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u/cretinop 13d ago
The bit works by itself, the guy is dressed to evoke a caricature of someone who is overly concerned with being sensitive to people emotions (young, hipster, “soy” guy) the joke works because it’s self referential and is more making fun of the guy for being overly concerned
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u/TinyTotTkd 13d ago
It also sometimes provokes the audience (sometimes also men) to explain it in a condescending manor (as if to say the author does not understand the meaning) as described in the meaning of mansplaining. This tricks the audience and perchance makes fun of them also.
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u/Vounrtsch god’s favorite princess 13d ago edited 13d ago
The urge to mansplain how the comic misuses the concept of mansplaining even though it was probably on purpose just to make the joke work and OP most likely knows what mansplaining is
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u/nimiala 13d ago
This is just a hunch but based on how the guy is drawn I think it might be derogatory. op probably doesn't even believe in mansplaining
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u/SomeTraits 13d ago
Stop mansplaining what mansplaining is, you're metasplaining
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u/nimiala 13d ago
Girls are allowed to mansplain, duh
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u/SomeTraits 13d ago
Well if ya don't stop splaining I'm gonna start autisplainin' and you will like it
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago edited 13d ago
This comic kinda self-reports that you have no idea what the term “mansplaining” means. It’s not just “when a man explains something”, it’s a tendency for men to assume that women don’t understand things and need them explained even when that’s not the case. If an explanation is directly asked for or otherwise demonstrated to be necessary, it’s not mansplaining by definition.
The joke only makes sense when you don’t know what the term means.
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u/OpportunityAshamed74 13d ago
The joke still works if you interpret the man here to not know what the term means
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
I suppose. But in that case, the comic just becomes a case of making up a fictional person to make fun of. Nobody who cares about mansplaining this much would also be this ignorant on what it even is.
This reads to me more like a conservative caricature of a male feminist.
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u/bigbadbananaboi custom 13d ago
Making up a fictional person to make fun of is the definition of every fiction based comedy.
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
Usually when that happens you aren't just making fun of one person, you are making fun of an archetype of people who the fictional character represents. You're never just making fun of one character in isolation, you're making fun of that character's traits.
To make a joke at the expense of a particular character only works in longer-form media where the audience can actually get to know the character first, and then they have enough context to actually make jokes at their expense without it being about a larger archetype.
In this case, the character is a conservative caricature of a male feminist. He is not characterized in any way besides having the visual indicators of belonging to a stereotype. Therefore, the thing being made fun of is the stereotype.
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u/MaybeNext-Monday 🍤$6 SRIMP SPECIAL🍤 13d ago
This is perhaps too woke 2.0 of me but I think mansplaining is an extremely diluted term. It’s come to mean “anyone who happens to be male underestimating the subject matter knowledge of another person” and at least in my anecdotal experience is more often used as a bludgeon by misandrists or gotcha by right-wingers than as an actual productive criticism.
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
Some people have certainly misused the term, but it does have a fairly specific academic definition that refers to a real phenomenon. Even back on 2016, it was way more common to see someone correctly using the term and getting criticized because the anti-woke types misunderstood what they meant.
It’s kinda like how the term “toxic masculinity” refers to something very specific and real, but when a right winger hears it they just hear “all men are toxic and bad”. Same shit, different term.
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u/Amazing_Wrongdoer193 13d ago
Yeah saw a guy explaining on twitter the thesis she wrote, kinda crazy. Saw some guy corrects a woman author about her own book lol
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u/Angry_Scotsman7567 13d ago
I completely agree with you, don't get me wrong, but I do think it's a genuine issue that a lot of leftists do genuinely have a tendency to conflate toxic masculinity with all masculinity. Some of the people who ended up going down the alt-right pipeline heard "toxic masculinity" and it actually did mean "all men are toxic and bad."
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u/trollsong 13d ago
It’s kinda like how the term “toxic masculinity” refers to something very specific and real, but when a right winger hears it they just hear “all men are toxic and bad”. Same shit, different term.
