We’ve all been waiting for it. And through the fourth wall comes the nod. The nod from god, er… well Willis. Although it’s odd for god to nod, I wave farewell Mike, beneath the sod.
Booster really filling in for the “Mike, but pretentious” role. Booster, in ten years, no one is going to remember what switch games were the big hits in [comic year] and which were just all time classics, and they’re definitely not going to be reminded by looking at grease on the buttons.
It feels like Booster is the sort of person who takes pretentious selfies where they’re pretending they’re not really taking a bathroom mirror selfie like a pleb.
I don’t read Booster’s explanation like that at all. To me it doesn’t sound odd at all that someone interested in photography would be looking for pictures that “tell a story”.
This feels really bad faith. Like, booster’s been ragged on for their 3(?) whole appearances (scenes not strips) being one note and we get a brief view of their inner world and it’s treated with the same shallowness as walky is treating them.
We could be curious about the significance of preserving this moment with their sister (Is the console especially important to their sister if so, why does booster have it? Are they close and booster misses her or has something happened?) or about their interest in photography (when the comment section has previous been all about how boosters only hobby seemed to be psychology).
And the comment section still comes to the same conclusion s walky that booster is just a pretentious Mike.
(Not to mention walky is being an entitled little shit. W: “oh look a thing that doesn’t belong to me gimme gimme gimme you’re mean because you’re not immediately doing what I want ” b: “actually right now I am doing something that is meaningful for me” w:”you’re wrong d dumb gimme gimme gimme”
thejeff
Of course we then immediately move on to get a glimpse at Walky’s trauma and the comment section focuses on him being an entitled little shit.
Bogeywoman
That’s a fair call out. I didn’t give walky the same consideration. Partly because when sstarted I saw how long the post already was and partly because i was replying to a post with a focus on booster and a common response o them.
I’m looking forward to seeing more of walky’s (and others’) journey dealing with his grief around Mike and trauma as a whole. Narratively I think Booster is an excellent addition to the cast because theyvdont why from hard subjects the way others might want to, so they’ll both help others progress while also having to grow themself in how they relate others.
Walky has overstepped boundaries with a lot of characters recently by doubling down on his happy-go-lucky trait which in tense situations is taken as irritating and unwanted. I realise this is probably his way of avoiding dealing with feelings and situation that are too hard for him atm.
But. In the current interaction he immediately demanded access o someone else’s property with no regard for the fact they were in the middle of something, then there a tantrum because he did not receive an immediate yes. Even given an explanation of what they were doing he showed little interest in them.
No white obvious that it the interaction was a set up to begin a dialogue about his… complicated relationship with Mike, he still acted like a 2 year old told they can’t have candy.
I also want to note that willis fucking nails the writing for their age group. It’s spot on for their developmental stage, including the variety of outcomes and explorations of identity formation. I’m getting way of topic but it my jam. I am seeing walky as an example of identity diffusion which is when the identity crisis is unresolved due to a refusal to commit tovalues or goal. Procrastination and avoiding issues are two signs. Joyce is fascinating to me. She’s either an example of identity foreclosure (when an identity is assumed without exploration due to external pressures) or moratorium (which is the postponement of addressing the identity crisis for a later, safer date) but I think ambG is a better example of the latter.
Bogeywoman
And this is why I didn’t go into walky lol
Meagan
You have no idea how much I appreciate your humanity and humanization here. I am so burnt on how toxic these comments are.
But hey! At least Walky recognizes that he is both stupid, and a loser! Acknowledging one’s flaws is the first step toward self improvement! Good for him!
maybe the real mike was the friends we made along the way
Ob
He’s the designated walky hater of the comment section. If walky exists, you can find him down here getting pissed off about him breathing.
Sirksome
Hey! I resent that! I wasn’t mean to Walky at all yesterday and he was breathing all over the place! He was even yawning which is like the more annoying version of breathing!
RowenMorland
DoA has that for a bunch of things. Like anti-muses.
Yikes “his last roommate enjoyed emotionally manipulating people for fun then died” might be the better take away than him technically calling himself a “stupid loser”
To be fair, it was made pretty clear that Mike was emotionally manipulative for what he saw as the greater good, not just for fun (except maybe with Carla). And he died for the same reason.
