// btw Squidward is the best Spongebob character.
i know what i just said.
when i was younger i was like surely. it is Spongebob, yes?
but the older i get, i'm like. no. no it has to be Squidward. what character is more every(wo)man than Squidward. c'mon.
i think people don't more often stand up for characters like Squidward and Moxxie because they are afraid to see themselves as the butt of jokes, and it's a failing of the shows and media they're in that they are framed as being 'inferior' to the characters around them somehow. Because the everyman character is 'boring' or a 'punching back' to the world around them. Like I can see the creators trying to say "life is hard for normal people" but it gets lost in translation and comes of more like "ahahah. their pain is FUNNY". and that really needs work.
because every time something traumatic or awful happens. it's gotta happen to the same character. fans with low media literacy are going to internalize it. some will become the next generation of show runners (god forbid), and we'll be doomed to even worse entertainment. like...can we hold ourselves to higher standards?
i'm trying to in my own work. just like...be a little more conscience.
SQUIDWARD even deserves better. and he's from a cartoon way past its prime.
( this is just my view on why the Everyman character gets beat up and hated on so much. And why it's such a subconscious thing and why audiences very rarely take up for them. And it has to do with framing. And not wanting to be the one laughed at next. It's lowkey bullying. I've been bullied all my life so like...idec anymore. It is exhausting ngl. )
