March's first Patreon bonus strip is about MARCIE and about getting a haircut after having grown your hair out for a while. All patrons can come read it at the Dumbing of Age Patreon!
And remember, you can always pledge up to read tomorrow's strip today!
The Dumbing of Age BOOK TEN Kickstarter is going live very soon! If you to be notified at launch, come check out the Book 10 Kickstarter Pre-Launch Page! Hate sink
Tags: joe, sarah
March's first Patreon bonus strip is about MARCIE and about getting a haircut after having grown your hair out for a while. All patrons can come read it at the Dumbing of Age Patreon!
And remember, you can always pledge up to read tomorrow's strip today!
The Dumbing of Age BOOK TEN Kickstarter is going live very soon! If you to be notified at launch, come check out the Book 10 Kickstarter Pre-Launch Page!
Discussion (196) - “Hate sink”
DarkoNeko
that is… weird.
C.T Phipps
I think this is Joe actually just wanting to be Sarah’s friend. It’s just Sarah has hated him since day one.
Rose by Any Other Name
If so, it is very sweet and also very weird.
Generally, outside of certain circles, volunteering to be someone’s whipping person is not a route to friendship.
RacingTurtle
Joe’s first attempt at befriending a woman after the Do List blew up in his face was a conversation with Sarah. I think bothers him that Sarah in particular hates him, possibly because Sarah is one of Joyce’s favorite people, but he knows he earned it. So…sweet and weird, that sounds about right.
Bogeywoman
Well, maybe not in your fanfictions
Pylgrim
It also doesn’t work! Offering himself like that is indeed a very thoughtful thing. If Sarah knows that he’s intently doing it to help her, she will not be able to hate him /earnestly/! She’d be losing one of her purest hate grounding poles.
Yet_One_More_Idiot
Unless if he goes out of his way to be extremely loathsome – which as we all know, is something he’s actually pretty good at already when he really puts his mind to it. Like a Mike-in-training almost. xD
Also, Sarah in panel 1: What, she has limited and valuable hating resources? That doesn’t sound like our Sarah, I thought her capacity for hate was practically unlimited! xD
Needfuldoer
Reverse psychology? Now that Joe put “let me be your hate lightning rod” out there, Sarah actually doing that would be taking him up on that favor.
Devin
I’m not sure how many healthy relationship role models Joe has. He may not actually know that, and I definitely think he’s got self-loathing issues, so it may also be him seeking out what he thinks he deserves.
ziggy78eog
No, Joe has earned every bit of hate that comes his way, and he knows it. Now that his sexist list is out for all to see, his reputation proceeds him, and not in a good way. He has a lot of work to do, to get out of that hole, and considering his last little stunt with Ruth, he might never get out of it.
Johan
They used to be fuck buddies in a different universe so… ¯\_ಠ_ಠ_/¯
Jon Rich
If they learned about that, Dumbiverse Joe would be thrilled. Dumbiverse Sarah would experience existential horror and revulsion.
Clif
Not so much weird as unexpected.
Demoted Oblivious
Definitely weird. But for someone who fucked up, is capable of not caring about being hated, and yet still isn’t in their heart a bad person, it’s a logical outcome.
Sirksome
Is Joe depressed or something? Joe is depressed.
Thag Simmons
Definitely seems that way
General Tekno
That’d track. I think he’s convinced he can’t not fall into the same womanizing spiral his dad is in, even if he doesn’t like it.
Kyrik Michalowski
I don’t know if he is depressed but offering to be a “hate sink” isn’t healthy in any shape or form.
StClair
Agreed. 🙁
drs
Hatefucking is still fucking.
Sirksome
Pretty sure he disqualified that option in panel 3. Not that he wouldn’t be open to it but it’s pretty clear that’s not Sarah’s jam.
plasticwrap
Maybe he’s secretly hoping it will pan out into hate sex. He’s probably always hoping it will pan out. Into sex. Or maybe he’s kinda sweet on the inside. Or both.
