Why would you do this?

I read a lot of Web Comics. My list grows and shrinks, but there is a pretty solid core of comics that I love. xkcd is an absolute favorite, Ctrl-Alt-Del, Penny Arcade, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, and Questionable Content are all favorites as well. I also follow some syndicated national comics, as well, like Dilbert and The Boondocks, and all of this I have delivered to me via RSS in Google Reader.

Now, I won't claim to be the smartest person in the world, but I'd like to think that I'm at least above average, or better. Every once in a while, I'll read something and I won't understand it. It's rare, but it happens. Usually, I assume or can glean that it's how the joke has been framed, or that it is referencing something I'm just not familiar with. In either situation, I'm willing to accept that I just won't always be on the same page with whoever created the comic.

Today, I read Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, and he posted a link to a site I'd never heard of called, Comics I Don't Understand. Specifically, he pointed to the the area of the the site that is devoted to his comics.

I have several problems with this site. First, it's one of the ugliest sites I've ever laid eyes upon. This, to me, has to be one the biggest failings. It is just so pathetically styled, and for all the time this person spends posting everyone's comics, you'd think they could take the time to improve the layout and design. It's Wordpress for crying out loud, Wordpress is pretty easy to work with. For some reason, they also insist on showing their labels, which is pointless when view the site in full, but they seem to want to add every label imaginable to the posts so that they overflow, often into the next post, of course a float might fix that, but really, just don't display them, they're really just for searching anyway.

Now, excusing the fact that there's no sense of design, and the layout is awful, and no one has bothered to create a decent header, there is also basically no consistency. As an example, the top entry when I looked was a Rubes comic. After looking at it, I see that it is clearly not a comic he doesn't understand. I could that someone might not understand it, based on the pissing like a race horse reference here. Also, I'm having a hard time understand exactly what has been slipped past the syndicate editors. The reference is a good one, and it's done without actually saying anything vulgar.

Finally, all I can think when looking at this is just how stupid people are. I understand that not everyone is going to get everything, but, it still seems as though this is just a bit excessive. I feel like my eight year old would understand most of these. So many of these jokes are just glaringly obvious, how could anyone not understand them?

This site seems to be tantamount to wearing a shirt that says, "I am incapable of understanding the most basic of humor, and if it is even slightly cerebral..." and on the back it would say, "I fail every time."

Anyway, I suppose that's enough tearing down, it just seems so right to point out something so... well, for lack of a better word, pathetic. Perhaps it is just my nature, I just don't understand any place where people would willingly congregate and admit that they are actually stupid.

(Please note: I don't actually know these people, and they may certainly be intelligent in other ways and just have no sense of comic humor, so I am drawing a pretty general conclusion in assuming they are just really stupid people. Honestly, though, I'm really surprised they figured out how to turn on their computers, let alone stumbling onto the internet, and actually searching out a website where they could come together with other stupid people. Kudos to you, perhaps your millions of stupid friends will find their ways to you as well.)