#academic satire

[satireinfo]

New Study Reveals that 100% of Studies are Overanalyzed

Study Finds Overanalyzing Studies is the New National Pastime Researchers Admit: Even This Study Might Be Overanalyzed Cambridge, MA — In a groundbreaking revelation that has left the academic world reeling, a new study has revealed that 100% of studies are, in fact, overanalyzed. The study, conducted by a team of researchers who may or may not have spent too much time staring at pie charts,…

[daytaker]

Sins, Virtues, and Motivations: A Critical Analysis of Characters in Shall We Date?: Obey Me!

In this essay, I will argue that each demon brother some of the demon brothers can be associated with a sin (no duh), a virtue, and a core motivation--and that this motivation is best pursued through a synthesis of that sin and that virtue. Hegel would be very proud. Yes, this is critical media analysis. No, I will not try to explain the twisted, broken path that led me to this point in my life.

I will be looking at Lucifer, Mammon, and Levi in this study. Their core sins are obvious - Pride, Greed, and Envy. Their accompanying Virtues and Motivations are listed below.

I used the Seven Heavenly Virtues for this little game. These are Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance, Faith, Hope, and Charity.

They should not be confused with the Seven Capital Virtues, which are inversions of the Seven Deadly Sins. These are Humility, Charity, Kindness, Patience, Chastity, Temperance, and Diligence. I tried these first and damn were none of them easy to match up. Tell me, fandom for this mobile game designed for players to lust over hot demon men, which brother should have the "chastity" virtue?

Lucifer

Core Sin: Pride. Core Virtue: Fortitude. Core Motivation: To protect his family.

Lucifer's core motivation is to protect his brothers. He looks at this as a sort of penance for the outcome of the Great Celestial War. He knows that he's the reason they rebelled, and he feels responsible for their wellbeing. He is able to endure the relentless pressure of the responsibilities he puts on himself thanks to his core virtue, fortitude.

Fortitude is strongly associated with courage. Specifically, it is courage in the face of pain and adversity. We see him displaying this trait any time those he cares for are in jeopardy, and it often helps him make difficult decisions where neither outcome is ideal. Lucifer is decisive, canny, and accepts the consequences of his choices, good or bad.

His driving motivation is also bolstered by his core sin: pride. He views himself as ultra-competent, while his brothers consistently make mistakes; beyond that, it's only natural that he take responsibility for the choices of his brothers (like the choice to join him in rebelling) because he is so significant an influence as to virtually rob them of their autonomy.

This has led to Lucifer having a somewhat toxic relationship with his brothers. Lucifer often acts as a parental figure rather than a peer, while the rest of them are all in arrested development of some sort, often acting more like kids than the adults they insist they are.

Lucifer either doesn't recognize that by doing everything for the family on his own, he's stemming their ability to grow and learn, or he does know the consequences of what he's doing and he feels conflicted about it. He ultimately blames himself for the fact that they're all in the Devildom in the first place, living as avatars of sins to the extent that they struggle to function as independent adults.

So, while fortitude and pride allow Lucifer to simulate the act of protecting his family, it's a matter of perspective whether controlling every element of their lives is protection or harmful coddling.

Mammon

Core Sin: Greed. Core Virtue: Charity. Core Motivation: To be valued and valuable.

Mammon is simultaneously a vessel of greed and its inverse, charity. This is because his core motivation is twofold, and those are the rewards of greed and charity; to be valued - to fulfill a want, to be desired, to look flippin' cool - and to be valuable - to fulfill a need, to have inherent worth, to serve a purpose.

Setting aside his unhealthy relationship with money, let's examine how Mammon behaves and what his deeper interpersonal motivations tend to be. He clearly places a high value on his brothers and MC, and he has shown on multiple occasions that he is willing to put himself at risk to help or protect them. Early on in both the original game and in NightBringer, Mammon attempts to heroically rescue MC (and his younger brothers, in NightBringer). In both cases, though, Lucifer shows up and does it for him. Mammon's pursuit of his core motivation clashes with Lucifer's quest for his, and Lucifer is strong enough to simply take it from him. Although in NightBringer he and his brothers do earn the not-insubstantial reward of the title "Lords of the Underworld" after Lucifer's rescue, he appeared so dejected by Lucifer's oneupmanship that he spent a good portion of the next day sulking. In the original game, Mammon wants MC to promise that they won't be saved by anyone else besides him in the future. It appears that his greed for an improved status in his interpersonal relationships is left unfulfilled.

