Not making sense is the point. Replacing a word with another unrelated word and declaring it to mean the same thing is confusing, so it forms an in-group of those who have been informed, who can then look down on the out-group.
Doopyboop
I was honestly just using the word because I legitimately feel like Ruth’s lines in panel 4 was… a mood. Not to create an in-group and certainly not to look down on people that didn’t understand.
zee
That’s a very weird way of describing slang as a phenomenon
“Mood” does not exist to make people feel superior. It’s a short, casual way to express “wow, I feel this situation/experience/expression”, like how a lot of slang is a short, casual way to express something.
Are we gonna say “yeet” is meant to make people feel superior next? Because that’s really not how memes and/or slang work, unless your social circle is entirely made of assholes.
Daibhid C
The most interesting varieties of slang actually create an in-group of those who have been informed, who can then avoid being reported to the police by the out-group.
elebenty
That’s closer to shibboleth. Knowing how a word is pronounced (for instance Cairo, Egypt vs Cairo, IL) or a regional custom (secret handshake!) does create an in-group. Shibboleth is named for this biblical account, where they determined enemies by showing the written word and listening to see if they pronounced it SH or S:
5 The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead asked him, “Are you an Ephraimite?”
If he replied, “No,” 6 they said, “All right, say ‘Shibboleth.’”
If he said, “Sibboleth,” because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.
“Mood” “yeet” “yoink” etc are just memed words. No one is looking down on people that don’t know or use them (usually it’s the opposite). There’s too much to keep up with, even if a person tried.
I am happy to know that I am not the one puzzled by this use of the word “mood”. Not understanding slang is one of those alarming signals that you are not that young anymore.
tunasammich
I’m old but mood is used a lot on tumblr, so it’s probably more of a matter of whether you use tumblr haha
elebenty
Oh have kids that do/did!
shoopdawhoop
I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!
Not me I have tons of dreams … and I’m not doing well to reach any of them. Its scary, like I have all these ideas in my head so much of what I think and believe and love and nobody sees it and when I die it all just be gone and none of it will have helped anybody. Its scary and paralyzing and thus a positive feedback loop … and this was probably too much. Sorry. I hope you find what you want.
Hey, I feel ya on pretty much all of this. always had so many dreams & never figured out how to execute. And now realizing that there’s so many of those that won’t make it out of my brain into the real world… After all this time the only thing I’ve figured out of this mess is a. choose something rather than trying to do ALL THE THINGS at once and b. put it in your schedule.
*I write, whilst procrastinating on writing
Masumi
Yeah, this. It’s normal to have more ideas and plans than you’re able to execute. In no way a personal failure, just a brain having lots of ideas.
The important thing is to occasionally pick an idea that looks fun and go all in on it. Which is something I need to get better at, myself. I think I didn’t a bunch of my twenties beating myself up about all the things I ended up not doing, and only now I’m slowly realising I don’t need to, it’s not physically possible, and not all plans are good enough to be worth my energy. And that’s kinda liberating.
As a person with ADHD this is very relatable. As a person with depression I forgot I used to care about that. It’s nice to be reminded that I’m capable of that kind of passion (even if rarely the execution). Mental health recovery has forced me to pick one plan at a time and while that’s excruciatingly slow going (especially since I will switch plans every 5% of progress) it’s at least less overwhelming…
There is Warren Buffet’s advice. Write down your top 25 career/life goals, then circle your top five. The top five becomes what you focus on and the other 20 are your “avoid at all cost” list. Pay them no heed until you start completing the top 5.
I recommend the Magic Lessons with Elizabeth Gilbert podcast. It didn’t get me started on any projects, but it felt like it could have for an alternate version of me that was the kind of person who would start a project.
I have tons of dreams. They mostly involve me either getting trapped in a house with my abuser or flying really awkwardly through a forest.
For real though the idea of having dreams is scary. I’ve very recently worked up to the terrifying and liberating point of “considering having a career plan” and I’m nearing 40.
Basically replaces Leafs with Sabers except it’s even worse beacuse at least the leafs won many Stanley cups. Hopefully they never win again beacuse the Leafs are evil and so are the Habs and Lightning as well.
I suspect this has been at the back of Dorothy’s mind for a while now and Raidah’s comment was just the straw that broke the camels back
justin8448
This was always coming.
Bysmerian
It’s pretty clear from her conversation with Becky about Yale that she was already wavering hard. Becky even pointed out a point adjacent to the one Raidah made.
And then Raidah came, deliberately brought the subject up, and made the harshest judgment she could.
