#and now its creepy and weird and unacceptable and a red flag. red flag for what exactly lmao. they didn't explain

[autisticlee]

that autistic feeling when social rules changed so suddenly and randomly and you don't understand why and everyone refuses to offer an explanation becuase everyone ~should just know why~, but you're the only person that didn't get the update.

do you ever see people do something a lot and assume it's fine and normal and acceptable and harmless, then suddenly out of nowhere when you (or even someone else) do it, it's now suddenly "bad/offensive/weird/creepy/a red flag/unacceptable" and you just get so confused and dont understand why it suddenly changed.....

[ramajmedia]

10 Jokes From King of The Hill That Have Already Aged Poorly

For a long of people, King of The Hill is a classic comedy that stands the test of time. The writers did a great job making it an honest slice of middle-American Texan life while it was on. It treated things when delicacy when needed (most times) and didn't fear pushing the envelope on others. The storylines reveled in Hank Hill's idiosyncratic ideals, Bobby Hill's perpetual middle-school awkwardness, and Peggy Hill's authoritarian version of wife/motherhood.

However, while most of the show hold up for modern audiences, some of its running jokes don't. Too many socially progressive movements have happened for that not to be the case. Might as well look back and talk about the humor that wouldn't fly in a 2019 show.

RELATED: 25 Twisted King Of The Hill Facts That Will Surprise Even Long-Time Fans

10 Bobby Creeping On Luanne

When young and beautiful Luanne moved in with her aunt Peggy's family, there was a quick unintended consequence: young Bobby's infatuation with her. However, Bobby's feelings for Luanne go a bit far. It starts with light, middle school stars and flirting. Over time, though, it turned into all-out creepy stalking. Bobby would sometimes go so far as to watch her sleep or try to see her naked.

Worse, the show also makes it clear that the two do see each other more like siblings, so the bizarre antics are a splice of "young boy being too creepy" and kind of incest-y. Shows today probably wouldn't include these kinds of jokes, not without making it clear that behaving like that is pretty unacceptable and gross.

9 Foot Exploitation

In the episode Transnational Amusements Presents: Peggy's Magic Sex Feet, Peggy's doctor takes an interest in her size 16 feet. While she thinks she's doing foot modeling, he's actually recording her feet doing odd things for foot fetish porn. Similar to the Meg foot fetish episode in Family Guy, at the time, it could be funny to make fun of the insecure person by giving them false confidence.

However, the real uncomfortable angle is that, in the case of both Peggy and Meg, their feet were used for pornographic reasons without their permission. Turning someone else's feet into a sexual object is pretty gross without their consent. People would probably revile that kind of episode-long joke nowadays.

8 Ugly For The Money

Dale and Nancy's tumultuous and strained relationship is already not very funny, but the show reaches peak discomfort in The Trouble With Gribbles. In a bid to win money to make the aging Nancy feel better about herself, he files a lawsuit against a cigarette company, saying second-hand smoking has made her ugly.

To seal the deal, even though the money is "for her," he convinces Nancy she's ugly to make the suit believable. Of course, this only makes Nancy feel all the worse about aging. The point was to make a joke about of the hijinks Dale went through and how it affects her. Audiences now, though, would probably just focus on the horrible tragedy of their marriage and how awful it was that Dale made her feel that way. He could have just let her in on the con, right? He didn't need to make her feel awful.

7 Discouraged Bobby

A running theme throughout King of The Hill is that, while Peggy and Hank love Bobby, he's not exactly the son they dreamed of. They wanted more of a sporty athlete with good social skills. Instead, they got a boy who likes home ec., Dance Dance Revolution, Buddhism, and other unconventional hobbies.

However, his parents almost always disapprove. Sometimes, this turns into a great teaching moment where they learn to accept Bobby, quirks and all, but others end on bizarre, "funny" notes. For example, Peggy hijacking the Thanksgiving turkey he makes and giving it to someone else, or Hank Hill calling soccer a sissy game that European women made up. They can accept Bobby, but they still do questionable things to him and scorn some of his interests. Current audiences would prefer they accept their son no matter what weird things he was into and wouldn't appreciate the soccer jokes very much.