Mammon wants to be heroic - to be valuable - and he wants to be admired for it - to be valued. The cognitive dissonance that accompanies motivations like these is all that sustains a person with such a diminished sense of self-worth.

Speaking of a diminished sense of self worth...

Leviathan

Core Sin: Envy. Core Virtue: Hope. Core Motivation: To find joy in the things that give him joy.

Confusing motivation? Yes it is. But envy is a confusing sin. All the other sins--pride, greed, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth--are enjoyable to indulge on some level. Losing your temper when you feel you've been wronged, or eating a bunch of delicious food, or sleeping through the snooze alarm: We know why we do those things. We might regret them later, but we indulge them in the moment because of the enjoyable side.

There is nothing enjoyable about envy. Wanting something that isn't yours, that belongs to someone else, be it tangible goods, talents, a partner, a job... is nauseating. And it makes you feel like a bad person, and it drains the joy out of things that you used to love. Speaking from personal experience for a second, when I was a teenager, I played music in a company with a much younger musician who was incredibly talented, and I was deeply envious of her. I wanted her talent; I wanted the praise she received; I wanted to impress people; I wanted what she had. But there was nothing I could do. I hated feeling that way, but I couldn't shake it. And it ate away at my desire to play music. It took the joy out of something that once gave me joy.

You see the connection?

Levi struggles to find pleasure in anything he does, despite how many interests he has, because, in spite of his blustering dismissal of all things "normie", he is deeply envious of those he perceives as his social superiors. Now, I am not in any way saying that Levi is or would be an inc3l, but there's an element of his character that has a strong parallel to inc3l culture. The idea that there is something fundamentally wrong with him that prevents him from achieving what he wants socially and that the only way he can protect himself from those who would ridicule him is with a defensive contempt for the group that rejects him... Does any of that sound familiar?

But Levi is not an inc3l. No, not because you're willing to **** him and his two *****, though I'm sure that helps. It's because he has his core virtue: hope.

Have you ever heard of the black pill? It's kind of like the final stage of inc3l culture, where you accept that you're not an alpha male, you'll never be one, you'll never be accepted by a woman, you're ugly and unloveable, and you might as well just stop existing. It is sheer despair.

Levi maintains hope for the future, even if he prefers not to admit it out of fear of jinxing himself. He is able to form a deep bond with MC, who he views as a "normie", without renouncing his hobbies or being mocked for them. In fact, I would argue that the anxiety Levi sometimes displays over the possibility of being made fun of (for example, in NightBringer when he considers trying out cosplay) is emblematic of the hope he has that he can be accepted.

"But wait, daytaker," you say. "That doesn't sound like he's making progress towards his core motivation of getting joy out of the things that bring him joy! Being self conscious is not joyful!" Well, you're right. What Levi needs is to somehow find the right balance between enjoying his hobbies and allowing himself to enjoy other people as well. As we can see from his effusive excitement in sharing his favorite games and stories with MC and his brothers, the social component of media consumption is a major component in making it enjoyable. If Levi loses hope, he loses that connection to the world offline, and if he loses that connection, he loses the joy.

@blackstqr (I did it.)

[madame-helen]

[thestoryteller8]

[kaylaauandromedus]

• Bunny by Mona Awad 🧁🐇🪓

• Aesthetic owned by me pictures are not

• Booksta: Kaylaauandromedus

[raccoonytoony-boy]

The first short story in my debut short story collection— "Satiricals of The Human Crime"— Is out now on Wattpad

The first story is titled— "A Satirical Sadness of Human Decay"

Story:

https://www.wattpad.com/1491692607-satiricals-of-the-human-crime-introduction

Wattpad account:

[youmustfixyourheartt]

listening to panic! for the first time guys

[salvadorbonaparte]

I'm reading qualityland right now and saw there's an English translation which I obviously have to hunt down and compare to the original

[mythosandsuch]

Okay, I finished Unseen Academicals. Somehow every new Discworld book I start, I think "Oh this one can't be as good as the last one... nothing could hit the spot quite like that" and much to my benefit, I'm wrong every time.

