I agree. That was the kernel I was referring to. The rest of it - harassment etc - was the shitshow I referred to.
I see I was ninja’d and am relieved to see I am not crazy. Frankly I’m flabbergasted that anyone could read the reason she doesn’t like sea lions as some mystery.
I’d say it’s more analogous to someone is overheard saying, “I could do without gamers” by a gamer.
Then that gamer demanding that they justify their opinion to their satisfaction.
The entire point of it being an anthromorphized animal is to avoid the racial issues that you brought into it. Nor did they say the word “hate”, so your analogy is a significant escalation to what was actually in the comic.
And the other point is that they are everywhere, and that there is no place that they will not “overhear” any chance remark they may choose to take exception to.
But this is at cross purposes. I’m not questioning what the comic meant in context at the time, and the whole gamergate connection. This discussion all derives from what I said at post #10…
The thread was started by someone who didn’t know what the term meant, so obviously had none of the social context from the time. But people had linked to the comic. I was noting that taken at face value the comic is not an effective and accurate portrayal of the phenomenon of sealioining.
I’m not suggesting that the author intended the sea lion to be analogous to a Korean overhearing someone saying they hate Koreans, and then apparently quite reasonably asking what the hell they mean by that. I’m saying that at face value this is what the cartoon seems to portray, which is confusing to someone unfamiliar with gamergate and trying to understand the actual concept of sealioning.
(It’s also not intended in any way to be a criticism of the artist. I’m sure they had no idea how the meme would take off, and did not compose the thing based on how it would look out of context many years later.)
I’d agree that the author was only making a humorous, yet poignant take on current issues, and did not expect to create an ubiquitous term and meme from it, so the comic ends up being expected to do some heavy lifting it was never intended to do, but I also think that the comic is pretty self explanatory for what it portrays.
Even in your example. If you and I are sitting in the food court in the mall, and I tell you I hate Koreans, what is a Korean doing to overhear our private conversation in the first place?
If I stood up and shouted it to the whole crowd, then I should very well expect to have to defend my opinion, which in this case, would be indefensible, IMO. But, no, I shouldn’t have to defend the opinion that I expressed to a single individual to anyone eavesdropping, even if that opinion is reprehensible.
I don’t think that you need to have any familiarity with gamergate to get the comic, all that would mean would be that you don’t know how it relates to the current events at the time. It could be “I don’t care for actors”, “I don’t care for sports athletes”. Actors and athletes who overhear these words are not owed an explanation.
Making it a racial comment turns the speaker into a racist, and it’s much easier to lose any empathy for them once you have done that, and gain empathy for the one who that racism is against.
Agreed that one element of sealioning is inappropriate persistence and an entitled expectation that others have a duty to engage, and that this is well represented in the cartoon.
The issue is that there is an additional element to sealioning, that of insincerity, of disingenuously asking questions that you already know the answer to, with a veneer of politeness designed (along with the relentless persistence) to antagonize. It’s the insincerity element that is not brought out effectively in the cartoon. It appears at face value that the sea lion has a perfectly reasonable and genuine interest in why she dislikes sea lions, even if his persistence is inappropriate.
And I’d say that it’s quite evident that the sealion knows that it is exactly the behavior it is exhibiting that one could do without. Hence the disingenuousness of its questions.
I think that interpretation is far from obvious. We’ll just have to disagree on that.
But that’s the essence of why I think the comic is a poor representation of the concept of sealioning. Taken at face value, saying for no apparent reason that you dislike all sea lions does seem analogous to a racist comment directed against a class of people. That natural interpretation (not what the artist intended) is what makes it confusing.
[ Just to note that I had deleted my prior reply to move on to something else, but you replied quoting what I deleted… I just restored my original comment so the conversation doesn’t look weird. ]
I guess, but wouldn’t you know that you are being annoying if you show up at someone’s bed and to their breakfast table demanding answers? I think I would know that that is why people don’t like me.
But I do think that, while it has a cold open and the reader doesn’t know why the character dislikes that particular aquatic mammal at the beginning, by the end of the comic, that reason is made clear.
It may be more clear if a sealion were chasing them all over the place, in their home and in their bed, and at the end, the character says they dislike sealions, but it would make the same point. (but would have no humor value)
Again, we’ll have to disagree that it is clear.
I mean, we could easily gather some data on this. I think there are plenty of older people around who don’t know what sealioning means, and who have never seen the comic and know nothing about gamergate. I would confidently predict that nobody would derive a definition of sealioning that incorporates the element of insincerity in the sea lion’s questions from that comic taken at face value.
Okay, so let’s reformat the comic a bit.
Cold open, a couple people are walking along, a sealion comes up and says, “Excuse me, I want to ask you some questions.” They say they are having a private conversation and walk off. Then it shows up in their bedroom, “Excuse me. I want to ask you some questions.” At breakfast, it shows up and says, “Excuse me. I want to ask you some questions.” The character says, “I could do without sealions.” The sealion says, “Why, whatever for?”
Different parsing, but I think it conveys the same message. It is the behavior that is exhibited by the sealion, in the comic, that the character could do without.
I would agree that many would not see the insincerity behind the sealion’ questions, which is why the act of sealioning is itself such an insidious behavior, as it is easy to mask that insincerity behind such politely posed and reasonable questions.
Many who have had experience with sealioning trolls on the internet would immediately see the insincerity behind the behavior.
I don’t think it requires knowledge of gamergate, I barely have a passing familiarity of what went on with that. It only requires knowledge of trolling behavior. People who only know of trolling as a form of fishing from a slowly moving boat would certainly not get it.
Shark instead of sea lion. First panel resembles the Jaws poster, but with numerous vicious-looking sharks all about to converge on a swimmer and munch. In other words - plenty of people dislike sharks, and it’s obvious why. Then the rest of the comic as drawn - but the persistently questioning shark is not portrayed with the vicious appearance of the first panel, instead it now looks very civilized and non-threatening.
It’s a better representation of the concept, but unfortunately sharks are not so intrinsically funny as sea lions. I’ll try to think of something better.
But of course, portraying to the reader of the comic the fact that the sea lion is insincere but that his insincerity may be hard to discern is not conveyed by just making his insincerity hard to discern.
There are very few memes that anyone would get without some level of outside knowledge. In this case, there are those who recognize the behavior as something they have experienced, and then there are those who don’t get it. The comic is aimed towards the former.
There was a south park episode where Cartman was “just asking questions”. If that was one’s only exposure to human history and knowledge(except somehow knowing English), a viewer may very well wonder why Cartman’s behavior was upsetting to the other characters.
Anyway, I’m off to bed. Hope to not see any sealions.
If you count sea lions instead of sheep, you can be sure that they wilil keep coming.
A stingray with a monocle?
Just for the heck of it, I decided to make a stingray with a monocle as an example. I even added some distinguished facial hair.
It would not be very distinguished if the stingray is a female. Would it? Huh?
Well, whattayagototsaynow!? Huh WELL! ANSWER ME!
Okay, just kidding. He is a very handsome fella.