RELATED: King Of The Hill: 10 Most Hilarious Hank Hill Quotes

6 Kahn's Bipolar Disorder

Kahn is Hank Hill's next-door neighbor, a man from Laos who just wants to live a normal life in America (with an immaculate lawn to top it all off). However, later in the show, it's revealed that Kahn has Bipolar Disorder.

The show doesn't handle it too well. While it doesn't make fun of him, per se, Hank does manipulate Kahn and use his mania to put a grill together. The episode pokes fun at his rapid-cycling moods and the way his moods completely swing out of control. All it took, according to the show, was a few days off his meds.  Since that isn't how Bipolar Disorder really works, these jokes wouldn't have aged very well for modern audiences.

5 Self-Righteous Peggy

The core humor of Peggy Hill is her self-righteous nature. She is very sure in her own wisdom and ideals, which can get strung out into comedic situations. However, this also was a common reason why fans hated her with a passion, even during the show's run.

Nowadays, her shtick would age very poorly. For example, her giving away a nice Turkey that her son made for Thanksgiving, just because she believes that cooking and housework are her job, not his, wouldn't go over well. Old school fans often rejected this episode for being cruel and unfunny, so modern fans definitely would hate it.

4 Luanne's Dating Life

All throughout King of The Hill, Luanne's choices in men are always played for a joke. Whether it's her brief fling with Boomhauer, the mismatch between her and the much older, much uglier Lucky, or the infamous Pigmalion episode, her dating life is a source of comedy.

However, those jokes probably wouldn't age well. Sure, it's funny that Hank is judgmental and hates who she dates. Nowadays, though, most everyone watching would hate who she dates. Many of them are 10+ years her senior and are really creepy dudes. One of Hank's best friends dating her wouldn't be a funny bit, it would be a friendship and character imploding conflict. She's an adult, but she's also a barely legal young woman with low intelligence. It's hard not to think most of the men she dated are taking advantage of her, which is really uncomfortable, not funny.

RELATED: King Of The Hill: The 5 Best (& 5 Worst) Episodes

3 Bill and Peggy's Business

Throughout King of The Hill, Hank Hill's friend Bill shows serious signs of depression. While the show generally does well in showing his friends support him, there are a few big red flags. One of the worst things the show has done to Bill involved him and Peggy going into business together. Despite knowing his mental state, she learns that he works best under stress and actively terrorizes him to fuel their business. This is played for a joke when it's actually quite horrifying.

Though the end of the episode sets Peggy straight and she makes things better, it doesn't make up for the rest of the episode.

2 Cotton (And His Personality)

Hank Hill's father, Cotton, is a very unpleasant human. His rampant misogyny and dislike of his own son are played up for laughs. The show even acts like his affection for his grandson and his troubles with PTSD redeem him in some way. However, being troubled doesn't excuse awful behavior. In his first episode, he even tries to buy Bobby a hooker. Hank and Peggy saying that's wrong doesn't make up for how awful he is.

Every joke around his complicated, disrespectful personality loses a lot of their humor in a world post-#MeToo movement. Cotton Hill wouldn't pass for a complex character nowadays without some serious amendment to his brand of funny and his views on women.

1 Mascot Beat Down

There are a few times that Bobby gets close to Hank's dream of him being on the football team, and one of them is when he becomes the high school mascot. The only trouble is, in their town, it's customary for the other school to assault the mascot if they're losing. At his first game, the rival band started to charge him when Arlen won.

Understandably frightened, Bobby ran off. However, his family and the school expected him to take the abuse with a smile. Fans are supposed to laugh at Bobby's coward behavior and think he's brave for finally taking the beating at the end. However, modern audiences probably wouldn't find that funny. His parents encouraging him to get his teeth kicked in and feeling ashamed when he doesn't isn't quite 2019.

