        People keep talking about Facebook like it still exists outside of Messenger.

        1. Clif

          Facebook is where I sometimes keep up with young relatives and old friends. Google+ is where I keep up with the things I care about. And of course it’s going away. I’ve opened a Disporia account, but I’m losing all my carefully crafted circles.

        2. Clif

          Tried twitter, disjointed mess, was probably doing it wrong.

        3. Ana Chronistic

          I don’t think there’s a correct anything when Twitter is involved

        4. Needfuldoer

          No, I think that’s by design.

      4. begbert2

        What is this ‘Twitter’ you all speak of? Has it something to do with twits?

        My entire online presence is one message board and this comment section. The way I figure it only massive corporations and spammers should know everything about me; normal people don’t get some easy cheatsheet into my life.

        1. Annonymouse

          Yeah but the massive corporations are more than happy to monetize that information by selling copies to whomever is interested in putting up the cash, no questions asked.

      5. Roborat

        You are a duck based superhero?

    3. Deanatay

      How DARE social media spy on ME! I use social media to spy on everyone ELSE!!

  2. AnvilPro

    Joyce needs to stop being a judgey Joyce ASAP. Interested how Dotty will react considering she already knew about this but was trying to cool things off between herself and Walky

    1. BenRG

      Joyce’s situation is an odd one. She feels that she needs to disapprove of Walky moving on so fast for Dorothy’s sake but, on the other hand, she can’t stop wanting to pair off all her acquaintances. Because of this, she’s like a creature with two brains trying to run in two opposite directions at the same time!

      1. abysswatcher1993

        It is as if she were two different people in her own head fighting for control, and the lack of a scifi elements makes those two sides not realize the duality… hmmm….

        1. MatthewTheLucky

          Except in this case it’s Joyce and Super-Joyce.

        2. BenRG

          Or Joyce and Anti-Joyce!

  3. JetstreamGW

    Pff. Fail.

    Dotty doesn’t give a crap, y’all. Well, I mean, she does, but she’s not gonna make a THING of it.

  4. Stephen Bierce

    *plays Hall & Oates’ “Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid” on the hacked Muzak*

    1. motorfirebox

      *initializes a botnet algorithm and uses other hacker words to hack the hacked Muzak, plays Garfunkel & Oates’ “Only You”*

  5. Nono

    Alright, now for Joyce to get ‘outraged’ and for Dorothy to be nonplussed about the whole affair.

  6. King Daniel

    Joyce will immediately unfollow Walky once she sees how many tweets are tagged #stool.

  7. Yumi

    This is what you get for not sliding into her DMs, Walky.

  8. butts

    something something social media blah blah

  9. Jess

    Today’s strip is just full of good faces, tbh.

  10. Yotomoe

    “Damnit, I knew I shouldn’t have tweeted out ‘Literally balls deep in my new girlfriend, Amber’ on my account 6 times last night. Especially cuz it was only true two of those times! I just really like using the phrase BALLS DEEP”

    1. newllend(henryvolt)

      “Probably shouldn’t have tweeted out eating out my new girlfriend’s cupcakes either or at least say I was literally doing it since she bought actual cupcakes.”

  11. Bagge

    JOYCE, don’t be a gossip.

    1. Reltzik

      Yeah, that’s Twitter’s job.

  12. Zatar

    Oh my god. Those weren’t DM’s? How…….How many Twitter conversations in this comic aren’t DM’s.

    1. Yumi

      In this case, you could tell they weren’t DMs by how they were formatted. So I guess…pay attention to that to deduce it for the rest of them?

    2. Opus the Poet

      That’s why I unfollowed all the teens I know outside of the kids shot at in MSDHS massacre. I really didn’t want to get live tweeted about their love lives after the first time. It was like watching a train wreck in ultra-slow motion, as every car twisted the coupling to shards before crashing into the other cars from behind. And in some of those tweets that was not vivid imagery, that’s what was going on while they were tweeting…?

      1. Kamino Neko

        I’ve unfollowed adults for that. Famous adults.

      2. StClair

        also like one of those “NO, don’t go into the dark basement, what the FUCK is wrong with you?” movies, but with real people.

