Dilbert

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Originally a DeadTree? comic; now also a WebComic. Dilbert the comic (phrasing required because it has an eponymous "hero") explores the relationship between managers and engineers in a large American corporation. Since the cartoonist was an engineer (at PacBell), it's not hard to guess which side comes out the better - although that's not to say that the engineers don't wind up looking silly.

Please please. Can we UnReify? this?

Any particular reason? Doesn't actually seem to justify it, for a change.. - MoonShadow

Hatred of Dilbert. No better reason. --Vitenka

Why? - Kazuhiko (who works with at least one PHB)

: Repetitive, boring, predictable humour, stereotypes instead of characters (and unchanged after how many years?) lack of new material, topical jokes months out of date and unfunny anyway.

Seems to AlexChurchill that this discussion is precisely the reason why it's worth having a Reified page about Dilbert in the first place ;-)

: But without it we could have done something GOOD with these seconds. Is creating evil (vitriol, bile) better than creating nothing? --Vitenka

Oooh, different perspectives, methinks. Coming to understand people of different points of view? Questioning whether what we've thought of as stereotyped actually is (or vice versa)? And probably sometime soon, acquiring links to rather better versions of something similar? :) If all you were doing was being vitriolic, I might agree with you. But then you'd have extreme difficulty having any kind of meaningful conversation, including on ToothyWiki... -- AlexChurchill

Wow, Vitenka's on a HolyCrusade?... All single strip comics, to my knowledge, get repetitive from time to time. Dilbert handles it as well as most from what I've seen. I'm certainly not claiming they're all good, but I hit one that makes my laugh often enough to keep going. As for the stereotypes, you're quite right, but that's exactly what they're supposed to be!

Anyway, my guess is that lots of people find Dilbert amusing for a while. After that, it all depends on where you work and who you work with...

 - Kazuhiko

: You all minsunderstood. This topic existing caused me to spend almost a whole minute (in chunks) spewing bile. Would the world be better off if I'd done nothing? --Vitenka

: I don't think I misunderstood... or if I did, then I still do. Because of that minute of your life, a number of RecentChangesAddicts and other ToothyWikizens are more likely to have come to understand people of different points of view, and questioned whether what they've thought of as stereotyped actually is (or vice versa). And just possibly, you might have done too. So I don't think that minute was badly spent :) --AlexChurchill

Given that Vitenka launched an entirely unprovoked attack on Dilbert, as a DNRC member and someone who generally loves Dilbert I will defend it. (StuartFraser)

For anyone who has worked for a large bureaucracy, whether governmental or multinational corporate, Dilbert almost never stops being funny. It takes the latent absurdity present in all of them through to it's logical conclusion, which tends to be highly amusing. It's funny for the same reason that Rory Bremner is funny.

: Ah, I see. Being funny by being not funny. Sorry, but. Dilbert is the kind of thing that might once have been funny, if it wasn't actually true. Dilbert is, if anything, a tame and out of date version of tech work. Oh, and it wasn't unprovoked. I've seen an episode of the dilbert cartoon - if that isn't sufficient to make it JustifiableHomicide?, I don't know what is.

Notch up a Garbled positive vote for Dilbert. Too much verisimilitude as you say, in parts, but funny throughout. Maybe just because I fit a GlobalGeekTemplate?.