NEXT: 15 Best Cartoon Series For Grownups

source https://screenrant.com/king-hill-poorly-aged-jokes/

[nocturbia]

1. Waking up.

“BEEEP BEEP RIIIING RIIING, the alarm clock jerks 14 year old Jessica Parker out of a sound sleep. She groans and fumbles to shut it off. Her mom calls from the next room, ‘Hurry up Jessie you’re going to be late!’ Jessie wills herself to get up, and get ready for school. She looks into the mirror at her frizzy red hair, which always turns into a rat’s nest after sleeping. As she begins to brush out her tangled locks, her annoying little brother comes running into the room making noises and holding Tonka trucks above his head, yelling ‘Jessie, Jessie! Look at my trucks!’ Ugh, thinks Jessie, why me?”

Yeah. You get the picture. That actually hurt a little bit to write. Don’t use the alarm clock, just don’t—unless you want your story to sound like it was written by whoever made the opening to Rebecca Black’s “Friday” music video. It won’t grab anyone’s attention. Did it work in Groundhog Day? You bet. Will it work in your story? Probably not, unless it’s extremely original, like the alarm is set to specific song or sound (like a Barney song waking up a 40 year old man, or a person’s voice saying a specific sentence) that is somehow relevant to the character or story. I don’t know, even that is risky. This type of thing is just so overused, I’ve seen it a ridiculous amount of times. In my  own naivety I’ve used it a ridiculous amount of times, (though I must say, I usually do it in a creative manner). Is a waking up scene possible to write in an engaging attention-grabbing way? Absolutely. I’ll probably even do it again some time. Just be really careful with this one... it’s so easy to be cliché!

An article entitled “11 Ways Not To Start Your Novel” from darleyandersonblog.com lists specific clichés you should avoid:

A dream. Particularly a dream that starts out like a normal scene and then weird things begin to happen before, oh twist, it turns out it was all just a dream

Anyone ‘sitting bolt upright in bed’, ‘burying their head deeper into the pillow’ or the sheets being ‘drenched with sweat’

Onomatopoeia. Alarm clocks, ringtones, knockings on doors – leave them out

Any of these phrases: ‘Breakfast is ready’, ‘you’re going to be late for [x]’, ‘sleepy head’, ‘wakey wakey’, ‘rise and shine’, ‘up and at them’, ‘just five more minutes’ and any variations thereupon

The smell of breakfast rousing your protagonist from their slumber/bed

Your protagonist getting out of bed to look at themselves in the mirror (assuming they look the way they would on any other day and haven’t, say, aged several years from the last morning they remember)

Your protagonist being even slightly hung-over

Your protagonist waking up on the first day of anything in particular

2. Weather/landscape description.

These used to bore me to death when I was younger. I’d crack open a book, see a description of rolling hills with mountains in the distance and purple mist, and slide the book back on the shelf. Essentially, you should avoid anything like this:

“The [adjective] [adjective] sun rose in the [adjective] [adjective] sky, shedding its [adjective] light across the [adjective] [adjective] [adjective] land.”

- Chip MacGregor, MacGregor Literary

3. Clichés like “once upon a time in a land far away.”

This is an obvious one, but apparently people still do it. Heck, *I* used to do it when I was way younger. Unless you KNOW it’s a cliché and you are doing it to be witty or funny, skip it!

4. Description of the town/kingdom/planet/etc.

World-building can be fun, but in general it’s too early in the story for readers to care about the kind of cars people drive in your world, and their system of government, and how the town got started, or the races of people that live there. Don’t slam a Wikipedia page about your setting at the reader, it’s your first page for heaven’s sake!

5. Detailed character descriptions or back-story.

Don’t clutter the opening—the most critical part of your entire book—with unimportant details. In all honestly, how important is the color of the characters eyes or hair? Does it tell us anything about her desires, struggles, or personality? Not likely.

