bet you didn't expect your vent comic to be so relatable
it’s vague enough that i’m not really surprised, frankly. if i’d made it more specific and it’d still done notes then i would’ve been surprised haha. but if something is vague enough to be relatable to a broad audience, it always has a chance of going viral with the right circumstances, and i think there’s a large contingent of folks with adhd and other neurodivergencies who are finding out in adulthood why they are the way they are and also realizing maybe their childhood wasn’t so great as a result, so it hits.
i also survived abuse and my experiences with that are in there, and there’s a lot of folks out there who were abused.
i didn’t intend it to be popular when i made it or anything, but i’m not surprised chiefly because it isn’t the first time i’ve gotten a popular post, over much sillier things, like saying “maybe don’t draw ugly gritty shit and call it objectively correct speculative biology”.
what i AM surprised about is that this one has people being weird about it in the replies. like it’s so generic and obvious what it’s about, and you still have people like “This isn’t an excuse to be obnoxious though!!!” as if i said literally anywhere in this comic that doesn’t even have a caption beyond “lol vent art” that having adhd/insert other neurodivergency and being treated like shit for your untreated symptoms means you have a license to be some noisy uncontrollable fuckhead or whatever they’re imagining
those people are likely projecting some shit where they’ve either repressed themselves very deeply and think everyone else should, or they have/had a friend who they hate and bullied in this manner and are trying to morally justify it to themselves.
or they’re just desperate to take a big steaming shit on aneurotypicals who they have some weird crusade against, seeing them as RoMaNtiCiZiNg MeNtAl IlLNeSs because they talk about that shit openly or dare to make “Jokes” about it instead of being a good little quiet weirdo and going to the doctor and taking their meds and doing their therapy (surprise! i did and am doing all of those, have been for my entire adult life, i’m still a freak. i’m 28 it’s not going anywhere and i’m tired of being quiet about it for your comfort)
but i’m still shocked at how willing they are to openly argue some shit that simply does not exist in the comic. they invented some weird moral they imagined i was saying, then decided to argue against that as if their life depended on it. and in the process, make some very unflattering assumptions about me, as if i’m not capable of looking through the notes...
that’s what always surprises me about popular posts. the idea that the post, and the art involved (if applicable), just kind of erupted, authorless, from the ether as an object to be dissected and discoursed then deemed problematic or not (despite the caption in this case clearly stating it is vent art from a human being who endured painful experiences). zero regard given to the human being behind it.
empathy’s in short supply these days