This was not the straw that broke the camel’s back. The camel was staggering, wavering, and its back was in the process of popping in horribly painful ways. And then Raidah dropped a wrecking ball on top.
I legitimately feel like there’s more to Raidah than we’re seeing; Freshman Raidah is visibly less self-assured, less calculating, and all around a bit friendlier (albeit misguided) than the young woman we’re seeing now, and I’m wondering just a little about what happened for her Freshman Year character arc, because I genuinely feel like “One of my new friends got sent home partway through our first semester after her roommate took issue with her mourning a little too hard”–a grievous oversimplification but that’s how she seems to see it–feels like it wasn’t necessarily enough there.
Or maybe this is just progress for her as she’s trying to shape herself into her ideal of a lawyer, who knows?
Raidah may have said it to Dorothy mainly to be mean, but she wasn’t actually wrong this time.
Freemage
Ugh, no, she’s not. Let’s assume that she’s right, and that being POTUS means, perforce, you MUST commit at least some war crimes in the pursuit of your duties and because of the complications of global geopolitics.
We can draw three categories of people:
Those who are indifferent to the harm they cause;
Those who are seeking to cause harm;
Those who would avoid causing harm as much as possible.
Raidah’s “logic” would leave that third category ineligible for office by default, and thus only give the seat to people who either don’t care, or who are actively malicious.
Basically, Raidah is pimping for Trump ’24.
Now, she’s a sophomore in college, and thus prone to, well, sophomoric opinions about the world, wherein everything has a simple and pat answer, so I’d actually forgive her that.
But the fact that she quite clearly had stored that line up solely to hurt and confuse Dorothy (who never did anything to harm her) the first time they met, rather than to engage in any sort of discussion about Deep Topics, means that she’s not only demonstrably wrong, but she’s wrong for the wrong reasons.
C.T. Phipps
I think we don’t need to take it “you must be a war criminal” to need to be literally true. However, as President you will be the head of the US military and have a bunch of obligations that will sort of, at bare minimum, make you responsible for either the loss of life or have the responsibility to take lives.
Someone assassinates some Americans, Dorothy is told she’s expected to authorize a retaliation for easy reference.
There’s nothing weird with saying, “I don’t want to do that.”
Mark
There’s virtue in saying, “no, we’re going to do something less satisfying but more effective, and more humane.”
People forget that the President is an executive. The Legislature holds the war power and is responsible for its use, no matter how much they delegate. They need to be precise in their direction of that power if they care about what is done with it. “When the sovereign has stated his requirements, the general is not answerable for how he fulfils them.”
thejeff
There’s virtue in that, but it also implies there’s always a more humane and more effective option. Sometimes all the options are bad in one way or another. Even as President all you can do is determine who gets hurt and maybe how directly the US is responsible.
thejeff
@C.T. Phipps: There’s value in an “I don’t really want to have to make those decisions” realization, but that’s not at all how Raidah phrased it. She was much more in a “You want to be a war criminal. That makes you a bad person” kind of direction.
june gloom
Anyone who has the capability of getting themselves elected president should by no means be permitted to do the job.
thejeff
It’s a cute sentiment, but you still need somebody to do the job, so now what?
Worse, it tends to encourage ignoring the differences between candidates in favor of putting them all in the “should by no means be permitted” category.
The gallorp
Disagree with you there about needing a President. Having a head of state is a convenience that makes many things easier or more doable. Many of those things do not need to be done, certainly not easily.
thejeff
Can you cite some examples that worked out well for the countries involved?
Obviously, it doesn’t have to be called “President” or have exactly the same role, but it’s really hard to think of cases that didn’t have someone running the show.
davidbreslin101
“They’re-all-the-same-ism” is the bane of politics over here – it allows politicians to carry on in office for years after they should have been thrown out, because “ooh, it won’t make any difference” to replace them. It seems no crime or incompetance is enough to make some voters admit that they’re propping up a leader who really is worse than the competition.
june gloom
I’m an anarchist. You don’t wanna know what I think of the idea of a presidency or equivalent position.
thejeff
I’ve got some sympathy for left-anarchism, but I don’t see how it can work unless somehow imposed worldwide all at the same time.
And imposing it seems fundamentally at odds with anarchism.
Pergola
Hmm. So the only way you can get a decent president is if the VP takes over after the elected President dies or is forced out of office?
I’m hoping this isn’t wishful thinking on my part but I don’t see Mango Mussolini surviving to election day 2024. I don’t wish him too bad (much), I just don’t see him living that long, particularly if he gets the GQP nomination. Let’s just say if I were him I would avoid tall buildings with external windows, or just stay on the ground floors of all buildings. But he won’t.
