I’m thinking of making a short comic about what happens when someone thinks they can buy happiness, but it turns out they so obviously can’t. I always enjoyed that great scene in The Office, when the thick bros of the office eagerly fawn over the resident power-douche, saying “He could have any woman he wants”, but in reality it turns out … he can’t.
So yes, I just need a title for the comic. I’m thinking ‘Trapped Child Trillionaire’, or ‘Dissatisfied Business Trillionaire’ or something similar. Suggestions welcome.
Every page will begin with our lifeless Golem bragging about the things he’s going to achieve in order to obtain global admiration, eg:
- putting people on Mars by 2025
- saving those trapped in a Thai cave
- ending world hunger
- saving Twitter from bots
- making Gov’t more efficient using doge
- removing life-threatening tools from X
… then midway down each page he reveals he won’t because he’s full of sh1t, and doesn’t actually do anything other than scrape Government subsidies and desperately try to get pedophiles to like him …
… and then each page ends with a footer which is simply a flashback to his childhood where a parent denies him a hug/time/attention. Over and over again. Page after page of (1) promises to do better –> (2) failures to do better –> (3) flashbacks to tragic parenting.
Great idea, huh?! And due to my fame as a comic producer, it’d be read pretty globally, and almost certainly [eventually] by the sad boy himself. Only question is, how do we make it sexy and not too depressing? An erotic comic people will actually share … hmm. That’s the real question. I can’t very well have our ‘protagonist’ be actually sexy, because he looks like a block of halloumi. Maybe he can have sexy neighbours, constantly doing it and demonstrating what functioning relationships actually look like, while he fumbles his way through tragedy after tragedy, Groundhog-style.
Anyway, it’s just an idea. Maybe a bit of a sad subject, not exactly something anyone’d want to read. Unless I can figure out a twist to make it entertaining in some way.
Maybe boobs? They’ve proved popular in the past …
[PS. As we all know, Social Media exclusively functions by turning engagement into advertising money, which pays the owner. So please … if you’re still using Twitter … it might be time to stop. In fact that time might have been five years ago, frankly …]
Don’t bother. He’d probably view it as flattery.
Aye that’s a fair point. Maybe I should do it about the second-richest man in the world, and their tragedy ends with him saying “Wowee I feel bad for anyone richer than me”
Perhaps his children find his behavior abhorrent, flee to their estranged aunts place they only vaguely heard of during their upbringing, find happiness living with her. She happens to be like many people who were raised by monsters a “fix it” for a time but grew to become a renowned psychiatrist. In the fullness of time she helps them overcome their trauma from being raised by such a douche canoe?
Or is that to true to life?
š ah, families, eh? Madness. Mmm yes, perhaps I shouldn’t bother, I’ve already released a comic called ‘Ultimate Family Fiasco’
You could use an old phrase. Ere Long – you now like some day soon it will happen. I am certain that the phrase doesn’t contain anything that would give the reader a hint as to who is being talked about. Maybe you could name the character Nikolai.
The minute Twitter changed hands I deleted the app and all of my content. I was never a big user so it wasn’t a grand gesture but we do what we can.
There _is_ social media that doesn’t thrive on engagement, luckily (the Fediverse, and I think you used to have an account there, on Mastodon? Plus these days even WordPress can integrate with it using the ActivityPub plugin) and it has a nice classic āolder internetā feeling āalthough too many people these days are so used to being force-fed streams of ācontentā rather than having to go look for it that they find it ādifficultā to use.
That being said, I do agree with BobC here, it’s not worth it.
Yes I think Mastodon certainly has the potential if enough people get their heads around what it is. I quite like BSky but I’m not sure how long it’ll last before it turns into just another Twitter (ie algorithms wreck it and then it gets sold to some bellend). We are starting to see the beginnings of regulation though (eg the DSA and the UK’s equivalent), and things like this: https://www.facebook.com/EuropeanCommission/posts/pfbid02AvV27akrMb2qGVQDeaHAVUen76NfNHyi9Kjq9hj2SEomrZHUDzWuSwa65nUA2e6Nl … give me some hope for the future.
BlueSky is already move straight in the same direction of all the commercial platforms, including questionable censorship. It was basically designed as a honeypot to catch all the people leaving X/Twitter in protest under an illusion of ādecentralizationā that is more rhetoric than substance.
The Fediverse is perceived to be more complex than it actually is. Mastodon and the other federated microblogging platforms work exactly like the commercial ones for the basics (post, fav, reshare, comment, follow people, be followed by people, follow hashtags, etc). The only meaningful differences is that what you see is what you choose to follow, so you don’t get force-fed content based on algorithmic profiling, and the federation, that makes a few things slightly more cumbersome, but it also allows things like interaction between different platforms (e.g. commenting on WordPress fromā Mastodon, resharing posts and videos from one platform to the other, etc).
Yes it’s a shame BSky is on that same path because they could so easily make it … you know … not about money. Imagine.
I’m all for the fediverse – totally agree with the potential, I just don’t think the general public are ever going to get their heads around it. What we need is for someone to run a Mastodon server and plough Ā£15M into marketing/branding/advertising it, to get people onboard, and then they’ll be initiated into the environment. Maybe it could be one of the many world-changing things funded by the new tax rules we need for billionaires. And, frankly, multi-millionaires.
The less I think of him, the happier I am. But after the latest revelations I can’t help but wonder how utterly insufferable you’d have to be for even the slimiest and scummiest of slimy scumbags to not want to be associated with you, despite all the money you have and the morals you don’t have? No matter how lowly I think of him – and that is LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW – I’m not sure I can even imagine anything that low. For the sake of the remainders of my sanity, I sure hope I never can.
I love money.
I don’t really have any money.
He has more money than anyone on the planet.
And yet, I feel sorry for his pathetic existence. What a sad excuse of a human. Such a massive waste of so many resources – money, oxygen, thoughts, emotions… Literally everything put on him is 100% wasted.
Yet millions of people admire him. That’s where we are, Anno Domini 2026. Well done, humankind, well done.
I [sadly], met quite a few young people who absolutely idolised him, as recently as 5-8 years ago – one good thing of all the X/Hitler salute/Grok/Epstein stuff is that he is no longer idolised as far as I can tell.
Now if only we could get more people onboard with the general ‘Billionaires Shouldn’t Ever Exist’ bandwagon …
Trillionaire Laid Bare
Trillionaire Full of Hot Air
Vapid Wealth
Money Misery
The Feckless Financier
Can’t Buy Character
or… Fuck this Fucking Fucker
Dear Sir/Madam, this is poetry. Art. It is worthy of reading out as a short-form poem on the stage, just remove the ‘or’ and we are there.
I agree, that is a poem. I first read it as such and only at the first line realized it was actually a list of title suggestions. Accidental art at its finest.
*last line, not first.
Oh my goodness. First, I’m flattered to have caught your attention. Second, I must admit that irezawa was right- this was accidental art/poetry. I was just offering title suggestions in response to your post. But now that I re-read it the way YOU both read it, I can see it… and I’m pleasantly surprised! Please stay forever introspective, open-minded and expressive, and keep sharing those thoughts (and boobies).
Deal. You keep writing š
I don’t know how that comic could be sexy, but if anyone can do it, it’s you. Also, while reading this post, Mark E Smith was screaming “Child was spoilt Victorian!” in my head over and over again, so you’ve got the musical accompaniment settled.
Alternatively – it doesn’t have to be sexy. Go ahead and just make whatever comes out. You can make art that doesn’t have dongers and tinkledinks. You’re allowed!
Haha oh yeah, now there’s an idea! Non sexy comics?!?!?! Mindblowing š”