Really, I probably wouldn't have read Unseen Academicals as a priority unless I felt compelled to finish what I started with the University set. But when I got to the end I hoped against hope somehow more pages would appear, or that a follow-up to Nutt and Gladys' story would burst forth from the firmament.

This is more of a book report than anything. I'm not making a point except that godDAMN is Nutt an interesting little dude, and Gladys, and especially Pepe and Madame Sharn. I often wish I could dive into the world of a book to see what the characters do after the pages go blank, and I am wishing it again.

[postgraduate]

lol to be perfectly honest, i am having a ball writing niles crane on disco.rd. what began as me angling, "let's push the diane/niles bff agenda" is still me angling, but also me -- who accidentally became a SchOlar of gothic art/architecture -- pondering how niles and maris, these two bizarre characters, live in a gothic house with alleged genuine 15th cent. decor in the middle of SEATTLE.

i don't have the time nor mental bandwidth for tumblr rp :o( but i do have time for, and lots of fun with, intermittent disco.rd writing & making inspo sideblogs for the cheers/frasier universe characters like some kind of unwieldy stickerbook

[satireinfo]

Higher Education Olympics

The Higher Education Olympics in Paris: An Academic Circus The Administrator’s Obstacle Course and Adjunct Agony: Surviving the Higher Ed Gauntlet The Opening Ceremony: A Parade of Prestigious Egos Ah, Paris! The city of lights, love, and now… the Higher Education Olympics! This year, the crème de la crème of academia have gathered in the French capital, ready to showcase their intellectual…

[mxbitters]

not to brag but i am writing a paper about harrison bergeron that my english professor literally is not ready for

[drdamiang]

LITTLE

LITTLE

let's subdivide this!

put in numbered sections

classes and clauses

sub

classes and subclauses

bullet point

apportion

avoid every

challenge

and subversion

detailing exactly

why how where and when

in glorious

self-

referential

painstaking detail

what little we did

little little we did

[chlorinejello]

I was definitely born in the right era. I can’t imagine handing in these assignments via pigeon. gotta get up from bed to pick up a mf scroll and finish my theses? fuck no. I’m chatgtping this shit, paraphrasing and correcting all the way to Microsoft word mobile without moving anything other than my thumbs. turning that shit in? In person? fuck no. i’m emailing this in with -5 days left.

[kesarijournal]

Does Meritocracy Reign Supreme in a World Where Box-Checking is King?

**Dateline: The World – January 5, 2024**In a stunning revelation that has left literally no one in shock, it appears that the very institutions we’ve entrusted with the sacred task of molding young minds, ensuring public health, and steering our nations have been doing so with the utmost integrity and merit. Yes, you heard it right. In a world where box-checking for DEI has become the norm,…

[chungledown-bimothy]

I cannot overstate how much I love Tom Lehrer's story. It sounds so fake but is entirely real.

He's a goddamn genius- he started studying mathematics at Harvard when he was 15 and graduated magna cum laude. He worked at Los Alamos for a few years before being drafted and working for the NSA, where he claims to have invented jello shots to get around alcohol bans.

He then went back to Harvard for a couple years before starting to teach political science at MIT.

Through all of that, he was writing and performing both some of the funniest shit you'll ever hear (Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, Masochism Tango) and absolutely scathing political satire (Who's Next, Wernher von Braun, Send the Marines). Until the mid/late 60s counterculture gained momentum. He didn't like their aesthetic, so he stopped making music.

Shortly after, he moved to California and started teaching math and musical theater history at UC Santa Cruz for the next 30 years.

I don't know if non-Californians understand just how goddamn funny that is. It's where stoners and math (and now computer science) kids who couldn't get into Berkeley go. Leaving Harvard/MIT for UCSC is peak academic phoning it in. And by all accounts he had a blast.

Plus the whole putting all of his music in the public domain thing. That fucked.