  13. Roger

    they were flirting on twitter are you serious. this relationship was doomed from the beginning.

  14. Bicycle Bill

    Joyce must be studying geometry.  Her triangle grin has turned into a perfect circle.

  15. Clif

    Last Walky face is the best face.

    1. Keulen

      It’s Walky’s version of the Joyce freak-out face, and I love it!

      1. Geeky Warrior

        I know, I almost missed it, and then lost it when I saw it. Hahahaha

  16. Yotomoe

    Is it weird to still follow your ex on the twitter. I mean I’m still friends with my ex on facebook but that’s more out of laziness.

    1. DailyBrad

      It depends, I guess. They’re trying to be civil about the whole thing, but it’s a work in progress.

    2. newllend(henryvolt)

      I still have my ex’s phone number and I’m still friends with her on Facebook but it’s been nearly three years since the last time I’ve talked to her…. ain’t too weird though.

    3. missilentmurmur

      One of my exes unfriended me, then added me again saying “we are above being childish”, then a few months later he asked me on fb never to say hello in person again.
      Another, on the other hand, remained my fb friend, and years later we became good friends. Life is messy.

    4. Fred Garber

      According to Dan Savage, you want to be friends with some of your exes, because that means you are an adult person who knows sometimes things just don’t work, and you don’t need to stay in a bad relationship until it is a burning wreck, and you can exit a relationship without setting the earth on fire. On the other hand, you shouldn’t be TOO friendly with all your exes, because you are an adult and know how to draw boundaries when intimacy is over. There’s no hard and fast rules.

      1. MatthewTheLucky

        Thank god for Dan Savage, the Internet’s Wise Gay Friend.

  17. BarerMender

    I think old Dot-o is due for a trim.

    1. ShinyNeen

      Noooo, the floof, think of the floof! Her hair’s adorable like this, it has to stay!

      1. BarerMender

        It looks like a blonde watermelon is eating her head.

        1. ShinyNeen

          … Aww. Well, perhaps we can agree to disagree.

        2. Batman

          No trial by combat. That is the rules

    2. thejeff

      I think it’s a sign that she still isn’t fully recovered. Her hair started getting messy like that in the middle of her near breakdown when she wasn’t sleeping or showering.
      Now it’s not as bad as it was, but I think it’s intended to show she’s still not taking as much care as she used to.

      1. ShinyNeen

        Yeah. I imagine Dorothy normally gets regular haircuts. But at this point that’s just another distraction from her schoolwork, isn’t it?

        1. thejeff

          Not just longer, but more disheveled as well.

    3. Needfuldoer

      Just about everybody is probably due for a trim, it’s been at least 6 weeks since the comic started. (Ruth’s an exception, she already got that taken care of.)

      1. thejeff

        Sal had her hair murdered. It probably got trimmed in the process.

        1. BBCC

          Doesn’t look any shorter to me, but after six weeks a lot of people probably have their hair running long. I think Dorothy’s problems are her hair is messy as opposed to long but this isn’t good either.

  18. Bagge

    Heh, I’m recontextualizing this strip. Methinks Dorothy might have been reading twitter on her phone.
    http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-9-comic/01-flyin-to-the-red/simpatico/

    1. Clif

      Well, it’s certainly true that the twitter exchange preceeded that strip, so maybe.

  19. Deadjolras

    All this time, I’ve been waiting for Dorothy to find out and it turns out she’s known all along! Honestly, I wish I could be as chill as she is.

    1. Bagge

      That’s something we can all aspire to.

    2. Deadjolras

      Also, everyone, don’t forget these characters have real twitter accounts you can check out if you’re curious about how Walky and Amber’s flirting began!

      1. Opus the Poet

        Post the @s so the rest of us can follow as well. I have been trying to follow the cast of Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, but their tweets are either out months before the comic hits stores, or so horribly out of sequence they make even less sense than @realDonaldTrump at 0300.

        1. Zach

          So it’s erotica made for appliances?
          It’s just the most nonsensical thing I could think of that I now very much want.

        2. Deadjolras

          I think their @s are @its_walky and @PositivAmb. Remember to check not just their tweets, but their Tweets & Replies so you can read their interactions. Other characters also have accounts so just look at who Walky and Amber are following to find them!