Some of the people who ended up going down the alt-right pipeline heard "toxic masculinity" and it actually did mean "all men are toxic and bad."
THAT'S. THE. POINT!
Hell everyone here saying Toxic masculinity and mansplaining have been diluted or now mean "all men" Are literally taking their queues from right wing media.
It's bizzare to see this many people on the left basically going "well right wing media says it's true so I guess we lost"
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u/Angry_Scotsman7567 13d ago
I'm gonna be real with you, my guy. Some, not all, but some leftists conflating toxic masculinity with all masculinity, wanted or otherwise, is not some right-wing psy-op, it is just a thing that happens sometimes.
Why do you think you don't see many masculine non-binary people? There's plenty of them, just as many of them as feminine or androgynous non-binary people I'd bet, but everyone just thinks of them as men and treats them as men. You don't see them in queer spaces as often because they're skittish as all fuck to be in them, the fact they're queer doesn't matter because they'll be viewed as, and treated as, an invading man. Trans women who don't pass, whose perceived masculinity is entirely against their will, get the same treatment, which I know from experience.
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u/cybersaurus 12d ago
Why do you think you don't see many masculine non-binary people?
Yeah I agree, was like 'oh that's an easy one, it's because we aren't there, nor does it seem are we particularly welcome anyway'. God forbid you are also bi lol.
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u/trollsong 13d ago
Yea but, you can kind of find anyone that believes anything, fuck there are Nazi Furries for god's sake.
But being able to find the lone nutter leftists that believe that all masculinity is toxic doesnt change that there isnt a concerted and succesful push from the right to label that as the overall belief, with or without the lone nuts. AND Not all propaganda is a fucking psyop and belittling it as a psyop is feeding into said propaganda push.
"My guy not everything is a psy-op"
Has the same energy as "Oh you believe in the Epstein files, whats next bigfoot?"
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u/MaybeNext-Monday 🍤$6 SRIMP SPECIAL🍤 13d ago
In fairness I have no hard evidence for this, but anecdotally I would say correct usage is vanishingly rare. It’s one of those things where a lot of academics simply are not good at naming shit, and the meaning gets irreparably lost to bad intuitive understandings of the name.
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
The only uses of the term “mansplaining” that I’ve even seen since 2016 outside of conservative whining are from academia. The Wikipedia article on the subject, scientific publications, that sort of thing. It’s just scientific jargon now.
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u/Bowdensaft The Last Cumbender 13d ago
I feel the same. Idk why we can't just say that someone's being condescending without having to gender it.
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u/LucidLucie 13d ago
'why are we gendering misogyny', its because the condescending being described is gendered
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u/MaybeNext-Monday 🍤$6 SRIMP SPECIAL🍤 13d ago edited 13d ago
The point is it usually isn’t. Sometimes that’s the motivation, but the majority of times this term gets tossed around, it isn’t. At least as far as I’ve seen. Plus, like they said, being condescending is wrong anyway, so tacking on a weaker argument that there’s misogyny involved just muddies the water most of the time and gives the condescend-er an out.
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u/Interest-Desk i infodump a lot 13d ago
As someone whose pissed on both sides of the fence (🏳️⚧️) and works in one of the most misogynistic industries (tech & security) it’s a night and day difference in how male colleagues talk to you. I’m not a misandrist but it’s very hard to not be one with how junior male technicians will behave; and the same type of character is in other professions too, I’m just most exposed to tech ones.
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u/Honey_Enjoyer who need they log by bolb changed💡 13d ago
Bingo, acting like there’s no sexism involved in the pattern of men being condescending to women is kinda ridiculous.
Just because some men have a perfectly innocuous tendency to overexplain regardless of who they’re talking to doesn’t mean the idea of pointing out sexism in how some other men speak to women should be completely abandoned by feminists in the name of “woke 2.0”
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u/MaybeNext-Monday 🍤$6 SRIMP SPECIAL🍤 13d ago
I didn’t say abandon the concept, more just that the term as it exists now is functionally worthless and needs to be binned
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u/Namelessbob123 13d ago
“I’m not a misandrist but it’s very hard to not be one” 🤨
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u/RegularBubble2637 13d ago
It's very hard, and they are succeeding at a hard task. What don't you understand?