(And BTW Willis, damn you for making Mike sympathetic THEN killing him off. Nothing personal, but I kind of hate you forever for that).
Regalli
What the fuck was the greater good in elaborately faking the cancellation of Walky’s favorite cartoon and then recording him crying?
Hell, what the fuck was the greater good in recording Walky crying and then offering to show it to people for fun immediately after his first breakup?
Sirksome
The greater good in that the sound of Walky suffering is the cure for covid19 and Mike knew that. He’s travelling the world distributing it right now which is why he’s gone and also why the DoA verse isn’t dealing with it right now!
He Who Abides
What part of “I’ll have sex with my oldest friend, who has clearly been attracted to me for years, in order to manipulate his new friend that I would’ve sexually manipulated had my friend not asked me to leave him be” screams “greater good” to you?
Rowan
I interpreted that whole thing as Mike realising that Danny and Ethan were too dumb to recognise their feelings for each other, and intending to sleep with one of them to create just enough jealousy that their actual feelings come to the surface.
Also, I more got the impression that Mike had always been into Ethan than the other way round
thejeff
Despite it not working out that way and despite Mike’s explicit statement to himself (and us) of what he was doing.
thejeff
Even in the case of Amber, where the argument is strongest that he thought he was doing it for the greater good, Mike himself realized in the confrontation with Blaine that he was making the same excuses for abusing Amber that Blaine was. That all his “greater good” nonsense was bullshit.
Sirksome
Yeah, probably. I’m no fan of Mike but Walky has also been incredibly annoying of late, including mercilessly roasting Joyce over something that legitimately bothered her, and unapologetically invading Jennifer’s personal space and disrespecting her boundaries. I’m actually trying (and failing) not to roast Walky so hard but he kind of set me up for this one. But I’ll keep trying not to actively hate Walky so blatantly.
JenGen
It’s always interesting seeing how different people interpret different relationships. I guess Walky/Joyce it’s toss up. She’s given it good to him in the past too so I’ve just assumed that this is their friendship. She was overjoyed when she thought Dorothy broke up with him.
The Jennifer one. Well I see that as someone who’s had this relationship with someone for a very long time as annoying “younger brother” and annoyed “older sister” but they still love each cause their family, and is now seeing that their “sister” doesn’t want that anymore. To him it’s probs like a family member you thought you were on good terms with wanting nothing to do with you for “seemingly” no reason.
I can see the flip side though of how someone can just see him as an annoying brat. Cause yeah he is one, haha
Sirksome
Yeah, see to me Joyce and Walky aren’t even friends. They’re more like two people that exist in the same social circle. I struggle to find any situation where either of them would elect to spend time together. It’s always more like we’re heading in the same direction with other people we know, or we have the same class, or I’m best friends with the person you’re dating. I don’t think they enjoy being around each other at all and that’s why the relationship is so antagonistic. To me it’s usually a more even back and forth between them, but yesterday specifically Joyce showed a vulnerability in the glasses complex and Walky pounced on it unwarranted.
The Jennifer situation is more complex and I do actually sympathize with Walky there but his methods were just a little out of line to me. But I think he paid the price for that. Maybe if he learns from it that relationship can be salvaged.
Mano308gts
Walky and Joyce have previously spent time together of their own free will, because of their shared interest in cartoons. This has been established as a thing which they have done in Dumbing of Age (although I am not going to search out a link for evidence), and therefore, they have opted at least sometimes to act as ‘friends’.
Joyce also has quite a few of the same types of ‘ribbing’ interactions with both Becky and Sal, which further indicates that, as is the case with most casual friendships, a fair bit of ‘picking on people for fun’ can be applied. Furthermore, although Joyce has been unusually harsh toward Walky in particular, that might be because she grew up with a household of older brothers*, and so learned to snark back sufficiently to hold her own in the family pecking order (If I had to guess, you didn’t grow up with many siblings, did you?).
But, for what it’s worth, it wasn’t undeserved for Walky to pick on her in downright mean fashion, because she *has* crossed the line from ‘friendly play’ to ‘downright mean’ herself a fair few times, mostly to do with Dorothy. Neither of them, in other words, have been entirely the victim in their interactions.
Also, your anti-Walky rants are rather irksome… Sirksome. (sorry, figured I had to go for the available pun)
*From Joyce’s current perspective, she has only older brothers.