    3. DailyBrad

      She’s had a few days, and I mean, I don’t think Dorothy thought he’d be single long. I think she’s probably had mixed feelings about it, but she likes Walky and Amber, so maybe it made it easier.

    4. Ophidiophile

      I have to admire Dorothy’s discipline; she broke up with Walky so she could concentrate on her studies without distractions, and she’s not letting anything derail her.

  20. Bagge

    Walky’s face tells me there were some finely rendered weenuses in his timeline.

    He really hits the head on the nail in the second panel. Dorothy being super polite about it doesn’t help anyone to move on.

    1. Clif

      Walky’s face tells me that his mother follows his Twitter accent.

      1. Bagge

        …oh dear

  21. Nono

    Also, why would you set your phone to beep for twitter notifications? Your phone’d be beeping all day especially if you follow a bunch of people in different timezones.

    1. Clif

      Well, if you can set it on a per person basis it wouldn’t be so bad.

    2. not someone else

      I imagine Dorothy is one of those people who follows some big news/hot political take people she wants to hear everything from plus a few friends who never post, so she didn’t think about it.

      Possibly “until now”.

    3. Questionor

      I was thinking ok, maybe she didn’t remember to remove notifications from Walky but why did she have them on for Amber? She could’ve had it on only for Walky but the way she said it it sounds like she has the same thing set for both.

      1. thejeff

        Amazi-Girl?

        1. Clif

          That would be my guess.

  22. Tacos

    That is a great Joyce Face that Walky is making in that last panel.

  23. William Leonard Reese Jr.

    . . . .Has anyone gave a nickname to what Walky’s eyes are like when he does that? I feel like those eyes need a nickname

    1. DailyBrad

      I like to think of it as boggling, in the last panel.

      1. jeffepp

        Boggled is the correct TOON! the RPG term. I keep meaning to do proper writeups of the main characters.

    2. Zach

      We just say his eyebrows escaped.

  24. chris73

    I like Joyce, shes probably why second favorite character but someone needs to tell third panel Joyce to stfu (without abbreviations)

    1. AGV

      “Hey, Joyce, ‘ssteefeu’ “

  25. OnyxIdol

    Thankfully you can turn those off, Dot. Otherwise I would’ve chucked my phone into the sea by now. Not that I’m on Twitter anyway.

    1. BenRG

      In Dorothy’s case, I think that she wants to keep abreast of stuff!

  26. ShinyNeen

    Y’know, it’s really awkward when you’re stuck in an awkward situation, and you want to defuse the awkwardness but you can’t because it’s too awkward to try and make things less awkward because you’ll both know that you’re just trying to make things less awkward so you just sit there in awkward silence thinking about how awkward it is and- oh no! Even that sentence is getting awkward!

    1. Tacos

      Awkward!

      (say it enough times and it stops sounding like a word.)

      1. thejeff

        Seriously. No real word would have that “wkw” sequence.

        1. JBento

          Counterpoint: the entirety of the Welsh language.

        2. thejeff

          Oh sure, if you believe in that.

        3. JBento

          If the Welsh language weren’t real, how would whales communicate?

        4. MatthewTheLucky

          Portugese.

  27. Solenoid

    That sure is a face Walky is making

  28. tirachokko

    big oof, walky

  29. PB

    Hissed through my teeth at the bonus strip. Poor Alice and Billie…

    Also HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH this is the best way for this to resolve.

  30. Nobody

    David Walkerton, master spy

    1. Bagge

      That’s SIR duke of Thingley, master spy, thank you very much.

      1. Clif

        They never suspected a thing as far as you know.

  31. DarkoNeko

    wow Walky. Get a grip

  32. BenRG

    Just a reminder to Joyce that she actually can’t further aggravate an awkward relationship that has already reached the extreme top end of the scale!

    I think that the time has genuinely come for Joyce to get more of a personal life… at least a personal life that isn’t that of a secondary character in a Lifetime Drama afternoon movie… so that she doesn’t want to live vicariously through others!

    1. Bagge

      Sure, let’s see how drama free Joyce’s personal life is when she takes center stage herself… oh dear.

