Althouse: Brilliant animation, beginning with the story of a boy getting the nickname "Pork Chop."

February 22, 2013

Brilliant animation, beginning with the story of a boy getting the nickname "Pork Chop."

This is very fast-moving and will be especially cool if you don't know where it's going:

(Details about the video here.)

38 comments:

Eric the Fruit Bat said...: Today his nickname should be neckbeard.; 2/22/13, 8:15 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Wow. Had to stop half way through. My computer got depressed and rebelled.; 2/22/13, 8:17 AM
Unknown said...: The pork chop part was amusing. By the half way point I was tired of being yelled at and wondering if it had a point that hadn't been made twice already. It didn't.; 2/22/13, 8:26 AM
Anonymous said...: Fast moving? The video I tried to watch was wallowing in drama of the kind that feeds on itself and turns a dysfunctional life into a dysfunctional world.

If there was an inspirational denouement there, I'll pass. The price of reaching it is one some of us have already paid, reaping a far greater reward than a happy ending to a video.; 2/22/13, 8:29 AM
bleh said...: Lame; 2/22/13, 8:33 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: off topic... or is it?

Pistorius out on bail.; 2/22/13, 8:34 AM
bagoh20 said...: A wonderful journey where he managed to take me from caring deeply to apathy to wanting to punch him in the nose and call him "pork chop".; 2/22/13, 8:35 AM
Wince said...: It did seem to transition from telling a moving, unfolding story that pulled me emotionally... into becoming a tantrum.

I'll have to watch it again, maybe.; 2/22/13, 8:37 AM
bagoh20 said...: Now I know what being bullied feels like.; 2/22/13, 8:40 AM
Jill said...: Wow....great advertisement for homeschooling!; 2/22/13, 8:41 AM
traditionalguy said...: No guns for Pork Chop. His growing up reminded me of David Rackoff's Half Empty.

The contrast with the Bar Mitzvah u-tube yesterday was stark. Maybe self image learned in Torah class beats self image learned in pagan pop culture.

It's always nice to hear other men affirm that God's view of a boy is that of a covenant capable man worthy of Him and the community.; 2/22/13, 8:42 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Pistorius out on bail."

New post on that topic. Please go there to discuss that (except to the extent that it's really tied to the themes in this video.); 2/22/13, 8:42 AM
bagoh20 said...: This is a great example of ruing something that could have been great by not stopping with great. Isn't this a common problem with budding artists? Leave it, it's done.; 2/22/13, 8:43 AM
bagoh20 said...: You know that thing with grunge music where it's: play softly, then loud, then soft then loud,... It's got that, which only works for a bout two cycles.

The animation was great. I wonder if it would work without the narration. That's the downfall.; 2/22/13, 8:48 AM
jacksonjay said...: Should I be ashamed? Traditional guy made me LOL with No guns for Pork Chop! Very dark!; 2/22/13, 8:55 AM
Known Unknown said...: I liked it. Yes, it wallowed a bit, but the animation was so interesting and diverse I ignored that.; 2/22/13, 9:15 AM
Henry said...: Watch it with the sound off.; 2/22/13, 9:21 AM
Anonymous said...: "Watch it with the sound off."

Best advice.

When he got to ranting about how a broken bone couldn't possibly be worse than being called names, I couldn't help wondering if he'd ever had a broken bone. Even his fall out of the tree only gave him bruises.

Drama is meant to be a spectator sport, not a way of life.; 2/22/13, 9:50 AM
Dan from Madison said...: I don't really get it, nor do I get all the navel gazing going on over bullying that I have seen the last several years. I was bullied but that was THIRTY FUCKING YEARS AGO. Pardon my French.

It doesn't matter, it can't be changed, and wallowing in the past does exactly zero to help anyone today.

Just move on, feel sorry for those insecure jerks that did it, and live your life to the fullest.; 2/22/13, 9:52 AM
kjbe said...: A good story showing why and how some of us struggle. Quite touching and thank you to the author for sharing.; 2/22/13, 10:24 AM
fivewheels said...: One word: Overwrought.

It also suffers from the problem of showing a little too much how desperately one wants to be called courageous for saying what's already obvious and widely accepted.; 2/22/13, 10:35 AM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Yes. Bullying is horrible. The animation was very good and I agree with the message. But....the whining drama queen quality of his voice and the yelling ruined the whole thing.

Thankfully, my daughter was not bullied in school, but occasionally would have problems with the girl's clique. Young girls are extremely cruel and there is always the jockeying to push out some girls and trying to see who will be the queen bee. Normal.

My advice at the time was the same advice that I told myself at that age.

Rules to live by: Someday you will not be in this little school and you will have moved onto a better life than these small minded girls can imagine. These people will mean nothing to you when you are in the 'real world' and you will leave them behind you.

Always remember...."Success is the best revenge." And...it is and it has been.; 2/22/13, 10:47 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: So the therapy worked out then.; 2/22/13, 12:27 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: So the therapy worked out then.

Yep :-D

Actually, I think what developed my attitude was that we moved frequently when I was a child. Sometimes we attended as many as 5 elementary schools in one class year. Always the "new kids". In some schools we were accepted and made friends, in others we were taunted on the playgrounds and treated like shit.

I always knew that in a few weeks/months those kids and the sometimes crappy, cruel teachers would be left behind and we would be moving on. They meant nothing to me because they were just passing through my life. Probably, "military brats" have had similar experiences. When we settled in one place, in 5th grade for me, we could then begin to seriously make good and lifetime lasting friends. There was no point before that.