Chris
It’s times like this I wish we could upvote comments, ala reddit. This, extremely this in all points made by Mano308gts. Including Sirksome’s irksome ranting about Walky. No one deserved Mike as a roommate, not least of whom, Walky.
Sirksome
Hey! You figured out why I named myself Sirksome! That’s pretty cool! There is an urge to argue some of your points but I feel in a way that would only prove others so in the spirit of cutting Walky some slack he doesn’t deserve I’ll try not to.
I really want to though! I don’t like that tit for tat argument. It also kind of implies Joyce now has one in the bank for later and is this really how “friends” choose to act? But maybe I just don’t understand this “friendship” they supposedly have. I don’t think it justifies at all Walky’s actions yesterday but uh….maybe it does? I don’t know.
thejeff
If anything, what justifies Walky’s actions yesterday is that without him pushing, she wouldn’t have gotten the glasses.
But yes, how that all comes across depends very much on how you see their friendship. It’s at the very least clearly established that their teasing of each other is mutual, not just Walky harassing Joyce.
Sirksome
@thejeff I disagree on that. That’s the same argument people make for Mike and you even debunked that yourself. Being a jerk to motivate someone is still just being a jerk. Walky even went out of his way to see Joyce after she got her glasses just to roast her some more.
I admit I don’t fully comprehend the potential nuance in the Joyce/Walky “friendship” but I think it’s stretch to say he was a factor in her getting glasses. That really discredits Dorothy and to a much lesser extent *after considerable self reflection on her own toxic “friendship” dynamic with Dorothy* Becky’s efforts to get her through that.
thejeff
Dorothy did more (and took a lot of criticism here for it), but if Walky hadn’t been ragging her about it, Dorothy wouldn’t have known.
For the first part, I think that comes back to our disagreement on their friendship.
BBCC
Joyce considers Walky a friend. When she had her terrible day in La Porte visiting her parents after the shooting, Walky was one of the people she wanted.
Brighter Side
Come on. Everyone in this series is occasionally terrible except Joyce, Dina, and Booster (ranked by order of appearance). The rest (including the adults) are all a few feet from being a wreck.
MrSmith
I like Joyce a lot but shes been terrible in the past, attempting to break up Jacob and Raideh for example
Dina spying on Jacob and Raidah while not terrible is kinda sketchy
Booster is…well if Booster had received a smack in the head I wouldn’t condone the action but I’d sort of understand why
When you see the real, professional photographers at sports events or documenting other things like weddings, graduations, or historical events like today’s inauguration of Joseph Biden, they aren’t using iPhones.
It’s called “using the proper tool for the job.”
Needfuldoer
iPhones are great for going live back to s TV station with minimal equipment involved. Just run the app for whichever platform the station uses, plug into a battery pack, and go. You’re still not going to get the same quality you would out of a shoulder cam with a proper 2/3 image sensor, mind you, but the phone’s a tiny fraction of the cost of just the camera body (never mind the glass and wireless gear. When you see a TV news videographer, they’re usually toting tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment.)
No matter how good phone cameras get, real cameras will always take better pictures. Processing still can’t beat bigger lenses and image sensors at gathering light.
Meh, it’s kind of pretentious. All photography is slightly pretentious. By photographing something you inherently imply more meaning to it just by the action of preserving/documenting it.
It’s also pretty much a valid definition for the entire concept of “art”.
Sirksome
I would argue that human behavior in and of itself is pretentious. It’s kind of what separates us from the animals in a way. It’s not a negative description but I think here it’s accurate and fitting. Especially since photography is a more artistic hobby.
Nono
‘Pretentious’ is a word that, at the time of writing, has negative connotations. Art by its nature isn’t pretentious, even if it does seem to attract a heavier portion of snooty people. No more than Instagram or Twitter or Facebook. It’s not even an inherently human behaviour; animals perform mating displays, for instance.
Regalli
Yeah, you say ‘pretentious’ and people assume you’re using it as a perjorative.
Bird mating behaviors (the dancing and impractically fancy tails and such in particular) are delightfully bizarre.
Shen Hibiki
In other words, almost all human actions are pretentious, so by logic we should only call them pretentious when they’re -over- the norm.
