On Bullying Billionaires

Drawing an imaginary world that in NO WAY resembles our own. Subscribe for more joyous munitions.

Unasked For Cartoon One

Not sure what I think of this cartoon, in retrospect.

It was an attempt to respond to an event in more or less real-time...in this case, the Oscars. The "old book" line refers to Hugh Grant's comparison of the Oscars to Vanity Fair (the Thackery novel critiquing the shallowness of elites), and a model who thought he was referring to the magazine of the same name. Which is understandable.

Journalists sneered. They tweeted. The Guardian--a site that covers things worthy of your indignation and, occasionally, news--collated the tweets in an article.

The mockery struck me as mean-spirited. How many of those writers had read Thackery's novel? I haven't. In fact, before producing this letter, I had to double-check that Vanity Fair was about what I thought it was about... which makes me almost as ignorant as that model, though considerably shorter.

Still, by making this cartoon, I can't help but feel as though I contributed in an infinitesimal way to that general unkindness, a hate tsunami that will be forgotten until one of those end-of-year Netflix recap specials, usually guest-starring Hugh Grant.

The great short story writer George Saunders notes that he becomes kinder the longer he works on a project. His characters start as "cartoons." After many, many revisions, they become "us, in a different life."

The problem is that I make cartoons. Which are, by definition, cartoonish. Combine that with the pressure to respond to trending topics in the hope of squeezing just one more "like" out of the machine...and we have a recipe for a banal and unkind work criticizing other people's banality and unkindness.

After all, those journalists I'm satirizing are me "in a different life." Hell, they're not so far from me in this life: I've also done work that comes very, very close to what they do. You have deadlines. You need to eat. Hunger makes you cruel. Cruelty invites more cruelty--and before you know it you're the subject of someone's mediocre cartoon, on display in some obscure corner of Reddit.

Unasked For Cartoon Two

I dug out this old illustration from my portfolio, made to announce the Metaverse--the idea being that the "Metaverse was an opportunity for all of us to go live inside Mark Zuckerberg's head." Not an invitation many people RSVP-ed on, it seems. Much like my eighth birthday party.

Again, though, it contains a note of cruelty. Do I know Zuckerberg? No. I respond negatively to his public persona. That's about it. Do I think he's done terrible things? Yes, facilitating genocide would, I think, meet most people's criteria for "terrible."

The problem is I don't know why he's made those choices, beyond the desire for infinite money (which may very well be enough, of course). I've only read theories, espoused by people with their own misconceptions and agendas. I don't even know his motivations for decisions that appear merely hubristic, like--for instance--betting the Facebook farm on the Metaverse. (That said, perhaps in ten years, we'll have forgotten there's a world outside our Oculus, or that there is any God but the one true Mark).

When I think of my favourite social commentators, only one name comes to mind as someone I'd wish to emulate in his entirety. Vonnegut. Why Vonnegut? Because he satirized our species with sadness and love. He was dark, yes, and endlessly amused by both our cruelty and absurdity, but his brilliance, his humour, always went beyond easy shots at public figures. At least, as far as I know. I'm no Professor of Vonnegut Studies at the University of Tralfamadore.

Vonnegut's generosity of spirit I hope to one day find in myself, somewhere beyond the impulse to sneer at people who are, and I'm guessing here, as broken as they are unjustifiably wealthy. Probably good to steer clear of social media stats then--particularly as my own are shrivelled like it's minus ten out.