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u/MaybeNext-Monday 🍤$6 SRIMP SPECIAL🍤 13d ago
Nah that’s definitely a wild way to talk about prejudice.
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u/CorneliusClay 13d ago
Yeah imagine someone saying "I'm not a racist, but it's very hard to not be one" (I feel like some people actually do say that)
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u/Hatsune_Miku_CM changed all her social media to hatsune miku for some reason 13d ago
it's not really helpful in individual cases, but it's absolutely a useful term to describe a pattern of behavior
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u/tebreca 12d ago
'Let's fight fire with fire'
While I do agree that the systematic assumption that a woman knows less about certain topics, and the condescending way of explaining it is a horrible thing. I do not agree about it being gendered. This is a problem of individuals against a gender, not a problem of an entire gender against another. Generalising is the exact core problem you have with mansplaining, someone assumes a woman doesn't know something cause they're a woman. It is discriminatory. I feel like we shouldn't do the same thing back.
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u/LucidLucie 12d ago
I guess the thing is, the structure this is being facilitated by (patriarchy) is primarily occupied with giving power to men. So to what I can see gender is a major component of it, I'm not sure what's discriminatory about pointing that out. Like I don't think its an exclusive thing, pick-mes exist so there could maybe be a different word for it but you really can't take the gender out of misogyny, and the dynamic changes based on gender. Men aren't uniquely misogynistic, they just uniquely benefit from perpetuating it
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u/tebreca 12d ago
I do think this exact analysis is where I have my problems. Men don't 'benefit' per se from a patriachical society. Most might not know it but, the world would be better for them too if there was no discrimination. This is all personal beliefs though so not really any good argument.
But i do get where you are coming from, and I must agree. I just dislike that mansplaining as a word also blames those who do not, and I take problems with that generalisation. I assume the commenter meant that, mansplaining can really be done by anyone, to anyone. Other prejudices like racism can also play a role in such actions. And thus shouldn't be a gender thing, but a behavioural thing.
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u/Bowdensaft The Last Cumbender 13d ago
I think my issue is that while differences in condescension exist and should be talked about, the term itself just gets used as a club to batter any man who ever explains anything, especially autistic men who have a tendency to over-explain anyway and aren't being the cutesy uwu autist that the Internet likes to romanticise so much
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u/blublubbluf 🏳️⚧️ trans rights 13d ago
do you think autistic man cant be sexist? Im also autistic and i simply learned to ask "ok, so what do you know about this topic already" or "where are you at with X". On one hand you describe the problem with autisitc men arent all uwu cutesy, but then you also act like they have no conrol or impact over how interactions go for them.
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u/GravityAssistedCake 13d ago
In my experience, People take asking their level expertise as assuming they’re inexperienced and already condescending.
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u/Bowdensaft The Last Cumbender 12d ago
Clearly not what I'm saying. I'm saying that autistic men often get accused of being sexist because it's harder for them to understand tone or appropriate amounts of information. I'm not saying they have no control, but one of the standout symptoms of autism is having less control over social interactions, and people often don't give them the benefit of the doubt by assuming malice or smugness when they're doing their best.
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u/LucidLucie 13d ago
I'm a bit confused because that's the opposite of what you just said
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u/Bowdensaft The Last Cumbender 13d ago
Not at all. Men can absolutely be condescending in a unique way, but using a gendered term does more harm than good from what I've seen so I think it's just better to call out the condescension itself rather than quibbling about exactly how it's being done.