Nothing wrong with ‘settling’ but i’m sure dorothy would still aim super high even if her next job ambition isn’t ‘future president’. Capitalistic dystopia aside, it’d be nice to have a fulfilling life even if your ‘career’ is meh , even if ppl wanna change the world/make a diff, most ppl aren’t gonna be on their death bed thinking ” i wish i had spent more time at teh office”
I’ll bet that plenty of people with unhappy home lives come to their ending thinking exactly that. Well, “spending time at the office” isn’t worth much, but doing or making something that improves peoples’ lives? there’s nothing like it!
276 thoughts on “Job description”
Doopyboop
Ruth is a mood.
Thag Simmons
I really wish she wasn’t, but yeah, mood.
BarerMender
Help me out, here. How can a person be a mood?
Thag Simmons
in this context ‘mood’ basically means ‘relatable’
BarerMender
OK, yeah. Urban Dictionary says the same. I’d be curious how that usage makes sense.
Reltzik
“The situation this person is in / attitudes they are expressing are an iconic epitome of this mood I am presently feeling / often feel.”
BarerMender
OK. That makes sense. Kinda. Thanks.
MIB4u
I’m glad the others could help! … m00d …
Mark
Not making sense is the point. Replacing a word with another unrelated word and declaring it to mean the same thing is confusing, so it forms an in-group of those who have been informed, who can then look down on the out-group.
Doopyboop
I was honestly just using the word because I legitimately feel like Ruth’s lines in panel 4 was… a mood. Not to create an in-group and certainly not to look down on people that didn’t understand.
zee
That’s a very weird way of describing slang as a phenomenon
The Wellerman
*plays “Phenomenon” from the Muppets*
S.R.
“Mood” does not exist to make people feel superior. It’s a short, casual way to express “wow, I feel this situation/experience/expression”, like how a lot of slang is a short, casual way to express something.
Are we gonna say “yeet” is meant to make people feel superior next? Because that’s really not how memes and/or slang work, unless your social circle is entirely made of assholes.
Daibhid C
The most interesting varieties of slang actually create an in-group of those who have been informed, who can then avoid being reported to the police by the out-group.
elebenty
That’s closer to shibboleth. Knowing how a word is pronounced (for instance Cairo, Egypt vs Cairo, IL) or a regional custom (secret handshake!) does create an in-group. Shibboleth is named for this biblical account, where they determined enemies by showing the written word and listening to see if they pronounced it SH or S:
5 The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead asked him, “Are you an Ephraimite?”
If he replied, “No,” 6 they said, “All right, say ‘Shibboleth.’”
If he said, “Sibboleth,” because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.
“Mood” “yeet” “yoink” etc are just memed words. No one is looking down on people that don’t know or use them (usually it’s the opposite). There’s too much to keep up with, even if a person tried.
Doopyboop
Specifically penal 4 Ruth is a mood but yeah, I’m saying what she said there is pretty relatable.
Shadowsnail
Penal 4 Ruth is the Ruth that Julia Gray personally incarcerated in the galaxy’s fourth penal colony.
ArcaneDarkness
I am happy to know that I am not the one puzzled by this use of the word “mood”. Not understanding slang is one of those alarming signals that you are not that young anymore.
tunasammich
I’m old but mood is used a lot on tumblr, so it’s probably more of a matter of whether you use tumblr haha
elebenty
Oh have kids that do/did!
shoopdawhoop
I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!
Opus the Poet
I’ve been around since “groovy” was cool and “funky” was a complement. Now where did I put my Geritol?
Roborat
Beside the Brylcreem?
Decidedly Orthogonal
tbf, she is giving full disclosure that she has no basis upon which to give good advice regarding this question.
Masumi
Which, in itself, is something useful for Dorothy to observe n
… Not that that’s the most important thing to be in her mind right now.
Sporky
Same, Ruth. Same.
True Survivor
Not me I have tons of dreams … and I’m not doing well to reach any of them. Its scary, like I have all these ideas in my head so much of what I think and believe and love and nobody sees it and when I die it all just be gone and none of it will have helped anybody. Its scary and paralyzing and thus a positive feedback loop … and this was probably too much. Sorry. I hope you find what you want.
I love your Perry the platypus avatar.
Rabbit
I need to go lay down after reading this.
Steelbright
Hey, I feel ya on pretty much all of this. always had so many dreams & never figured out how to execute. And now realizing that there’s so many of those that won’t make it out of my brain into the real world… After all this time the only thing I’ve figured out of this mess is a. choose something rather than trying to do ALL THE THINGS at once and b. put it in your schedule.