BarerMender
Hate fucking is hot. The problem is finding someone to do it with.
Regalli
Remember that, when last we really saw him pre-timeskip, he was
A: Still convinced that he could never have a serious relationship without fucking it up like his dad did,
B: Now ACUTELY aware that his previous cover of ‘keep everything surface level and gross so no one expects anything of me and no one gets hurt as a result’ was wrong and people WERE getting hurt by his skeeviness,
C: Attempting therefore to go cold turkey on All Sex And Attraction To Women Ever, which predictably failed (which could easily fuel a self-loathing spiral,) and
D: Totally in love with Joyce but because of points A-C, would never ever act on it by seriously confessing he has Feelings (because that would, of course, lead to him cheating and breaking her heart eventually like his dad did to his mom,) even if he’s fully aware of the fact that he’s not just attracted to her but has Feelings. (/Shipper goggles but also, look at the talk with Jacob.) Not that she would’ve been in a great state to date just then anyway.
I wouldn’t be shocked if he’s been closer to the Depression Pit than anyone would like for a while – feeling the need to lie about having threesomes to project the proper No Feelings Party Bro image doesn’t really suggest good things, and there seem like some fatalism and self-worth issues from that ‘no one gets hurt’ part – but it’s also really easy to see him sinking during the timeskip because of that ‘I am doomed to be a scumbag but cannot stop desiring sex’ aspect in particular.
C.T Phipps
Joe fucked up with the Do-List and now has the exact same monstrous sexist reputation that he gave his dad.
There’s also no way to convince anyone he’s not a scumbag now. Doughnuts or not.
StClair
It’s okay, though. Because as Joe would tell you himself, he deserves this. 😐
Regalli
I mean, eventually he will meet people who did not know him while he had a Do List, but yeah, bridges are burned with most women on campus. I can see people he was already friends with (Joyce, Dorothy) being willing to accept him genuinely attempting to better himself. Likely also a handful of people like Sal or Amber or Ruth who have personal experience with fucking up tremendously and trying to do better afterwards for their own sakes. (Jury’s still out on Jennifer on that front, given her new image is so much like her attempts to turn over a new leaf starting high school, and college, and transferring dorms.) Also at least one or two people who don’t give a fuck, like Malaya. But while that’s a decent chunk of the main cast, yeah, it’s virtually no one compared to every other woman in the hall who’s disgusted by him, and likely a lot of the campus depending on how far knowledge of the List (and the rankings themselves) spread.
drs
There are like 17,000 women undergrads at IU. I am skeptical that his name is mud to all of them, because I’m skeptical most of them would have even heard of him.
plasticwrap
Like most comics set in a decent-sized town, Joe would have encounters with female characters not in the known cast, but it will not be shown to us and thus might as well not exist. I think safer to assume is that 80-90% of all girls in the dorm have heard of “sex monger beefcake Joe” and his disgusting womanizing ways. The people living in your dorm are the ones you’re most likely to run into anyway. Word travels in dorms when the tale is juicy enough. And if Joe uses Facebook/Insta/etc. His face and list probably made the rounds along IU lines and his old high school friends as well.
I agree that campus-wide there’s a much lower chance of his reputation preceding him so thoroughly (especially as a freshman I would think) but think about how much higher the percentage would be in your own circles and the fact that the comic won’t show us many (if any) interactions with fresh, new characters.
Keulen
There’s also the fact that last semester Joe was in a sex tape with a fellow classmate who’s the younger sister of a (now former) Congresswoman, so a number of women at IU who haven’t actually met him might still have heard of him from that.
Needfuldoer
That also raises the minimum number of women on campus who would give a fuck to two.
thejeff
True from a narrative perspective, especially since Joe is a secondary character, but in the real world, Joe would have plenty of opportunities to socialize outside of his dorm. I barely hung out with anyone from my dorm in college and Joe is much more outgoing than I am.
