I'm kind of a nerd and a big fan of webcomics, but the most recent storyarch at CTRL+ALT+DEL is really starting to make me angry. The guys clearly didn't know what he's talking about when he decided to create a vegan character.
Here's a link to the one it started from, just keep going forward to view the rest. What do you guys think?
Ctrl+Alt+Del
After work today I'm going to write an Email complaining about his depiction.
I'm not a vegan, but it seems like the vegan character comes across pretty cool, and laid back, and that the people around her make idiots of themselves by trying to make jokes at her expense. But maybe that's just me.
Here are the things that annoy me:
"Really? What does that leave to eat?"
"Vegetables."
I can't imagine why the character would EVER imply that vegans can only eat vegetables, because that's a misconception that I hear about CONSTANTLY and it annoys the heck out of me. It's like people forget that grains, fruit, beans, ect all exist. "You're a vegetarian? Do you just eat salads?" Gahh!!
The other thing that really bothers me was the most recent strip with this:
Doctor: "Sometimes people with restricted diets experience deficiencies of certain vitamins and nutrients, which may have led her to be more susceptible to the venom."
Lucas: "Yikes. When she wakes up I'll have to encourage her to eat more meat."
Here's another misconception that bugs the heck out of me-- that a vegan diet is by nature lacking in some nutrients. It's really not, I've not found a single nutrient that a vegan can't get easily by eating a varied and healthful diet. Even B12, the vitamin that doesn't naturally exist in many vegan foods exists in many things like soy milk as an additive. The author of the comic put these words in the mouth of a doctor, and made it seem like it was the character's veganism that lead to her being hospitalized.
Unless the story unfolds to make it clear that all these people around her -- including medical professionals-- are dead wrong, I find it misleading and a bit offensive.
I read the vegetables part as sarcasm from her, sorry.
Me too. I thought it was funny.Originally Posted by Jennicat
I read the vegetables part as sarcasm from her, sorry.
Not to be too picky about the point here, but it is true that people with restricted diets experience deficiencies of a variety of things. People whose diets are restricted onnly to junk food, for instance ... and strict vegans do often have to be careful about b12."Sometimes people with restricted diets experience deficiencies of certain vitamins and nutrients, which may have led her to be more susceptible to the venom."
From what you guys said, it sounds like maybe the vegetables thing was some sort of joke, though I still don't get it myself.
I still don't think that being a vegan lends itself to deficiencies any more than any other diet, including the typical American one. B12 is an issue, obviously, but one that's easily addressed.
It was a cumbersome setup for an off-color joke.
One of the most common writing techniques is to ridicule a viewpoint by making the most ignorant characters spout that viewpoint.
And in this case, the doctor and the boyfriend are being very ignorant about veganism, and are then saying stuff that's preposterous and making themselves look stupid (in my opinion).
The boyfriend in this comic, Lucas is actually pictured as being the sane one. It's his friend Ethan who's supposed to be the dumb one who says crazy things.
It's possible that this strip is going to go into the direction that Lucas is wrong and learns that he has the wrong idea about veganism... I'm having doubts that it will, though.
There's a fair amount of vegan-basing going on in the forums for the comic right now. The author hasn't joined in (save for one small remark) but he didn't discourage it either.
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