      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/04-of-mike-and-men/wrong-3/

      1. JBento

        I still think Jacob should tell both of them to go away and just have a relationship with pizza instead.

        1. ShinyNeen

          There’s a lot of ‘Character/something sensible’ ships going around lately. I hope I get to read Jacob/Pizza fic someday in the future.

  33. Airyu

    Could someone please link the twitter strips for me? I remember Walky and Amber tweeting, but not Joyce tweeting. Thank you so much!!

    1. JBento

      When Dorothy says “both of you” she means Walky and Amber, not Walky and Joyce.

    2. Marsh Maryrose

      Bear in mind that all of these accounts were created long before the twins came along, back when Willis had time for extracurricular character development:

      @Joyce_Brown
      @its_walky
      @DorothyKeener
      @Billie_B97
      @PositivAmb
      @Dina_Saruyama
      @MikeAndYourMom
      @salwalters (not sure if this one is Willis’s doing)

      There may be others, but because all the DoA cast have common names, googling them is difficult. E.g., there is a Carla Rutten on twitter, but she’s a real person who posts exclusively in Dutch.

      Also Mike has replied to @fayewhitaker. Jeph was doing the twitter thing too, and this is further confirmation that Faye is canon in DoA. (As you might expect, @EmilyAzuma makes for an entertaining read.)

      1. BBCC

        @salwalters isn’t Willis’, no.

        1. BBCC

          Honestly now I’m thinking about the kids and social media.

          Joyce probably has the standard ones – Facebook, twitter, maybe an instagram or pinterest that’s all jesus stuff.

          Dorothy has it all – Facebook, tumblr, twitter, linkedin, instagram, pinterest, all of it. You never know what the next networking thing could be. She probably doesn’t spend too much time on all of them though – she checks her notifications and discards them if they’re nothing.

          Walky probably has twitter and Facebook and not much else.

          Amber hangs out on the fandom hotspots – twitter, tumblr and pinterest. She might have a Facebook to keep up with people. And gaming.

          Danny probably has twitter and Facebook and I dunno how much else he might or might not have.

          Billie uses Facebook and Twitter to keep up with people and instagram because, c’mon, she’s a CHEERLEADER.

          Sarah doesn’t have anything.

          Neither does Sal. That would require them to give a damn about interacting with people. Sal texts people if she has something to tell them, but most of her contacts lately have been leftovers from when she hung out with ‘the worst damn people’ that she’s not gotten around to deleting yet. Her parents are pointedly NOT on her contacts and they don’t know she has a phone (or her number). She earned the money for that herself.

          Ethan has twitter and tumblr but most of it is batman and transformers.

          Ruth doesn’t have anything, except maybe Facebook. She doesn’t spend much time on it.

          Dina has twitter and Facebook but doesn’t quite much use it.

          Becky has Facebook and twitter. Might get an instagram to show off her cool new duds.

          Joe has as much as possible. You never know when you might meet someone. Probably has tindr.

          Roz has tindr but often wishes she didn’t. She probably has Facebook and twitter too.

          Mike has twitter and Facebook but mostly uses social media to scope stuff about people.

          Carla has a some social media like Facebook and Twitter but she mostly retweets and shares memes and prank videos. She misses Vine. She also might have a tumblr but it’s all Ultra car stuff.

          Jacob has a perfectly respectable Facebook, twitter and Linkedin.

          Marcie didn’t have social media but she made a Facebook account to keep up with the team. And new friends.

          Lucy has Facebook, twitter, pinterest and of course tumblr.

          Leslie has facebook, twitter, and tumblr.

          Malaya has Facebook and twitter and maybe an instagram. She likes to play with filters.

          Mary has Facebook and twitter. It’s, ah…not fun. She also has a slightly more fun DeviantArt.

          Raidah has a likewise respectable facebook, twitter, and linkedin. Maybe a instagram for pictures too.

        2. StClair

          I like this.

        3. BBCC

          Thank you and now you all know what I end up doing when I’m bored. XD

        4. Marsh Maryrose

          For the increasingly few of these that I know, this sounds spot on.

          Is Snapchat no longer a thing? Or are the DoA cast already aged out of it?