So, then, photography isn’t by itself any more pretentious than 99% of human behaviour, so no reason to see it all as such.
Now, there -are- ways to make it more pretentious than average, but that applies, again, to anything a human does to give meaning to the things around itself.
If Booster’s using actual film, then I think we’re over the line into pretentious.
Needfuldoer
Or they got a 35mm SLR body for next to nothing. I’ve even seen those thrown in with used lens bundles (intended for DSLR bodies that can take old glass).
As a fellow hard science leaning telecom major, I empathize with Walky here. The fun thing’s right there, why are we talking about it when we could be using it? In his mind he’s probably going “artsy fartsy blah blah blah whatever I bet I can beat you on Wario’s Gold Mine”.
237 thoughts on “Prolonged”
Ana Chronistic
Walky thinking what we’re all thinking
except he isn’t trying to yank off Booster’s face a la Scooby-Doo to see if that’s a mask
TrueVCU
Not yet anyway
Blindness
That comes in a few more days(in-universe)…
Demoted Oblivious
We’ve all been waiting for it. And through the fourth wall comes the nod. The nod from god, er… well Willis. Although it’s odd for god to nod, I wave farewell Mike, beneath the sod.
GreyICE
Booster really filling in for the “Mike, but pretentious” role. Booster, in ten years, no one is going to remember what switch games were the big hits in [comic year] and which were just all time classics, and they’re definitely not going to be reminded by looking at grease on the buttons.
It feels like Booster is the sort of person who takes pretentious selfies where they’re pretending they’re not really taking a bathroom mirror selfie like a pleb.
erinacea
I don’t read Booster’s explanation like that at all. To me it doesn’t sound odd at all that someone interested in photography would be looking for pictures that “tell a story”.
Bogeywoman
This feels really bad faith. Like, booster’s been ragged on for their 3(?) whole appearances (scenes not strips) being one note and we get a brief view of their inner world and it’s treated with the same shallowness as walky is treating them.
We could be curious about the significance of preserving this moment with their sister (Is the console especially important to their sister if so, why does booster have it? Are they close and booster misses her or has something happened?) or about their interest in photography (when the comment section has previous been all about how boosters only hobby seemed to be psychology).
And the comment section still comes to the same conclusion s walky that booster is just a pretentious Mike.
(Not to mention walky is being an entitled little shit. W: “oh look a thing that doesn’t belong to me gimme gimme gimme you’re mean because you’re not immediately doing what I want ” b: “actually right now I am doing something that is meaningful for me” w:”you’re wrong d dumb gimme gimme gimme”
thejeff
Of course we then immediately move on to get a glimpse at Walky’s trauma and the comment section focuses on him being an entitled little shit.
Bogeywoman
That’s a fair call out. I didn’t give walky the same consideration. Partly because when sstarted I saw how long the post already was and partly because i was replying to a post with a focus on booster and a common response o them.
I’m looking forward to seeing more of walky’s (and others’) journey dealing with his grief around Mike and trauma as a whole. Narratively I think Booster is an excellent addition to the cast because theyvdont why from hard subjects the way others might want to, so they’ll both help others progress while also having to grow themself in how they relate others.
Walky has overstepped boundaries with a lot of characters recently by doubling down on his happy-go-lucky trait which in tense situations is taken as irritating and unwanted. I realise this is probably his way of avoiding dealing with feelings and situation that are too hard for him atm.
But. In the current interaction he immediately demanded access o someone else’s property with no regard for the fact they were in the middle of something, then there a tantrum because he did not receive an immediate yes. Even given an explanation of what they were doing he showed little interest in them.
No white obvious that it the interaction was a set up to begin a dialogue about his… complicated relationship with Mike, he still acted like a 2 year old told they can’t have candy.
I also want to note that willis fucking nails the writing for their age group. It’s spot on for their developmental stage, including the variety of outcomes and explorations of identity formation. I’m getting way of topic but it my jam. I am seeing walky as an example of identity diffusion which is when the identity crisis is unresolved due to a refusal to commit tovalues or goal. Procrastination and avoiding issues are two signs. Joyce is fascinating to me. She’s either an example of identity foreclosure (when an identity is assumed without exploration due to external pressures) or moratorium (which is the postponement of addressing the identity crisis for a later, safer date) but I think ambG is a better example of the latter.
