Doug TenNapel on culture

From Doug TenNapel (the creator of Earthworm Jim, for you 90′s kids out there) on our culture during an interview on the Making Comics podcast. You have to know, as you read this, that it was said not as a diatribe, but in a very measured, thoughtful tone. I couldn’t agree more with what he has to say:

I still just think we aim too low. I still think we’re just shackled to our culture. We’re at a very illiterate, ignorant, negative time in culture… We [tear down the things we used to call great] so we feel better about our own mediocrity …What does [Sarah Silverman] have that’s sacred? … We all identify with the guy who’s too cool for everyone else…

Once you lose the taste for [mockery] it’s really rude… I got to a point where I lost my taste for it. And it was very strange to be there because my friends still talked that way and acted that way. And I was just looking at it from the outside and seeing it — we just celebrate the dismantling of our father and family and the guy who puts the most work in out of anyone in the room… It’s more terrible to live that way and think that’s for you.

We don’t believe in ideals anymore and we don’t hold anything sacred. If I talk about something sacred on Facebook, I have a thousand friends who are just gonna tear it apart. If I put up something sacred. So I put up some video of parents who had lost their child at 99 days, called 99 Balloons … great video, it makes me cry every time. And a bunch of my little high school followers start making fun of it. And I said, if that’s that kid at nineteen, where does he have to go from there? You’re jaded, you’ve had all the sex and drugs, you’ve told all the foulest jokes, and you’re looking for stimulation when you’re forty? I just feel bad for you, you know, you’ve rung the bell.

At some point you have to go back to what’s sacred, and joyful, and soaring, and George Washington, so we might as well go back now.

Follow Doug on Twitter at @TenNapel. I know I am.

(Photo credit: 5of7)

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