          Also, for those the age of the DoA cast and not in the manosphere, is reddit still a thing?

        5. BBCC

          Snapchat is a thing and I’d wager a lot of them have it on their phones. I can see those I mentioned as on instagram or pinterest interested because of the same focus on photos.

          As for Reddit, I can see Mike hanging out on the ‘edgier’ boards. Again, not saying much, but scoping for info. I can see Ethan, Lucy or Amber looking at fandom reddits, but I dunno how much else. Joe might have hung out on PUA reddits, but not quite deep enough to get to the worst of it.

        6. MatthewTheLucky

          Reddit is still a thing, unfortunately.

  34. Arianod

    Can you hear that? It’s the sound of Walky’s eyebrows leaving the atmosphere.

    1. StClair

      at Mach 7. If you had super-hearing, any second now you’d hear the ‘pop’.

      1. Moredecai

        I understood that reference.

  35. abysswatcher1993

    DoA Joyce really enjoys ruining Walky’s life. Maybe she needs two mindwipes, a scifi adventure and experiencing many deaths to appreciate the goofiness of Walky.

  36. stoodmuffin

    Oh. Right. Ha.

  37. Icalasari

    …They have real life Twitter accounts?

  38. Catman

    Didn’t Walky first contact Amber on Twitter while he and DOrthy were still together?

    1. Doopyboop

      I looked through it and Walky first contacted her after their little adventure into changing his grades, which was after the break up because his first conversation with Amber happened while Billie was trying to give him Billie advice about ‘how to ex’ I believe!

  39. FacelessDeviant

    I don’t even have a twitter. And I probably wont get one with all the political weirdness around twitter either.

    1. BenRG

      I spend too much time OL as it is – A constant feed of other people’s thoughts and observations would end all non-electronic interaction on my part! Including work!

  40. Emily

    Walky you are the dumbest person to ever live.

    1. Badgermole

      He is. I hope every such encounter convinces Dorothy she’s better off now.

  41. BBCC

    This is why we have conversations on DMs!

    Also so we don’t bug the hell out of all our friends.

  42. Badgermole

    Saw this strip at midnight, went to sleep thinking about how great Dorothy is, had a dream in which she was with Jacob. When I woke up it made perfect sense, and was also delicious drama fuel from the perspective of Joyce’s reaction. I know it’s a long, near impossible shot, but I’m holding out for this ship now.

  43. Author X

    Seeing every @ tweet between two people you follow is one of the many things I wish twitter would just let me turn off, and a reason I sometimes avoid following too many people in particular circle/clique.

    1. rectilinearpropagation

      Facebook lets you stop getting notifications from a specific post…but then Facebook’s decision to notify you of everything that happens on a post just because you interacted with it was ridiculous to begin with.

      But more dynamic muting on Twitter would be awesome.

  44. Kinoko

    I don’t Twitter much (only post art), so I assumed those were DMs. Even on forum threads, or comment sections like this one, if I end up getting really into talking to a person, I tend to shift to DM if it’s applicable. At least for the sake of not crowding everyone else’s eyeballs with meaningless banter.

  45. ǝ snow ʍousɐ

    https://twitter.com/its_walky/status/1090997628068876289

    1. ǝ snow ʍousɐ

      also why are half of Walky’s tweets about his bowel movements

      1. ǝ snow ʍousɐ

        d-does he have a scat fetish????

        1. BBCC

          Nah, he just thinks poop is funny.

        2. Bagge

          Which tells you a lot of Walky’s character right there.

        3. BBCC

          Considering we’re all reading a comic that started with a poop joke, I don’t think any of us can talk. 😛

        4. Bagge

          …butt

      2. Kamino Neko

        Because it’s Walky?

  46. Ziggy

    Does following both your ex, and his/her new S.O., on twitter, make things more, or less, awkward?

    1. BBCC

      On one hand, it’s less awkward because you were friends with both of them. On the other….it’s super awkward I would imagine. Because you were close with both of them.

    2. Makkabee

      How does following them on twitter compare with following them on FaceBook?

  47. Dinomatrix21

    Wow, Walky is actually the whiter twin now. HEYO.

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