So I learned at an early age, it doesn't matter WHAT people think about you or how they act towards you. It is how you feel about yourself and what YOU do. Other people (mostly) don't matter. It also helped to have a loving, close and supportive of each other family.

I think that is what the guy in the video was trying to say.; 2/22/13, 12:47 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I think the narration is in that pitched style because he is trying to speak to kids who are going through those things right now and feel those emotions as fresh and raw.; 2/22/13, 1:49 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Every kid should watch A Christmas Story. The take away for a kid is not to take any garbage from bullies.; 2/22/13, 1:51 PM
Skyler said...: Cry me a river.

Everyone gets called names in school at one time or another. If you let it get to you, then you lose. If you decide that they are wrong, then you win.

Get over it, is the advice he claims he was given, and I'll repeat it. His problem is him.

Maybe there's some medical issue, especially with the drugs and what not, but in the end the responsibility for what he is and what he has become is his own.; 2/22/13, 1:59 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I'm against the idea of teaching bullied people that bullies are evil or that someday they'll get to prove how great they are to the bullies.

History shows that average people can be tempted into doing evil things. Better to forgive them. Truly "they know not what they do." They injure their own souls. One hopes they'll stop, turn from evil, and be healed.

As for the, "You'll show them," advice, I don't like it because it isn't true. Maybe you'll never show them. Maybe you'll fail by the world's standards at life. Or maybe you won't, but even then, what does that mean? You become enviable? That's only so much noise, so many ashes.

If someone bullies you, you don't owe him. You don't have to show him up someday. You don't have to make him see how wrong he was. You just have to either bear up under it or make him stop, and remember, as was in the video, that the bully is wrong, or not even wrong but irrelevant because he's not even attempting to communicate some truth about you but only doing the banal thing of jockeying for social position.; 2/22/13, 2:20 PM
Kevin said...: I like all the mixing of animation formats but

otherwise I just want to go back in time and beat him up.; 2/22/13, 2:21 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: If someone bullies you, you don't owe him. You don't have to show him up someday. You don't have to make him see how wrong he was

Of course not. The bully is nothing to you... eventually. The success that you have in your life can be material or spiritual or hopefully both. Just the satisfaction of living your life well and in the best way you can should be enough.

You don't have to go back to your school and do the 'nanny nanny boo boo look at me' routine. It is enough in your heart to know who you are and to feel good about your life. You don't need anyone's approval anymore than you did their disapproval.; 2/22/13, 2:43 PM
Ben Morris said...: What depresses me is that so much "art" like this is comprised of an artist trying to prove that he feels more deeply than everyone else (especially, as it seems in this case, when the artist has a lot of talent for his craft).; 2/22/13, 2:54 PM
Ben Morris said...: Also, boo Althouse for tricking me into thinking it was going somewhere that wasn't obvious in the first 10 seconds.; 2/22/13, 2:56 PM
AlanKH said...: I was the picked-on kid in school, and I vote for overwrought drama queen.

Any kind of serious discussion on bullying (which this video is not) should address the difference between real bullying and teasing. Even when I was a young teenager I figured out that there was a difference between the two.

Bullying is hateful. Most teasing isn't hateful, it's kids trying to be funny and relying on any comic material they can devise. Sometimes it is intended as playful affection, but the recipient may not translate it as such if the recipient tends to get a disproportionate share of teasing.

One reason the distinction is important is that bullies don't want to be friends by teasers aren't necessarily closed to the idea - and the picked-on kid needs to know that.; 2/22/13, 4:05 PM
eddie willers said...: I hated it.

Please don't call me names as I might be tempted to make a maudlin and treacly video as well.

And then kill myself.; 2/22/13, 5:06 PM
marvel said...: I'd rather have watched the "People are Awesome 2013" video again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6XUVjK9W4o; 2/22/13, 7:12 PM
Joan said...: Loved the animation, hated the narration.

This comment thread especially needs those "Like" buttons appearing elsewhere. Instead I'll just have to say ITA with Dust Bunny Queen, Freeman Hunt, AlanKH, and fivewheels.

I was hassled when I was a kid. I got over it by getting over it. One of the key indicators of whether a woman will become depressed is if she's a "ruminator," someone who'll keep revisiting whatever problems she has. If we could teach kids skills to avoid *that* so they could allow the stupid words to be just that, now that would be a good thing.; 2/22/13, 8:42 PM
William said...: Many interesting comments. I thought Freeman's were exceptionally wise....But wise or stupid, fat or athletic, bullied or compassionate, none of us walk away winners. We all get our fair share of misery. I suppose some people reach their full measure later than others, but that just gives it an extra twist of the knife.....Feel sorry for those kids who were never bullied. They have not been vaccinated, and the world is full of disease.; 2/23/13, 1:36 AM
Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene said...: I lasted maybe 45 seconds. Then I got the creeping feeling that maybe it was all horseshit. I remembered a real ripper of a story on "This American Life." Halfway through that, I began to disbelieve it... then, on when they back announced it, they said it was fictional. I went from enchanted to skeptical to angry. Really angry. I haven't been able to enjoy TAL since. (The part that made me skeptical of "Pork Chop" was when he explained-- very early on-- how he usta confuse pork chops and karate chops. The whole thing hinges on that confusion. And I didn't buy it. A major flaw in the "poem," if you ask me.); 2/23/13, 5:15 PM