“I dislike endless ‘laundry list’ character descriptions. For example: ‘She had eyes the color of a summer sky and long blonde hair that fell in ringlets past her shoulders. Her petite nose was the perfect size for her heart-shaped face. Her azure dress—with the empire waist and long, tight sleeves—sported tiny pearl buttons down the bodice. Ivory lace peeked out of the hem in front, blah, blah.’ Who cares! Work it into the story.”

- Laurie McLean, Foreword Literary

Hinting at back-story is fine, but do not delve into a lengthy description of what happened before the story started, we want to know what is happening now. Don’t start with a biography—telling where your character was born and where they went to school and who their best friend was and how they grew up with so and so, and then got a job doing such and such, and became emotionally scarred because of this or that, etc.

6. Prologue.

Maybe I’m the only one, but I always used to just skip prologues and then read them after I was finished with the book. Prologues are just another cheap way of stuffing a bunch of back-story in. However, I know a lot of successful famous books have used prologues, so they’re not always unacceptable, but if you can, work in the information somewhere else—maybe even if you need to have a flashback later on. Readers are put off by prologues that they don’t understand and have visibly little to do with the actual first chapter.

7. Addressing the reader directly.

Something I’ve noticed a lot of people say is that you should not start off by addressing your reader, like “Welcome to my story. If you’re reading this, you might be wondering...blah blah blah...”. I would agree that most of the time this is a bad idea, for one, because it puts up a barrier of self awareness that keeps the reading from being drawn into the story. However, I think there is definitely some potential to have some fun with this kind of opening if it’s done in a creative way.

8. Telling the reader your work of fiction is a true story.

Do not tell us it’s a true story, we already know it’s not. Acting like it’s a true story is fine, but don’t outright tell us, like “This really happened many years ago” or “this is the true story of how I became...” Trust me, telling us your fictional story is true is only going to remind us that it’s not. Your readers probably aren’t five year olds. In Rick Riordan’s series,The Kane Chronicles, he acts like the story is a factual account of events that really happened, even saying it’s a transcript of a digital recording. And it kind of works for that story, but you’ll notice he never outright claims it to be true—this makes it more believable.

9. An outlandish shocking zany hooker.

Everyone tells you to write an attention-grabbing opening sentence, right? This leads many beginners to start with things like, “When I woke up that morning, I had no idea my little sister would turn into an alien and try to kill me” or “‘I shall kill you all!’ cried the ghastly bat-like creature as it rose above my school’s football field.” It’s crazy, it’s out-of-the-ordinary, it’s sure to hook a reader, right? Wrong. It’s boring. It’s red flag amateurish and sounds desperate.Note that this is not bashing the sci-fi, fantasy, or horror genre. I’m all for creepy stalkers, magical water dragons, and starship battles—but aliens that turn into flying pigs with glittery blood shooting out of their eyes is not creative, it’s stupid. Guess what? Just because your story has some supernatural happenings doesn’t mean you don’t have to be realistic. As a reader, I truly want to believe that what is happing is real, but if it starts off as too crazy without easing into the whole supernatural fantasy world thing, I will have a hard time doing that.Although, to be honest, I’m grateful when people do open this way, it allows me to instantly know I shouldn’t waste time reading it. If your book actually is about that crazy uncreative stuff in you mentioned, you’ve probably got more problems than a bad opening line.

10. Things the reader does not understand.

One of the main offenders of this is rule is when people start off with lengthy unexplained dialogue. Don’t have a bunch of dialogue with no tags. Sometimes even one sentence is too long with no context for the reader to understand it in. We want to know who is speaking, where they are, and who they are speaking to.As a general rule, don’t start us off with things we don’t understand. We won’t be curious and want to solve the mystery of what the heck you are talking about, we will be confused and bored and look for something that doesn’t seem like it needs a prerequisite to the first page. It is like when you’re in a class that’s way over your head in school and you don’t understand a thing, so you’re really bored.