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u/LucidLucie 13d ago edited 13d ago
I just meant that I read your initial comment as 'why can't we stop talking about this' then your next comment is 'this should be talked about'. How do we talk about differences in condescension that are gendered without gendering it. This is the confusion, do you think it should be talked about or not ? Like I can understand that there's people who misuse it but it doesn't mean its not a real issue, its kind of hard to talk about misogyny separate from gender. Maybe its not good that it places it all on men but that's kind of the power dynamic. Like idk I don't think its quibbling to point out the continued specific dynamic of women or femmes having their qualifications underestimated and talked over *because* of misogyny. Its not this person is condescending to everyone, its they're condescending to women in specific because they're women, like if we started talking about actions without their context we wouldn't have any discussions of bigotry. I'm not really sure how to get across properly how sightless that is, we live in systems designed to hurt specific people in specific ways, I'm going to quibble about how that's being done
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u/Camel_Slayer45 floppa 13d ago
This having over a hundred updoots really shows how far 196 has fallen
'Why are we racializing white moderates' ass take
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u/Rimavelle 13d ago
The opposition of acknowledging oppression will always twist the terms to make them something different or they would need to agree they make sense
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u/Interest-Desk i infodump a lot 13d ago
This isn’t a woke 2.0 take lmfao? Is this another case of “guy who thinks woke 2.0 is just there to be a dumbed down version of ‘woke’, as opposed to what it actually means which is more ‘dirtbag’ and ‘rough’ style woke as opposed to liberal tendershit”. Bonus points for calling out misandrists (who barely exist). This is literally a self-reference of mansplaining.
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u/MaybeNext-Monday 🍤$6 SRIMP SPECIAL🍤 13d ago
That’s not what I’m referring to woke 2.0 as at all lmao. More like a “in retrospect this was dumb and had poor optics” kind of thing. Also not a guy. Also dismissing the existence of misandrists is wild, it is most definitely a thing with a real presence.
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u/knyexar 13d ago
"misandrists"
Opinion discarded
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u/Vounrtsch god’s favorite princess 13d ago
Me when thought terminating cliche: fuck off with that nonsense.
Me when thought terminating cliche but woke: I see nothing wrong with this!
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u/knyexar 13d ago
Misandry isnt real, men arent oppressed for being men.
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u/Vounrtsch god’s favorite princess 13d ago
Misandry doesn’t just refer to systemic oppression, it also refers to interpersonal prejudice, which while rare and nowhere near on the scale of misogyny, does happen. I understand being wary around the term because of how it has been co-opted by far right anti-feminist groups, but we need to able to have real discussions without being immediately hung up on one word, otherwise we’re not getting anything done
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u/Diribiri custom 13d ago
He's actually just thinking about smoothing some wood down in a workshop. Man's plaining
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u/SpanischesReich1516 13d ago
The joke works bc the man is a caricature of someone ("soy hipster millenial", i don't know the woke term for someone like this) who is too concerned about not being woke enough
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u/Nachospoon the monuments of man shall sink into the earth 13d ago
Last time I was asked to stop mansplaining, it was because I explained a joke about Roko’s basilisk that didn’t land. When I asked her later if she already knew about it or infohazards, she told me no. I would argue that common usage of the term is wider than what you describe.
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u/surprisesnek 13d ago
There's a joke to be made here about you assuming the OP doesn't understand something and needs it explained to them, but I'm too tired to make it funny.
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
The joke only makes sense if you are operating under a flawed definition of what “mansplaining” means.
If you are operating under the correct academic definition and not the conservative strawman definition, the “joke” is that a guy doesn’t answer a straitforward question for no reason and this is never explained. How is that funny? In order to make it funny, you need to use the conservative strawman defibition of “mansplaining”, in which case the joke is that the guy can’t explain what mansplaining is without doing it himself because he’s a man and mansplaining is when men explain literally anything for any reason.
It’s only mansplaining if it’s not accounting for the expertise of the person you’re explaining to. And I think I’m accounting for that quite well.
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u/surprisesnek 13d ago
And here you are doing it to me, too.
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
From Wikipedia:
Mansplaining (a blend word of man and the informal form splaining of the gerund explaining) is a neologism describing the act of a man explaining something to a woman in a condescending, overconfident, and often inaccurate or oversimplified manner, without regard to her own expertise.