Bogeywoman
And this is why I didn’t go into walky lol
Meagan
You have no idea how much I appreciate your humanity and humanization here. I am so burnt on how toxic these comments are.
Hinoron
I think we were all kind of waiting to see if Dave would “pull a Marvel”, yes.
Proxiehunter
I mean, it’s not like that isn’t something Mike would do.
Cholma
Exactly. Smart move on Walky’s part. You can never be too careful when it comes to Mike.
Blindness
…and if it helps to keep his spirit alive(metaphorically) then more power to him!
Sirksome
Yeah uh…I don’t feel bad for you Walky. Not even a little. Let Booster enjoy their hobby.
Sirksome
But hey! At least Walky recognizes that he is both stupid, and a loser! Acknowledging one’s flaws is the first step toward self improvement! Good for him!
Jamie
Oh, I get it! You’re the comment section’s Mike!
Spookyfox
maybe the real mike was the friends we made along the way
Ob
He’s the designated walky hater of the comment section. If walky exists, you can find him down here getting pissed off about him breathing.
Sirksome
Hey! I resent that! I wasn’t mean to Walky at all yesterday and he was breathing all over the place! He was even yawning which is like the more annoying version of breathing!
RowenMorland
DoA has that for a bunch of things. Like anti-muses.
JenGen
Yikes “his last roommate enjoyed emotionally manipulating people for fun then died” might be the better take away than him technically calling himself a “stupid loser”
Taellosse
To be fair, it was made pretty clear that Mike was emotionally manipulative for what he saw as the greater good, not just for fun (except maybe with Carla). And he died for the same reason.
(And BTW Willis, damn you for making Mike sympathetic THEN killing him off. Nothing personal, but I kind of hate you forever for that).
Regalli
What the fuck was the greater good in elaborately faking the cancellation of Walky’s favorite cartoon and then recording him crying?
Hell, what the fuck was the greater good in recording Walky crying and then offering to show it to people for fun immediately after his first breakup?
Sirksome
The greater good in that the sound of Walky suffering is the cure for covid19 and Mike knew that. He’s travelling the world distributing it right now which is why he’s gone and also why the DoA verse isn’t dealing with it right now!
He Who Abides
What part of “I’ll have sex with my oldest friend, who has clearly been attracted to me for years, in order to manipulate his new friend that I would’ve sexually manipulated had my friend not asked me to leave him be” screams “greater good” to you?
Rowan
I interpreted that whole thing as Mike realising that Danny and Ethan were too dumb to recognise their feelings for each other, and intending to sleep with one of them to create just enough jealousy that their actual feelings come to the surface.
Also, I more got the impression that Mike had always been into Ethan than the other way round
thejeff
Despite it not working out that way and despite Mike’s explicit statement to himself (and us) of what he was doing.
thejeff
Even in the case of Amber, where the argument is strongest that he thought he was doing it for the greater good, Mike himself realized in the confrontation with Blaine that he was making the same excuses for abusing Amber that Blaine was. That all his “greater good” nonsense was bullshit.
Sirksome
Yeah, probably. I’m no fan of Mike but Walky has also been incredibly annoying of late, including mercilessly roasting Joyce over something that legitimately bothered her, and unapologetically invading Jennifer’s personal space and disrespecting her boundaries. I’m actually trying (and failing) not to roast Walky so hard but he kind of set me up for this one. But I’ll keep trying not to actively hate Walky so blatantly.
JenGen
It’s always interesting seeing how different people interpret different relationships. I guess Walky/Joyce it’s toss up. She’s given it good to him in the past too so I’ve just assumed that this is their friendship. She was overjoyed when she thought Dorothy broke up with him.
The Jennifer one. Well I see that as someone who’s had this relationship with someone for a very long time as annoying “younger brother” and annoyed “older sister” but they still love each cause their family, and is now seeing that their “sister” doesn’t want that anymore. To him it’s probs like a family member you thought you were on good terms with wanting nothing to do with you for “seemingly” no reason.