Joe’s List reputation wouldn’t really do him much harm in the wider IU world. It’s his internal struggle that’s keeping him from pursuing other options.
Spencer
As a professional JoJologist I approve of this reading.
Jamie
I agree with this read. I’ve been sympathetic with Joe for a while, even though he hasn’t done anything to actually deserve that. I can hear an echo or two of an old self in Joe’s offer.
Regalli
It’s that clear undercurrent whenever he lets himself get serious of… well, this. He can stop acting like a scumbag, but that first requires convincing himself that he can and that it’s worth the effort of changing even if no one will treat him differently for it. (Which likely won’t be no one, but like, he knows how much he fucked up with the Do List, and this variety of self-loathing convinces you that it is in fact no one.) And that’s pretty hard to do when you hate yourself.
Honestly also, part of the reason I’m firmly on Team Richard Cheated With Other Serious Relationships, And Hadn’t Substantially Changed Before Meeting Stacy is because that ‘effort is pointless, I will always be this’ undercurrent makes even more sense if he HAS seen that cycle happen with more than just his mom. But also, eighteen-year-olds. Wise decisions are not their trademark, as a group.
Regalli
By which I mean, yeah, easy to be sympathetic when it seems like the guy genuinely does not like himself or his actions. The real monsters of this strip are/were all convinced they were doing the right thing. Joe’s been knocked out of trying to keep justifying things like the Do List, and with it we’ve been seeing hints of the insecurity underpinning it all.
Sirksome
He might have been hanging out with Amber too much. She has this exact same self loathing, defeatist attitude that enables her own brand of harmful, anti-social, possibly even abusive tendencies. And it kind seems like she didn’t get much help over the time skip. It’s a classic sign of depression and Joe probably needs professional help of some kind. My problem is there are small step he can take immediately to just not be a douche. Stuff likenot instigating Sarah just cause what? He was bored and felt arbitrarily challenged? There’s no excuse for that.
Regalli
Oh, yeah, but even those small steps seem colossal when you’re depressed and a teenager. Wouldn’t be shocked if he is actively self-sabotaging as well because he thinks he deserves Sarah’s hate or something.
I don’t think it was Amber, honestly, the signs were there long before they got back from break. (Though yes, she also needs serious help from someone equipped to do so. Unfortunately, finding a therapist who wouldn’t make things worse is its own challenge when you’re dealing with ‘scary’ and widely misunderstood conditions like plurality.)
milu
ok Regalli, wow. your analyses are so consistently smart?! i guess you know the story inside out which must help. but also you phrase things really clearly, and i like your perspective.
slick scholarship ^^
Regalli
Thanks! Can’t take full credit – a lot of my reads on characters have been shaped by other commenters or Willis, as has my memory for certain details (I need to do a full reread someday.) But I do have a better-than-average memory of particular moments, which makes it easier to go back and trawl a specific tag or storyline to find what I’m looking for, and a LOT of training in writing and analysis that translates well to stories. Also by now I think Willis’s comics qualify as a special interest, particularly since a lot of his characters’ struggles with mental health and neurodivergence ring really true to my own experience so I can see, say, Walky’s avoidance spiral over grades and go ‘oh yeah I know what that one’s like, here’s how it went down for me.’ Or Joyce’s ‘if I ignore this thing that scares me, it will go away and I will not have to acknowledge it,’ and how ‘oh I’m fine!’ is so rote it doesn’t really qualify as a lie so she can cover for her faith crashing down around her with Becky.
milu
Juste curious, whats ypur experience with writing and analysis?
Regalli
Went to a writing-heavy college, followed by paralegal coursework where I most enjoyed the research and writing classes. Sometimes I joke/threaten about writing a literary analysis of the Ace Attorney trilogy for fun. Just need to get around to it.
Jenn
I was actually just thinking about this. Amber feels like she’s been cursed to share the same “petty rage” her father had; Joe feels the same way about him and his father’s sleaziness. They really are family!