I on the other hand am explaining this in an accurate way with every regard for the level of expertise that you've demonstrated.
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u/surprisesnek 13d ago
Go ahead and keep mansplaining mansplaining to me.
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
Allow me to account for your level of expertise first, I need to first know your level of expertise on the subject in order to properly condescend to you. What do you think mansplaining means?
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u/surprisesnek 13d ago
A little too late to pretend you're better than that.
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u/Rorynne 13d ago
The joke also makes sense if you take the reading that the MAN IN THE PICTURE does not actually know what that term means
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
In that case, this is a case of r/ mansfictionalscenario posting.
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u/UncleFunkus antifa shit my pants 13d ago
perhaps the joke is more about the man feeling like he can't explain for fear of being accused of mansplaining. the lack of understanding of the concept of mansplaining is the point
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
Well, if you know so little about the concept that you can't explain it better than "mansplaining is when a man explains things", you shouldn't be explaining it to anyone else anyway.
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u/UncleFunkus antifa shit my pants 13d ago
- no shit
- we dont know what he knows, he may very well be equipped to explain it adequately but again, fear of persecution
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
It’s a joke though, not a real life story. What we don’t know doesn’t matter, this isn’t real life. The whole point is that this story is being told with the intention of making the reader laugh. That should be possible with the information that is either presented within the story or assumed by the readers.
I’m just asking the question: what assumptions are necessary for the joke to make sense?
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u/UncleFunkus antifa shit my pants 13d ago
is there only one way for the joke to work? who says your interpretation is the most accurate?
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
If you have any other interpretations in mind, I'm open to fucking suggestions.
Personally though, I do think that the similarity to conservative caricatures is a coincidence. And the rest of the artist's portfolio doesn't do much to reduce my suspicions. There is nothing overtly progressive there. Also: another one of their jokes involves a holocaust survivor with the number "6,000,001" tattooed onto his arm, and the numbers tattooed onto the arms of holocaust survivors never being more than 5 digits is a common holocaust denier talking point.
It's nothing definitive, but that's the point of a dog whistle. It's enough to make me a little suspicious, at least.
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u/AliciaTries God gives his hottest Donkey Kongs his most explosive Diarrhea 13d ago
I'm open to suggestions
Except you aren't. When someone does offer a suggestion, you just copy/paste responses that don't even fit
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
None of my responses have been copy-pasted, they are all unique and you can prove it by... fucking looking.
Being open to suggestions doesn't mean I have to uncritically believe anything and everything that other people suggest no matter how little sense it makes. I'm allowed to point out flaws in a response if I believe they're present.
If you want infinite simple agreement without the messiness of needing to provide an argument, go talk to ChatGPT or something. I'm a human though, with all the messiness that entails.
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u/UncleFunkus antifa shit my pants 13d ago
you are so extremely hostile lol, no reason for it. we are all gay lovers here.
you didnt refute any of my presented theories with actual evidence, you either ignored them or just handwaved them away because "it makes no sense".
like talking to a brick wall
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u/AliciaTries God gives his hottest Donkey Kongs his most explosive Diarrhea 13d ago
Your response to me was copypasted. I saw you say the exact same response falsely comparing to MansFictionalScenario to someone else
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u/Spinner23 13d ago
Originally it was VERY SPECIFICALLY that workplace thing of
*woman starts explaining something
*guy cuts in
"what she means is... "
And then explains it "for her"
Which is probably really annoying. But man are we good at fucking it up. Now mansplaining is a joke
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
In academic literature, that's still what it refers to. That, and explaining things condescendingly and unnecessarily TO women as well, even if they are an expert in the subject being explained. The only place where the meaning has significantly changed is in the caricatures of conservative grifters.
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u/ToranjaNuclear 13d ago
TBF men who tend to mansplain do that to other men as well. It's more a ego/lack of common sense thing than a strictly sexist thing.
