Alt Text
Panel 1: Shen is sitting at his screen tablet, holding his tablet pen. He looks at you, smiling, and says “Wanna know one cool thing about being a comic artist?”
Panel 2: Shen is now standing upright, the tablet pen having become giant in his hand. How gestures outwards with his other hand and says “You can draw yourself however you want!”
Panel 3: Shen magically "ting"s his forehead with his tablet pen, changing himself into a Sol Badguy-esque buff dude with a belt and a ponytail. He says “For example, I can draw myself like THIS!”
Panel 4: Shen again magically "ting"s his forehead, changing himself into a girl with a sweatshirt-dress, gym shorts, and choker. He says “OR like THIS!”
Panel 5: Shen winks, does a peace sign, and sticks his tongue out, saying “Bet THIS makes you feel some funny new feelings about me, huh??”
Panel 6: Life now has to hold a raging and frothing-at-the-mouth Shen as he yells “Bet THIS would make it easier to get you to go to my PATREON!!!” and points at you, trying to fight you. Life is saying “Calm down, man!!”
I get what you mean about being too young for old lady rants. I feel like I remember internet lore that most people have either forgotten or never experienced in the first place. Like people not knowing how fascist cultural movements work and getting duped by them again and again, and I’m all like “Really? These strategies aren’t even novel anymore. How do people keep falling for them so hard?” I guess the TikTok generation needs their GamerGate too, and I guess mainstream social media going mask-off has really opened the floodgates.
Anyhow, things have both changed and stayed the same. I don’t think anyone could have the same experience as F1NN5TER or Contrapoints. No egg will again exist on an internet where people are largely ignorant about trans people like Contra, and no egg anytime soon will think that trans people have a safe future like F1NN. If one didn’t crack because the common culture was in its infancy, and another didn’t crack because they were innocent and dense as a brick, the next one will probably repress themselves intensely while being unable to resist the internal pressure.
I’m imagining a “femboy” who gets big by being edgy and terminally online in some way. A fully left wing creator would likely be buried by current mainstream algorithms and face more right wing harassment for gender nonconformity. However if someone acts like the ultimate pick-me, an egg who openly resists the urge to transition, they might get held up as a beacon of how the right wants trans people to say closeted. Such an egg would get forced out of the right eventually, and probably transition to repping 4tran brainrot.