DailyBrad
It’s consistent, honestly, with the turn he has taken since Richard got with Amber’s mom, and Joyce having her eye on Jacob. He does not like himself very much, so this makes sense.
RacingTurtle
Yeah. 🙁
Jason Rivest
That is my impression too.
ziggy78eog
I would not call it depression, just yet, but there is definitely some self hate vibes going on.
ADLegend21
yeah he’s openly stated some serious self loathing and depression but it hasn’t been addressed since in a direct manner.
Kyrik Michalowski
So Joe’s assholery serves a higher purpose, now if only he used his power for the greater good. I’m sure he could do something, right?
Jhon
Like Mike?
RassilonTDavros
Joe’s reasoning sounds… disturbingly similar to all that stuff about how Ruth and Jennifer were both poison so they couldn’t hurt each other.
Yumi
Joe ain’t doing so hot.
StClair
Doesn’t it, though.
BBCC
God these two are interesting.
Cattleprod
Ah, my favorite character dynamic, enemies to different kind of enemies.
Nono
Was there any specific reason Sarah hates Joe other than ‘hit on her once, is kinda skeevy’? Which, granted, is PLENTY of reason…
Kyrik Michalowski
She possibky holds a grudge for Joyce’s date with him, as well. Other than that she could still bs upset with him for his “Do” list that got spread around.
He Who Abides
What exactly did Joe do on that date to have people hate him for it? Like, seriously, Joyce and Mike were infinitely worse in that situation.
Nono
It’s largely a byproduct of that era; at the time the date strips ran, DoA was still coming off the ‘haha slapstick comedy’ era that Shortpacked! was finishing up on. That and it being over ten years ago meant that ‘haha, Joe got beat up for looking at another girl’ landed a lot better back then.
Also, given that I’m assuming that Sarah got a Joyce-filtered recount of the date’s events, she probably got a much less favourable opinion of Joe than the omniscient audience. I doubt Joyce mentioned that she punched him a lot.
Needfuldoer
She had Mike punch him a lot, at every action (no matter how slight) that could have been construed as an offense, practically leading to a feedback loop.
Joyce and Joe have both grown substantially since then, to be fair.
He Who Abides
Joyce started hitting him too, right before Joe left.
thejeff
“I’m going to fix her with my penis.”
Joyce was horrible on that date and that overshadows how bad Joe was.
C.T Phipps
Sarah thinks of Joe as a sexist scumbag and has never altered that opinion, unlike Joyce.
DailyBrad
Yeah, along with probably being frustrated with how right he was when he called her out about the Joyce/Jacob situation that she was manipulating. She’s had a number of reasons that he would be an easy target for rancor.
He Who Abides
If she’s pissed about getting called out on that whole Joyce/Jacob mess, she needs to get the fuck over it. There’s several decent reasons for Sarah to dislike Joe, but she was absolutely wrong on that one.
Azhrei Vep
Yes. She was. Which is why she’d be angry at him over it.
thejeff
Also, hit on her more than once. Got yelled at for it before he’d back off. Kept circling back with comments.
Even talked about being attracted to her angry energy: telling women they’re hot because they’re mad at you is even worse than yesterday’s “pretty when you smile”.
Jhon
Trying to be positive, Joe only manages to be even more obnoxiously creepy. 8-(
brionl
Just bring in a hateroleum geologist to do a survey. I’m sure they could find vast, untapped reserves of hate. Enough to last decades!
Doctor_Who
Unlike fossil fuels, hate is a renewable resource!
Demoted Oblivious
The problem with fossil fuels is less their renewability as the de-sequestering of carbon. To be fair, they are renewable, they just don’t do it in our time frame.
Hate is not just renewable on a short scale, but implemented properly can breed more hate. It’s a growth resource.
cmasta1992
Aw fuck do I ship Joe and Sarah now?
Kyrik Michalowski