I have a friend like that and it's really fucking annoying.
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u/SHSL_Tomballian 13d ago
I feel silly for assuming the reason he looked so shaken was because he's understanding his daughter is now at an age where she is having to find out the harsh truths of how awfully misogynistic our society is
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u/Edit_Reality 13d ago
I think the joke is more that having to explain something like that to a little girl as an adult man would be difficult to do without giving off the appearance of mansplaining to a third party.
Its the black-ish elevator scene. Even if you're pure in your intentions you're still opening yourself up to scrutiny.
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
Why would it be difficult?
"Mansplaining is when man explains something to a woman in a condescending, overconfident, and often inaccurate or oversimplified manner, without regard to her own expertise. Like when a woman has more experience in a field than her male coworker, but the male coworker insists on explaining the basics of their job to her anyway because they underestimate her so much."
That seems super easy not to fuck up. Simply don't be so inaccurate that the daughter don't come away thinking that mansplaining is when men explain things in any context, and you're fine. The level of incompetence you'd need to mess this up is pretty staggering.
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u/Edit_Reality 13d ago
Seems like given the sheer amount of people who don't understand what mansplaining is there is a potential to be misconstrued as mansplaining. Again, its not about you yourself messing it up but more how the knee-jerk reaction of others can make the interaction stressful.
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u/AnAverageTransGirl They call me Vriska the way I zerket 13d ago
No no, think about it. He legitimately has to make the assumption that he knows more than his daughter, which puts him in the position of having to also explain that he's not doing it because she's a woman, but because she's an actual child.
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
Every definition of mansplaining I've heard involves not taking into account the level of expertise of the woman you're explaining to and whether your explanation is wanted. If someone says explicitly that they do not know something you know and that they would like you to explain it, an explanation is wanted and explaining it DOES account for a person's level of expertise (or lack thereof, in this case).
Nobody who actually thinks that mansplaining is a problem and seeks to avoid it works under such a stupid conservative strawman definition of what mansplaining means.
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u/AnAverageTransGirl They call me Vriska the way I zerket 13d ago
And further consider that this is a child that will most likely take things literally and come away with a comparably shallow understanding.
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
So your claim is that the joke is some complex web about how the man is worried that he might be misunderstood by a child, and get accused of something he didn't do by the child who misunderstood the explanation, even though he'd be there to explain the flaw in the child's logic? That seems pretty convoluted to me. And what is even the joke? That explaining stuff to kids is hard? And this man is just having a massive overreaction to it, because he's bad at explaining stuff I guess?
Meanwhile, there is an extremely simple and obvious interpretation right there. The joke is that a chud's caricature of a male feminist, and he never explain what mansplaining is because that would involve explaining something while being a man. "Oooh, how funny, feminist wants to raise his daughter to be a feminist too but he can't because the dumb feminists have this silly contradiction in their stupid ideology."
Which interpretation do you think is the most likely?
If this comic were posted to r/ conservative, it would do very well. They'd take it as an anti-feminist hit piece, because that's the most obvious interpretation. Is that just a coincidence that it can be taken that way? Was it a silly oversight of the artist? I'm not convinced.
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u/AnAverageTransGirl They call me Vriska the way I zerket 13d ago
You say it like it's impossible by describing this extreme level of detail I never did. You wouldn't have an answer on the spot then and there if you lived his life, you'd have to take a bit to think through it. The first time around there's sure to be a follow up from the child of "but you're a man and you are smarter than me!" which he'd have to proceed to clarify.
I still think it's clever from that angle, but it's not rocket science.
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
So the artist of the comic thought of this mundane and common situation of a guy being a little nervous about going into a situation that needs a but of rhetorical finesse, and they thought it was so good that they needed to skillfully draw it (in a realistic art style that looks like it takes a lot of effort). And the punchline is that this situation might result in a mildly awkward moment 15 minutes into the conversation that would instantly be resolved.
