quote:

For what it's worth, Justin McElroy, the eldest of the brothers, agrees that some aspects of this season have been rough. Justin told Motherboard that in particular, the amount of NPCs was "tough, for sure."

"I think Graduation has taught us a lot about finding the balance between narrative and more mechanical linear encounters," Justin said. "Trav had put a lot of thought into his world, and I think maybe he was trying to unfurl it too quickly at the top. He’s repeatedly told us there’s a lot that he’d do differently if he could start over."

Justin said that from his perspective, working with his family is a source of strength. The rapport that the McElroy family has with each other is a huge part of the appeal for listeners.

"It certainly raises the stakes when it comes to stuff like criticism," Justin said. "There is a vocal part of our audience that has been truly hostile to Travis throughout Graduation and speaking as his brother, it’s heartbreaking to see. The guy really did try his best and, in my opinion, still succeeded a lot more than he failed. But I can’t just be the big brother who tells him to shut it all out and keep his chin up, I have to be a collaborator who asks 'OK, what do we learn from this? How do we improve?'"

The World Inferno posted:

Vice actually wrote about Adventure Zone's woes. https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp...erboard_twitter


Cathartic in a way to see one of em' comment on the criticism. Wonder how many people will jump back on the ship for the mini-arcs / next season if they right the course.

Sankara posted:

I feel like the actual story behind "pumpkin in bathtub went bad" was they didn't shower for six months.

Jestery posted:

Welcome to Aussie comedy, where you call your mates pieces of poo poo

They are all in on the joke

Marsupial Ape posted:

Nope. If Bean Dad was actually starving his kid, then Montaigne was actually being a jumped up B-Lister. There is no comedy on the internet.

The World Inferno posted:

Vice actually wrote about Adventure Zone's woes. https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp...erboard_twitter

Elvis_Maximus posted:

I'll certainly give it a try. I really just miss the early balance days of mostly goofs and some puzzle solving with checks and fights. They don't need to do anything fancy, just get back to their roots a bit

Escobarbarian posted:

I had no idea there was such a McElroy-related shitstorm happening right now lmao

I haven’t listened to any of Graduation but the excerpts from the Vice article really do make it sound like Travis is indulging the worst impulses I can imagine. As much as performative wokeness claims are thrown around too much by the right Travis is absolutely one of the people where the criticism is accurate. I don’t hate him but he shouldn’t be allowed so much control over anything lol

Colonel Whitey posted:

That article was pretty frustrating to read, it really made it seem like "no bummers" is some sort of policy the McElroys have imposed that means "do not bring up uncomfortable issues with us, ever" rather than a policy that applies to goofballs getting up at live shows and asking questions. It should have been made more clear that this is a problem of the fandom and not something the brothers have imposed on anyone, or done a better job making the argument that the McElroys have fostered that within the fandom, if that was the point. There are no examples brought up in the article where someone tried to bring up an issue and was shut down, and it is really stretching to try to tie Travis' recent social media problems in with the larger McElroy brand. I'm really trying not to be a kneejerk defender of people I don't know, but it seemed to me kind of like the article was trying to manufacture a bit of controversy for clicks.

QuoProQuid posted:

how can you not know there's a mcelroy shitstorm when this thread and its predecessor self-destructs every two weeks over people being unable to stop posting about how much they hate travis

Shinjobi posted:

In these trying times, can there truly be a love zone

Sudden Loud Noise posted:

Eh, there is the case of Justin DM'ing Rachel Rosing asking her to not call them out when they're lovely:

https://twitter.com/Rachtacular/status/1346130073691144192

(To your point, the article should have provided at least one example.)

Colonel Whitey posted:

That article was pretty frustrating to read, it really made it seem like "no bummers" is some sort of policy the McElroys have imposed that means "do not bring up uncomfortable issues with us, ever" rather than a policy that applies to goofballs getting up at live shows and asking questions. It should have been made more clear that this is a problem of the fandom and not something the brothers have imposed on anyone, or done a better job making the argument that the McElroys have fostered that within the fandom, if that was the point. There are no examples brought up in the article where someone tried to bring up an issue and was shut down, and it is really stretching to try to tie Travis' recent social media problems in with the larger McElroy brand. I'm really trying not to be a kneejerk defender of people I don't know, but it seemed to me kind of like the article was trying to manufacture a bit of controversy for clicks.

The World Inferno posted:

Stroop There It Is posted:

Is this about the CBD snake oil guy?

Escobarbarian posted:

I had no idea there was such a McElroy-related shitstorm happening right now lmao

I haven’t listened to any of Graduation but the excerpts from the Vice article really do make it sound like Travis is indulging the worst impulses I can imagine. As much as performative wokeness claims are thrown around too much by the right Travis is absolutely one of the people where the criticism is accurate. I don’t hate him but he shouldn’t be allowed so much control over anything lol

Sudden Loud Noise posted:

No, it was when some people talked about how it would be cool if Still Buffering did an episode about white privilege and the Smirl family lost their poo poo.

Ok Comboomer posted:

I don’t think Travis has done anything that’s any more performatively woke than writing a character named “Chalupa” as canonically trans and hispanic was for Justin.

Is the beef that Travis paints his nails, dyes his hair purple, and refers to himself as “the cute one”? Is it that you find the open mouth schtick annoying and/or fake?

Because if so, then as personally annoying as you might find that, it doesn’t really deserve an accusation of “performative woke”—unless you’re some kind of coded behavior essentialist who thinks that only queer men or transwomen should be allowed to be effeminate and have purple hair.

It feels like a lot of the people really leaning into the soyface poo poo are just looking for acceptable ways to be like “guys who look and act and sound like that just really piss me off and make me wanna beat ‘em up” but they’ve been socially conditioned to temper it with “but just to be clear it’s totally ok for real LGBTQ people to be like this, but this prick’s fair game because he’s ‘fake”.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp...erboard_twitter posted:

One person who described the Adventure Zone as "a family D&D game" to me was McElroy's PR person when I reached out to them for comment; most family D&D games do not have their own press representatives.

"I hate to see a family D&D game dragged through the mud," they said.

Ok Comboomer posted:

I don’t think Travis has done anything that’s any more performatively woke than writing a character named “Chalupa” as canonically trans and hispanic was for Justin.

Colonel Whitey posted:

Yeah it felt like their first attempt at *representation* and it was pretty ham fisted but it seemed like the fans (inc trans fans afaik) still responded well to it. Seems like Travis has taken the wrong lessons from that for Graduation, the stuff about the disabled character from the Vice article sounds cringe as hell.

inferis posted:

If it has nothing to do with the plot it’s kind of weird to out a trans person in a world where literally you can magically change genders.

Colonel Whitey posted:

Looks like it's Justin's turn (see tweet thread)

https://twitter.com/JustinMcElroy/status/1376951573499285508?s=20

oscarthewilde posted:

huge lol

Pham Nuwen posted:

... little did I know they'd actually be cancelled for saying that a Korean word sounds gross.