*I write, whilst procrastinating on writing
Masumi
Yeah, this. It’s normal to have more ideas and plans than you’re able to execute. In no way a personal failure, just a brain having lots of ideas.
The important thing is to occasionally pick an idea that looks fun and go all in on it. Which is something I need to get better at, myself. I think I didn’t a bunch of my twenties beating myself up about all the things I ended up not doing, and only now I’m slowly realising I don’t need to, it’s not physically possible, and not all plans are good enough to be worth my energy. And that’s kinda liberating.
Sporky
What do you mean? It’s just an ordinary platypus. You can tell because there’s no hat.
flake
As a person with ADHD this is very relatable. As a person with depression I forgot I used to care about that. It’s nice to be reminded that I’m capable of that kind of passion (even if rarely the execution). Mental health recovery has forced me to pick one plan at a time and while that’s excruciatingly slow going (especially since I will switch plans every 5% of progress) it’s at least less overwhelming…
milu
I hope you find some peace, True Survivor. Hey, wanna tell us some of your dreams? I’m interested!
Marma
There is Warren Buffet’s advice. Write down your top 25 career/life goals, then circle your top five. The top five becomes what you focus on and the other 20 are your “avoid at all cost” list. Pay them no heed until you start completing the top 5.
Fred
It sounds good, until you realize “how do I choose the top five?”
Shadowsnail
I recommend the Magic Lessons with Elizabeth Gilbert podcast. It didn’t get me started on any projects, but it felt like it could have for an alternate version of me that was the kind of person who would start a project.
not someone else
I have tons of dreams. They mostly involve me either getting trapped in a house with my abuser or flying really awkwardly through a forest.
For real though the idea of having dreams is scary. I’ve very recently worked up to the terrifying and liberating point of “considering having a career plan” and I’m nearing 40.
Mark
We do ourselves harm by using the same word for fantasies that happen to us while asleep, and directed visions of our future.
Ana Chronistic
“Aspirations of unusual size? I don’t think they really exist”
Steelbright
hehe, which begs the question, which aspirations are going to aggressively and unexpectedly throw themselves at Ruth from off-panel
FlyingFish
Jennifer accidentally stepped on a spare skate of Carla’s and comes screaming down the hall at top speed…
Schpoonman
Ruth should clothesline her.
Doctor_Who
Dorothy: “Don’t you have ANY dreams?”
Ruth: “Well, I’d like to see the Leafs win the cup.”
Dorothy: “I said dreams, not fantasies.”
True Survivor
This made me smile. Thank you.
Opus the Poet
I’m probably one of the few old enough to remember seeing the Leafs win the Cup, and Canadian-adjacent enough to care about it.
Dara
dingdingdingdingWINNAH
unlike, obviously
the Leafs
xD
UrsulaDavina
Basically replaces Leafs with Sabers except it’s even worse beacuse at least the leafs won many Stanley cups. Hopefully they never win again beacuse the Leafs are evil and so are the Habs and Lightning as well.
Belegcam
Came here for the Leafs joke, well done.
Grayfinity
A n e x c e p t i o n h a s o c c u r r e d .
C.T. Phipps
Well have you lost that much, Dorothy? You’d be getting good grades and going to college anyway.
But yes, I’m glad Raidah saved you from this.
Doctor_Who
Raidah sucks, but it’d be nice if her attempt at being mean inadvertently had a positive long term result.
Alongcameaspider
I suspect this has been at the back of Dorothy’s mind for a while now and Raidah’s comment was just the straw that broke the camels back
justin8448
This was always coming.
Bysmerian
It’s pretty clear from her conversation with Becky about Yale that she was already wavering hard. Becky even pointed out a point adjacent to the one Raidah made.
And then Raidah came, deliberately brought the subject up, and made the harshest judgment she could.
This was not the straw that broke the camel’s back. The camel was staggering, wavering, and its back was in the process of popping in horribly painful ways. And then Raidah dropped a wrecking ball on top.
I legitimately feel like there’s more to Raidah than we’re seeing; Freshman Raidah is visibly less self-assured, less calculating, and all around a bit friendlier (albeit misguided) than the young woman we’re seeing now, and I’m wondering just a little about what happened for her Freshman Year character arc, because I genuinely feel like “One of my new friends got sent home partway through our first semester after her roommate took issue with her mourning a little too hard”–a grievous oversimplification but that’s how she seems to see it–feels like it wasn’t necessarily enough there.
Or maybe this is just progress for her as she’s trying to shape herself into her ideal of a lawyer, who knows?