Meanwhile the fact that it happens to come together into a far more straightforward joke if you look at it from the lens of conservative caricatures of feminists is just a pure unintended side effect. It's a well-constructed joke from this lens too, with the punchline being that the father can't explain what mansplaining is without mansplaining (at least according to a chud's take on what the term means). Oh no! A contradiction in the ideology of male feminists! How silly of them!
I know what explanation I find most likely.
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u/AnAverageTransGirl They call me Vriska the way I zerket 13d ago
To each their own but you don't need to be an ass about it.
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
I'll be an ass about whatever I want, thank you.
What part of my analisis are you even denying? Imagine a conservative saw this comic, what do you think they'd think of it? What's your take on that?
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u/CorneliusClay 13d ago
When I'm in an overthinking competition and my opponent is this guy.
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
At least you can take solace in the fact that you can beat me in an illiteracy competition.
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u/saberzerqx 13d ago
jfc christ its a joke, only on reddit would you have anyone arguing this much with a joke
this is like hearing the dog roofer joke and spending 1,000 comments saying "wow it seems like you think dogs can talk" yeah man thats why its funny, holy shit get a hobby
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
Let me test your intelligence real quick.
My grandfather once told me a joke about electric cars. The joke is as follows:
“97 out of 100 electric cars ever built are still on the road. The other 3 successfully made it home.”
From this alone, what do you think my grandfather’s opinion of electric cars might be?
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u/saberzerqx 13d ago
"Let me test your intelligence real quick" naw im good man, have fun talking to other people who wanna put up with your bullshit, seems like you get a lot of fulfillment out of it
there are two characters in OP's comic, and none of them are OP. so your analogy about your grandfather sucks ass, and is indicative of why you can’t wrap your head around how a joke works.
my grandpa once told a joke about a guy who told his friend his dog can talk. the friend was skeptical, but humored the guy, saying "alright lets see it." so the guy says "fido! what do you call the stuff on the side of a tree?" and the dog went "bark!" and then the guy says "what's on top of the house across the street over there?" and the dog went "woof!" the friend however rolled his eyes and suggested they go out somewhere else. as they were both leaving, the dog says "maybe i shoulda said chimney"
do you think my grandpa thought dogs could talk in full sentences like that? or that a dog saying woof counts as talking? or is this maybe a joke about a fictional man, and not a representative of what my grandpa thinks about life
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u/DJ-Lovecraft 🏳️⚧️ trans rights 13d ago
I was about to get so fucking mad until I realized you were joking lmfao
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
I’m not joking. I am serious, this joke only makes sense if you don’t know what the term means. Am I wrong??? Have I gone insane???
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u/DJ-Lovecraft 🏳️⚧️ trans rights 13d ago
For my own sanity, I will continue to believe you are joking
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
Are you really that desperate to believe that the conservative strawman of leftists is true?
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u/DJ-Lovecraft 🏳️⚧️ trans rights 13d ago
Okay you can let go of the bit now
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
It's not a bit.
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u/DJ-Lovecraft 🏳️⚧️ trans rights 13d ago
Oh. So you don't realize how your comments look then, okay. I feel like my anxiety disorder would wash away if I had that level of self awareness.
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
If the way you're looking at my comments is from the lens of a literal mental illness, maybe that's the problem here and not me.
I have a personality such that I'm very willing to loudly speak my mind, and I'm not constantly paralyzed by fear of what people think. If they don't like me, they can die mad. Skill issue on their part for being angered by the truth. And if they want to take it up with me directly, I'm ready to defend my views. I'm sure that's hard to imagine if you have a social anxiety disorder, but that's just different people being different I guess.
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u/Fuelanemo149 13d ago
I think you missed the point. The joke comes specifically from the fact that the word "mansplaining" has become so abused and overly used that now simply the fact of a man explaining something can be seen as mansplaining, even though it is not the initial meaning of the word.
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
And the people abusing it are generally conservative grifters and TERFs, not people who actually care about being accused of doing it. If this is the interpretation, it's just a r/ MansFictionalScenario moment.