I can see the flip side though of how someone can just see him as an annoying brat. Cause yeah he is one, haha
Sirksome
Yeah, see to me Joyce and Walky aren’t even friends. They’re more like two people that exist in the same social circle. I struggle to find any situation where either of them would elect to spend time together. It’s always more like we’re heading in the same direction with other people we know, or we have the same class, or I’m best friends with the person you’re dating. I don’t think they enjoy being around each other at all and that’s why the relationship is so antagonistic. To me it’s usually a more even back and forth between them, but yesterday specifically Joyce showed a vulnerability in the glasses complex and Walky pounced on it unwarranted.
The Jennifer situation is more complex and I do actually sympathize with Walky there but his methods were just a little out of line to me. But I think he paid the price for that. Maybe if he learns from it that relationship can be salvaged.
Mano308gts
Walky and Joyce have previously spent time together of their own free will, because of their shared interest in cartoons. This has been established as a thing which they have done in Dumbing of Age (although I am not going to search out a link for evidence), and therefore, they have opted at least sometimes to act as ‘friends’.
Joyce also has quite a few of the same types of ‘ribbing’ interactions with both Becky and Sal, which further indicates that, as is the case with most casual friendships, a fair bit of ‘picking on people for fun’ can be applied. Furthermore, although Joyce has been unusually harsh toward Walky in particular, that might be because she grew up with a household of older brothers*, and so learned to snark back sufficiently to hold her own in the family pecking order (If I had to guess, you didn’t grow up with many siblings, did you?).
But, for what it’s worth, it wasn’t undeserved for Walky to pick on her in downright mean fashion, because she *has* crossed the line from ‘friendly play’ to ‘downright mean’ herself a fair few times, mostly to do with Dorothy. Neither of them, in other words, have been entirely the victim in their interactions.
Also, your anti-Walky rants are rather irksome… Sirksome. (sorry, figured I had to go for the available pun)
*From Joyce’s current perspective, she has only older brothers.
Chris
It’s times like this I wish we could upvote comments, ala reddit. This, extremely this in all points made by Mano308gts. Including Sirksome’s irksome ranting about Walky. No one deserved Mike as a roommate, not least of whom, Walky.
Sirksome
Hey! You figured out why I named myself Sirksome! That’s pretty cool! There is an urge to argue some of your points but I feel in a way that would only prove others so in the spirit of cutting Walky some slack he doesn’t deserve I’ll try not to.
I really want to though! I don’t like that tit for tat argument. It also kind of implies Joyce now has one in the bank for later and is this really how “friends” choose to act? But maybe I just don’t understand this “friendship” they supposedly have. I don’t think it justifies at all Walky’s actions yesterday but uh….maybe it does? I don’t know.
thejeff
If anything, what justifies Walky’s actions yesterday is that without him pushing, she wouldn’t have gotten the glasses.
But yes, how that all comes across depends very much on how you see their friendship. It’s at the very least clearly established that their teasing of each other is mutual, not just Walky harassing Joyce.
Sirksome
@thejeff I disagree on that. That’s the same argument people make for Mike and you even debunked that yourself. Being a jerk to motivate someone is still just being a jerk. Walky even went out of his way to see Joyce after she got her glasses just to roast her some more.
I admit I don’t fully comprehend the potential nuance in the Joyce/Walky “friendship” but I think it’s stretch to say he was a factor in her getting glasses. That really discredits Dorothy and to a much lesser extent *after considerable self reflection on her own toxic “friendship” dynamic with Dorothy* Becky’s efforts to get her through that.
thejeff
Dorothy did more (and took a lot of criticism here for it), but if Walky hadn’t been ragging her about it, Dorothy wouldn’t have known.
For the first part, I think that comes back to our disagreement on their friendship.
BBCC
Joyce considers Walky a friend. When she had her terrible day in La Porte visiting her parents after the shooting, Walky was one of the people she wanted.
Brighter Side
Come on. Everyone in this series is occasionally terrible except Joyce, Dina, and Booster (ranked by order of appearance). The rest (including the adults) are all a few feet from being a wreck.
MrSmith
I like Joyce a lot but shes been terrible in the past, attempting to break up Jacob and Raideh for example
Dina spying on Jacob and Raidah while not terrible is kinda sketchy
Booster is…well if Booster had received a smack in the head I wouldn’t condone the action but I’d sort of understand why
Nono
Not the worst Booster moment, I guess. Still a little artsy fartsy but hasn’t crossed the mind into pretentious… yet.
