I’m 100% positive that this comment will get downvoted heavily

Don’t worry, buddy, I’ll get you started. 🫡

Which is why they deserve and need to be mocked mercilessly until they fuck off or get therapy.

I’m doing my part. 🫡

Actually, I missed this thread.

so why the pretence that this particular shape, the “R. Mutt” signature, has significance?

Because reinterpretation is not an art historian’s job.

The original reaction is lost to time, dude. A modern audience is, broadly, already aware of the transgressive urinal, and so already more accepting of it. There is no recreating the piece. There is only recreating what it was.

If you think that’s BS

I don’t, other than it seems to be something you’ve written specifically to tick the boxes you think I’m looking for.

Would it baffle you to know I might consider this “critique” to be art where the image itself is not? I leave that as an exercise to the reader.

But anyway. Yet again, your contempt for the modern art world really betrays your jealousy of it. Do I just take your word for it that these critics have nothing to say?

If you think that the writings of these critics are smug, self-important hogwash, then why are you using their tools, the tools of the enemy, to justify to me why I should care about this talking cup?

Again, to the crowd: this is why what barsoap is saying is bullshit. It’s just a chess move to them. They don’t actually believe any of this. Their sole motivation is salvaging gen AI’s reputation.

buy a random [urinal] off the shelf, then proclaim it to be original.

This is profoundly offensive to art history, actually. A museum?

People go to great lengths to preserve CRT setups for old video games, but you’re like “nah, a TV is as good as any other.”

Dude, your contempt for art is insane. I’m telling you, you’re jealous that I respect the profane and “meaningless” urinal and not your AI toys.

Were they chuckling because the talking glass confuses and upsets the rule-of-three comedy technique being used?

I guess I’m talking to the crowd here because this is important: The reason this is notable evidence of AI and not human choice is because it is incoherent.

People know what a knock-knock joke is, and it wouldn’t work so well to say “knock-crack” for a chuckle but still expect me to ask “who’s there?” after. In comedy, and in visual art, the talking glass is an example of poor grammar.

A person, a human artist, could say knock-crack to me. Maybe they just have poor grammar generally. Maybe they did intentionally choose or ask for a giant talking cup for no reason, even though it harms the other joke they’re obviously interested in telling. But I flatly don’t believe this. It is far easier to believe this is random noise from the machine we already know generates random noise.

barsoap is reaching for the stars here to justify something they know is bullshit.

ICE agents under the republican-elected Donald Trump’s republican administration arrested the wrong brown person, and after realizing this, said “take him anyway.”

This is it, possiblylinux. That’s the SS. We have the gestapo. There is no more “fiscal conservative.” There is no more “classical libertarian.” We are nazis now.

You can either be a classical american war hero and strongly oppose this, or you can be a nazi. Those are your options. I’m not saying this euphemistically. I’m not saying it as a metaphor. I’m not exaggerating for dramatic effect.

If you do not live in the US currently, and you do not want to be relocated to Guantanamo Bay or El Salvador, then you should not come here.

Oh my god.

Jesus christ.

I was thinking, “nah, that seems nitpicky, I’m sure a real person could write either.” But that is the entire setup for the punchline. I’m gonna rip my hair out.

This Excel joke is pulling on 100 years of surrealist cultural history? That’s incredible.

As a connoisseur, maybe you can explain why the oversized glass is talking about itself to me.

Why should anyone be interested in a urinal on a pedestal?

It is incredible how jealous AI-hornies are of the toilet.

This might seem like an odd thing to say, but it seems too well-made for stick figure art. It’s too perfect, but for seemingly no reason. It’s got no verve, no life to it, but its lines are so perfect that it’s weird it doesn’t have those things, you know? Someone with this degree of skill wouldn’t make something this boring to look at unless it was part of the joke, but I don’t think it is?

It’s very strange.

The only person I can imagine drawing this manually is, like, an office worker who has this idea for a joke but who also doesn’t really know what memes are on the Internet—like when someone misuses the success baby or something.

If you’re going to pout, we can put you in the corner. That might be funny.

My friends do that.
Live your dream, mate.
Be free~

the cartoon implies that anyone who says violence isn’t the answer is lying/hypocritical.

No, it doesn’t. By its adversarial nature, it heavily implies the answers “no” to the first two questions.

Like, your main criticism is that the comic doesn’t make any sense if the answer to either question was yes, but that’s the definitive reason I wouldn’t read it that way.

A rhetorical question that you know (or are insisting you “know”) your opponent disagrees with is a very common language trick.

To be clear, I have no idea what Walt is or isn’t. I’m not making a claim there, haha.

it would be irresponsible to turn Nazi into a generic pejorative for “bigot.”

I agree… especially if we’re talking about historical figures who might be pretty far removed from the modern political climate.

But to be fair, there is a pretty direct connection between bigotry and nazis, modern or otherwise.

Criticizing the term’s over use

You can’t police overuse. Just disagree and move on.

By constantly handwringing about it every single time it comes up, you end up teaching people that that’s the way you are supposed to react to this information. It becomes a thought terminating cliche. Somebody says nazi, and the first thing anyone else thinks about is “well, they’re probably just being hyperbolic.” You’re reinforcing the same narrative.

Like, a good nazi accusation usually comes with an argument. “Such and such is a nazi because of these 6 things I saw them do, and they kicked a dog also,” but even then, people will twist themselves into pretzels about whether the word is still “too much” or not. You have to cut them off. It’s not relevant. It doesn’t need to be given dignity as a criticism. It only serves as a distraction from the 6 points.

People do the exact same thing about the word genocide.

Think about it this way: an actual nazi benefits from these terms being muddy and unworkable, so our strategy cannot depend on clear waters; we will never get them.

we should be more precise with our language

I swear this exact phrase is an FBI plot to get people to doubt everything they see and hear.

“That school shooter was a nazi” “Well, we ought to be careful when saying things like that.”
“Elon Musk is a nazi.” “And what has he done exactly? You know, it’s important to be precise. The story of the boy who cried wolf is that …”
“Hitler was a nazi.” “Well, he was in charge of the nazis. Specificity is really important when handling delicate matters like these, you know.”

Not to pick on you specifically, but I am so fucking tired of hearing it.

are flawless

I cannot help you. You are having a conversation in your head that no one else here is a part of. You gotta come back down to Earth, man.

I imagine at least some of that ridicule stems from this being kind of the exact wrong answer to the big, societal “why is everyone so lonely now?” question.

It’s a bit like watching a pack-a-day smoker buy lozenges for their throat or something, as if you’re not supposed to think about the cancer.

No, it doesn’t.

You distrust AI therapists.
You distrust bad therapists.
You do trust good therapists.

See? Works just fine.