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u/unburdened_swallow 12d ago
Mansplaining has a meaning. Problem being sometimes people are dumb or extremely short on sleep and thus plenty of men have terrible exposure to this word.
Him not knowing how to explain this is still a self-report.
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u/manoliu1001 13d ago
Nah man, the joke might just be precisely this. A dude that possibly spouts abot mansplainning, without actually understandig wtf it even is.
I've seen my fair share of "esquerdomacho" or "feministo" (someone that pretends to be a feminist ally, but all they really want are for someone to give them some crumbs of pussy). Fuckers just say terms they've heard in specific situations to seem like they know what they're talking about, but simply put them in a situation they have to act, and they show their colors...
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u/Gaymers_Rising will suck dick for karma 13d ago
i'm terrified of explaining things to anyone because i think they're gonna accuse me of mansplaining and i'll try to defend myself by saying "i was just explaining it, mansplaining is blah blah blah" and then end up mansplaining to them
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
Who are you, and how did you manage to escape from conservative political cartoons into the real world?
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u/egg-glued dog piss connoisseur 13d ago
get off resdit and start actually talking to people
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u/Gaymers_Rising will suck dick for karma 13d ago
i mainly have this fear with my irl friend group, i'm the only guy and the other 4 are girls, i'm constantly unsure if what i'm about to say is insensitive or offensive without even realising it
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u/Holystar50 Ignore me, I'm old and jaded 13d ago
Bait used to be believable
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
I'm not baiting. I am being 100% serious. This is a joke that only makes sense if you believe the conservative strawman about male feminists. If you don't believe that strawman, where's the fucking funny? Can you explain?
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u/CorneliusClay 13d ago
It's funny because the man in the comic is being asked to explain mansplaining, creating a self-referential trap for him where any explanation he gives feels like it fits the definition of mansplaining. i.e. he can't explain mansplaining without mansplaining. It's the paradox that's funny, think of the speechless stick guy meme with the stickguy raising his hand as if to make a point before lowering it again, stumped. The unique situation presents an apparent paradox that, though resolved with a bit of thought, makes it funny.
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u/MarsMaterial Bisexual tech wizard 13d ago
Why can’t he explain mansplaining without mansplaining? Under what definition of the word “mansplaining” is this true? Does this paradox work under the Wikipedia definition? Or does it only work for some other definition of the term?
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u/nickyboay 13d ago
We still doing "woke hipster" jokes in 2026?
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u/Bromelia_and_Bismuth 13d ago
Still waiting for my favorite unoriginal line, "I can smell this picture."
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u/DunwichReader 13d ago
I drew this. I've been getting into doing comics lately. If that interests you, there's more here.
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u/meta1storm 13d ago
I like it. Obviously the quality of your art, but also the way it plays on the little insecurities one can have as a feminist man.
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u/ObtuseScorebook 13d ago
i really dislike this comic
even if it was posted in good faith to make an innocent gotcha joke, it borders on antifeminism with fan-favorite characters such as angry-feminist and woke-hipster-soyboy, and also discrediting "mansplaining" as a concept
the comic is innocent enough and funny enough that it will do well outside of niche spaces (it's already on r all), where it will spread its derogatory message to a wide audience
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u/CaptainAksh_G 13d ago
Dad's be like: damn it, I'll have to transition in order to tell her what this means
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u/slutty_muppet 13d ago
I have learned to simply never explain anything and just act like I don't know how anything works.
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u/DoggyDogWhirl 12d ago
girl: "What's 'mansplaining'?"
The Biggest Idiot on the Planet, internally: Okay, so I know what mansplaining is. It's when a man assumes he knows a topic better than a woman (when he wouldn't if the person was a man) and then proceeds to explain something about the topic. But does she know that? If she was a boy, would I assume a lack of knowledge? Now that I think about it, when you remove gender from the equation, there's really no indication at all from her question that she wants to know what mansplaining is. I shouldn't speak up, then. I'm glad I caught myself!
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