C.T Phipps
It did for me because Booster is using some kind of weird cell phone that doesn’t connect to the internet or make calls, just take pictures.
UnfrozenNeanderthal
He’s a photography nerd, so he’s got some specialized equipment.
ian livs
*they
UnfrozenNeanderthal
yeah that’s my bad
Bicycle Bill
When you see the real, professional photographers at sports events or documenting other things like weddings, graduations, or historical events like today’s inauguration of Joseph Biden, they aren’t using iPhones.
It’s called “using the proper tool for the job.”
Needfuldoer
iPhones are great for going live back to s TV station with minimal equipment involved. Just run the app for whichever platform the station uses, plug into a battery pack, and go. You’re still not going to get the same quality you would out of a shoulder cam with a proper 2/3 image sensor, mind you, but the phone’s a tiny fraction of the cost of just the camera body (never mind the glass and wireless gear. When you see a TV news videographer, they’re usually toting tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment.)
No matter how good phone cameras get, real cameras will always take better pictures. Processing still can’t beat bigger lenses and image sensors at gathering light.
Sirksome
Meh, it’s kind of pretentious. All photography is slightly pretentious. By photographing something you inherently imply more meaning to it just by the action of preserving/documenting it.
UnfrozenNeanderthal
Applying meaning to a thing is not inherently pretentious. It’s kind of a basic part of human behavior.
Taellosse
It’s also pretty much a valid definition for the entire concept of “art”.
Sirksome
I would argue that human behavior in and of itself is pretentious. It’s kind of what separates us from the animals in a way. It’s not a negative description but I think here it’s accurate and fitting. Especially since photography is a more artistic hobby.
Nono
‘Pretentious’ is a word that, at the time of writing, has negative connotations. Art by its nature isn’t pretentious, even if it does seem to attract a heavier portion of snooty people. No more than Instagram or Twitter or Facebook. It’s not even an inherently human behaviour; animals perform mating displays, for instance.
Regalli
Yeah, you say ‘pretentious’ and people assume you’re using it as a perjorative.
Bird mating behaviors (the dancing and impractically fancy tails and such in particular) are delightfully bizarre.
Shen Hibiki
In other words, almost all human actions are pretentious, so by logic we should only call them pretentious when they’re -over- the norm.
So, then, photography isn’t by itself any more pretentious than 99% of human behaviour, so no reason to see it all as such.
Now, there -are- ways to make it more pretentious than average, but that applies, again, to anything a human does to give meaning to the things around itself.
Wizard
If Booster’s using actual film, then I think we’re over the line into pretentious.
Needfuldoer
Or they got a 35mm SLR body for next to nothing. I’ve even seen those thrown in with used lens bundles (intended for DSLR bodies that can take old glass).
DSL
Ascribing “pretense” to interests that differ from one’s own is, in itself, pretentious.
Reltzik
Eh, even if it were pretentious, “pretentious” isn’t that annoying relative to the rest of the cast.
Blindness
It’s definitely into the pretentious realm…and worse is he knows that it’s pretentious and is apathetic to how he looks doing it
zee
Weird, i posted a comment correcting you (it’s them) but it’s not appearing, but when I try to post it again the site tells me it’s a duplicate >:?
Needfuldoer
As a fellow hard science leaning telecom major, I empathize with Walky here. The fun thing’s right there, why are we talking about it when we could be using it? In his mind he’s probably going “artsy fartsy blah blah blah whatever I bet I can beat you on Wario’s Gold Mine”.
0kami
Honestly, wouldn’t put it past him.
zee
*them
Diane
Pretty sure they’re talking about Mike, not Booster.
0kami
Referring to Mike in this case. I know Booster is they/them.
zee
That. Is understandable and obvious in hindsight. I thought this was in reply to something else ig. Sorry
BBCC
I love this habit of Boosters. It sounds like the kind of ‘thing’ families or friends and other loved ones actually do.
And while tbf, it does sound like Mike, I’m still gonna say shut up, Walky, we’re trying to ease Mike fans OUT of the denial stage.
Raen
“Andy, did you hear about this one?”
Cholma
If anyone’s goofing on Elvis, It’s Walky! 😀
C.T Phipps
Just let him play the Nintendo, Booster.
You’ll not have to deal with him for the rest of the semester.
Thag Simmons