Yeah, this seems like a sort of position paper for a medical association. Here it’s less about serious harm and more about a general lack of benefits.

To an extent, sure. That’s more about keeping a community alive through a dry spell, though.

Digital communities can easily take years to build, that’s not unusual at all. There’s always lulls in that early period where the community is mostly dead, but there’ll usually be 1-2 people just kinda keeping it on life support. Bones of the Moon has been doing that with our poetry sub for instance, if not for them, that sub would have died-died quite awhile ago. But since they (still, even) post there periodically, it winds up popping up on people’s new or local feeds every once in awhile and reminding everyone it exists, and once in awhile someone else posts there.

That’s the main reason I think people do it. Just kinda getting the community past that early period where most communities die out if left unassisted.

Eh, I disagree. It’s not enough on its own by any stretch, but it remains a very useful part of a multi-pronged approach. I’ll also point out that I addressed how almost all satires fail to have any impact on his supporters. Have you seen any Cunk though? It’s a distinct style.

It’s not about him or thinking he’s smart. It’s about why they like him and how they perceive the actual issues of the day. When Carrell or Morgan poke fun at something, they usually do it by taking it to other (quasi)logical conclusions that are so (overly) simple a young child can follow their logic. They only reason they can get away with this is because they’re clearly being Monty Python levels of serious. This lets them get away with seriously and enthusiastically espousing bad ideas in a way that makes them look even stupider than they are, in a way the rest of us can’t manage. They can parody what we cannot. Not effectively anyway.

While true, I’ll also say that Cunk has a style and power that is something special. It takes talent to play that character, not everyone can convincingly play the bumbling idiot that effectively. There’s a special something that the Diane Morgans and Steve Carells of the world have that even a Stephen Colbert can’t pull off because he still comes off as a fancy and smarter-than-you east coast elite to a flyover country person.

I’d argue an attack from Cunk, if seen by his supporters, would be more effective than an attack from almost any other source, because only she (and some Steve Carrell characters) are stupid enough to actually make them see how stupid it all is.

You need to be that level of dumb to parody him (edit: or more accurately, MAGA as a whole) to his own supporters though, even the likes of The Onion is usually too intellectually complex. Otherwise it doesn’t work, too much of it goes over their heads. And lets be real, these are some of the stupidest characters we have ever conceived of. Lenny from Of Mice and Men had significant intellectual strengths over the likes of Philomena Cunk and Michael Scott. They need that stupidity to deal with Trump on the level.

I see. Yea that makes sense, thanks.

I figured they were just okay giving out the free advertising to one of their own. But stolen also makes sense.

Honestly someone should just look up the photographer, email him and politely ask him if he was paid or not.

edit: Likely case: They asked him for it and he happily donated it, so long as they kept the watermark, and they were totally cool with that.

Right, but free advertising in every Syrian passport will help his business, which will make money, which can buy food, which is edible.

Giving the photographer the credit for his work is a win-win for everyone involved.

edit: Ooooh do you think the watermark means they stole it and never paid him? I didn’t consider that possibility.

Why is that mildly infuriating? Personally I think it’s actually kinda cool that they’re okay preserving the attribution for the artwork like that. Photographer is probably a Syrian national, so it still honors the nation and all that.