Keulen
Raidah may have said it to Dorothy mainly to be mean, but she wasn’t actually wrong this time.
Freemage
Ugh, no, she’s not. Let’s assume that she’s right, and that being POTUS means, perforce, you MUST commit at least some war crimes in the pursuit of your duties and because of the complications of global geopolitics.
We can draw three categories of people:
Those who are indifferent to the harm they cause;
Those who are seeking to cause harm;
Those who would avoid causing harm as much as possible.
Raidah’s “logic” would leave that third category ineligible for office by default, and thus only give the seat to people who either don’t care, or who are actively malicious.
Basically, Raidah is pimping for Trump ’24.
Now, she’s a sophomore in college, and thus prone to, well, sophomoric opinions about the world, wherein everything has a simple and pat answer, so I’d actually forgive her that.
But the fact that she quite clearly had stored that line up solely to hurt and confuse Dorothy (who never did anything to harm her) the first time they met, rather than to engage in any sort of discussion about Deep Topics, means that she’s not only demonstrably wrong, but she’s wrong for the wrong reasons.
C.T. Phipps
I think we don’t need to take it “you must be a war criminal” to need to be literally true. However, as President you will be the head of the US military and have a bunch of obligations that will sort of, at bare minimum, make you responsible for either the loss of life or have the responsibility to take lives.
Someone assassinates some Americans, Dorothy is told she’s expected to authorize a retaliation for easy reference.
There’s nothing weird with saying, “I don’t want to do that.”
Mark
There’s virtue in saying, “no, we’re going to do something less satisfying but more effective, and more humane.”
People forget that the President is an executive. The Legislature holds the war power and is responsible for its use, no matter how much they delegate. They need to be precise in their direction of that power if they care about what is done with it. “When the sovereign has stated his requirements, the general is not answerable for how he fulfils them.”
thejeff
There’s virtue in that, but it also implies there’s always a more humane and more effective option. Sometimes all the options are bad in one way or another. Even as President all you can do is determine who gets hurt and maybe how directly the US is responsible.
thejeff
@C.T. Phipps: There’s value in an “I don’t really want to have to make those decisions” realization, but that’s not at all how Raidah phrased it. She was much more in a “You want to be a war criminal. That makes you a bad person” kind of direction.
june gloom
Anyone who has the capability of getting themselves elected president should by no means be permitted to do the job.
thejeff
It’s a cute sentiment, but you still need somebody to do the job, so now what?
Worse, it tends to encourage ignoring the differences between candidates in favor of putting them all in the “should by no means be permitted” category.
The gallorp
Disagree with you there about needing a President. Having a head of state is a convenience that makes many things easier or more doable. Many of those things do not need to be done, certainly not easily.
thejeff
Can you cite some examples that worked out well for the countries involved?
Obviously, it doesn’t have to be called “President” or have exactly the same role, but it’s really hard to think of cases that didn’t have someone running the show.
davidbreslin101
“They’re-all-the-same-ism” is the bane of politics over here – it allows politicians to carry on in office for years after they should have been thrown out, because “ooh, it won’t make any difference” to replace them. It seems no crime or incompetance is enough to make some voters admit that they’re propping up a leader who really is worse than the competition.
june gloom
I’m an anarchist. You don’t wanna know what I think of the idea of a presidency or equivalent position.
thejeff
I’ve got some sympathy for left-anarchism, but I don’t see how it can work unless somehow imposed worldwide all at the same time.
And imposing it seems fundamentally at odds with anarchism.
Pergola
Hmm. So the only way you can get a decent president is if the VP takes over after the elected President dies or is forced out of office?
Opus the Poet
I’m hoping this isn’t wishful thinking on my part but I don’t see Mango Mussolini surviving to election day 2024. I don’t wish him too bad (much), I just don’t see him living that long, particularly if he gets the GQP nomination. Let’s just say if I were him I would avoid tall buildings with external windows, or just stay on the ground floors of all buildings. But he won’t.
anon
Nothing wrong with ‘settling’ but i’m sure dorothy would still aim super high even if her next job ambition isn’t ‘future president’. Capitalistic dystopia aside, it’d be nice to have a fulfilling life even if your ‘career’ is meh , even if ppl wanna change the world/make a diff, most ppl aren’t gonna be on their death bed thinking ” i wish i had spent more time at teh office”
Mark
I’ll bet that plenty of people with unhappy home lives come to their ending thinking exactly that. Well, “spending time at the office” isn’t worth much, but doing or making something that improves peoples’ lives? there’s nothing like it!
Ophidiophile
A common experience for freshmen college students is discovering that the major they chose is not really the major they want.
elebenty