#just find some kid in some uncontacted tribe in the amazon and show them drawings of cartoon characters

[fipindustries]

people constantly talk about making a little middle age peasant boy try a can of monster or whatever to give them cultural shock but one thing i genuenly wonder about is how they would have reacted to modern artstyles, particularly cartoon and anime ones.

like, we can see anime girls or random fanart on tumblr and think nothing of it because we grew up in a cultural context where they were either the norm or we saw the artistic evolution from the style we grew up with into the current styles. but like imagine presenting a victorian child (whose only exposure to comics might have been the yellow kid and hasnt gotten to see the creation of the rubberhose style which would evolve into the disney style which would later inspire osamu tezuka who would set the foundations for the anime style that would evolve across half a century into moeblobs or whatever) to an image of panty and stocking or dragon maid.

would he be able to parse that this is supposed to depict people? would he think they look attractive or that they look like deformed homunculi. would this little german boy, fresh off the coal mines, be able to appreciate that characters like the powerpuff girls are supposed to look cute? that the designs of the characters in arcane are meant to be compelling and aspirational? would hans who is two months away from dying from tuberculosis, think that the simpsons look like incoherent doodles from someone who has no idea how to draw? would he understand the stylization in the way that lisa's and bart's hairline fades into their heads or think they are disturbingly mishappen? would he be able to understand that bugs bunny is supposed to be a rabbit or would the proportions of his limbs throw him for a loop? he would probably be able to understand furries, after all anthropomophized animals are something that human culture has had since the very beggining, but would he have it within himself the capacity to get as obsessed as kids today get over them? we have to remember we grew up in a culture where humanized animals, specifically depicted in a semi disney-cartoonish style, has been the main component in a little kid's media diet, but would this kid, who at 12 years of age has never seen a sparkle dog, be capable of being as enchanted by this as kids today?

these questions keep me up at night.