🎨 Artcow Iconoclast / Jonathan Mack Sweet - The Chris-Chan of Arkansas

[Shadow Fox]

I don't know for sure. I don't even know if he knows for sure. But, he has complained on multiple occasions through the years that he's barely able to talk due to his laryngitis.

Every time he mentions his laryngitis, he manages to blame it on someone else, too. At one point he said that if his brother hadn't pissed off Dale and made Dale skip town, then Sweet wouldn't have had to work outside in the hot, hot sun without proper hydration, resulting in his throat being permanently wrecked. Apparently nobody ever TOLD Sweetums that he could bring water outside the house with him while he worked. What happened to all those sports drink bottles that his adoring public offered to him? Did he fill them all up with piss while he was watching his stories on the picture-box?

And it's not as entertaining or informative as the material posted by @Dr. Merkwurdichliebe and @ASU recently, but I wanted to comment on one of Sweetie's latest posts over at AJM:

Yes. Mine's much better. Cats are just inherently funny. Although, I guess you have to have been a member here a while and heard all my Lana stories (or at least own a cat) to fully appreciate it. She had so many children that one point I had three generations of one cat family under my roof, so I began dubbing them "The Lana Squad".

1. The first couple lines of the post are in reference to a previous comment about a Snickers commercial featuring a Brady Bunch parody. Sweet, with his usual humility, thinks his trite, uninspired one-page comic gag is superior to it. I mean, say what you will about the candy bar ad, but I don't think Sweet's work can ever accurately be said to be better than anything.
2. NEUTER YOUR FUCKING CAT(S), YOU ASSCLOWN. Then again, I suppose he thinks animal control is just another liberal ploy to infringe on his rights. More seriously, I get that pet ownership in the deep south is probably vastly different from the way it is in most other parts of the country, but it seriously disgusts me to see someone bragging about letting their animals breed out of control like that.

 

[Holdek]

That would be enough to preclude work, but I think laryngitis is a temporary condition.

It usually is.

It could just be his way of saying that his voice doesn't work well anymore (he says it's scratchy and barely audible), which is a symptom of various maladies, some of them permanent.

Okay, the way Sweet says it, he got it by staying out in the heat without water for too long one day when he was collecting cans. The working theory here though is that the unrepaired holes in his bedroom walls and window, and resulting exposure to rain, have probably led to mold and other airborne pathogens that keep him constantly infected. I think our theory is much more likely than his.

 

[wheat pasta]

2. NEUTER YOUR FUCKING CAT(S), YOU ASSCLOWN.

Agreed. This applies to dogs too, I don't know why it's so hard for people to practice basic pet care like this. I mean, the cats are (presumably) cared for so at least they aren't running around on the streets or cooped up in the pound.

 

[Holdek]

2. NEUTER YOUR FUCKING CAT(S), YOU ASSCLOWN. Then again, I suppose he thinks animal control is just another liberal ploy to infringe on his rights. More seriously, I get that pet ownership in the deep south is probably vastly different from the way it is in most other parts of the country, but it seriously disgusts me to see someone bragging about letting their animals breed out of control like that.

This...kind of disturbs me, hopefully more than it should. In school sometimes our class hamsters that were brother and sister would breed new spawn. Which I suppose is fucked up but is he implying he has three generations of inbred cats? Do cats do that?

 

[wheat pasta]

This...kind of disturbs me, hopefully more than it should. In school sometimes our class hamsters that were brother and sister would breed new spawn. Which I suppose is fucked up but is he implying he has three generations of inbred cats? Do cats do that?

I believe for most of the animal population, they are capable of inbreeding without many repercussions genetically speaking in order to perpetuate the population as per their instincts, but it's not the first choice.

 

[Shadow Fox]

This...kind of disturbs me, hopefully more than it should. In school sometimes our class hamsters that were brother and sister would breed new spawn. Which I suppose is fucked up but is he implying he has three generations of inbred cats? Do cats do that?

I'm sure they would if they had the chance. I remember an episode of My Cat From Hell had a case involving an unneutered male cat who knocked up his own mother. Cats are scandalous creatures.

ETA - Depending on whether Sweet's cats were allowed to roam the countryside or were cooped up inside the house all day, their litters may have been inbred or not. Or a mixture of both, since cats can have multiple fathers per litter.

 

[drtoboggan]

It usually is.

It could just be his way of saying that his voice doesn't work well anymore (he says it's scratchy and barely audible), which is a symptom of various maladies, some of them permanent.

Okay, the way Sweet says it, he got it by staying out in the heat without water for too long one day when he was collecting cans. The working theory here though is that the unrepaired holes in his bedroom walls and window, and resulting exposure to rain, have probably led to mold and other airborne pathogens that keep him constantly infected. I think our theory is much more likely than his.

The latter is way more plausible. No water on a hot day leads to dehydration. Using one's voice for long periods of time causes laryngitis. But he's also got Dunning-Krueger pretty bad too.
Sauce: former psych student who's had dehydration and laryngitis (thanks Geddy Lee!)

 

[DrJonesHat]

Earlier in this thread there is a statement from Mr. Sweet that he -- a grown-ass, able-bodied, college-educated man -- "reluctantly" agreed to assist his impoverished mother, off of whom he had been freeloading for years, by -- in the best tradition of our pioneer forebears -- going on welfare as mentally disabled. I wonder what his family had to threaten him with in order to get him to submit the the battery of psychological evaluations that are necessary before you can qualify for federal disability payments.

Yeah, you have to have a professional diagnosis of something debilitating before you can even apply. Sweet doesn't seem to be the type to pull a Nick Bate and post his psych eval, so we can only speculate as to the actual justification. Also, Sweet has mentioned numerous times that he's not in control of his finances, I wonder if he's forced to sign over his check in exchange for living in his mother's house without being expected to do anything in return. He doesn't speak of doing chores around the house, or doing anything to help his mother. Thing is, unless he's actually been declared incompetent or his mother has power of attorney over him, his family has no legal right to his money. But moving out would require effort, which we've long established he is incapable of.

 

[Dr. Merkwurdichliebe]

Yeah, you have to have a professional diagnosis of something debilitating before you can even apply. Sweet doesn't seem to be the type to pull a Nick Bate and post his psych eval, so we can only speculate as to the actual justification.

Agreed. But I think our speculation can be informed by Mr. Sweet's plethora of posts on this topic and related issues. I'm convinced that if he had a physical condition that qualified him for disability payments, he would be trumpeting it from the rooftops. To qualify for such payments, you have to be seriously physically disabled. Implying that he's on the dole because he has a raspy voice is an outlandishly transparent lie. In comparison , getting a tugboat because of years of generally deranged behavior would be relatively easy. (He's probably qualified based solely on his Internet activity.)

 

[Picklechu]

Then again, I suppose he thinks animal control is just another liberal ploy to infringe on his rights. More seriously, I get that pet ownership in the deep south is probably vastly different from the way it is in most other parts of the country, but it seriously disgusts me to see someone bragging about letting their animals breed out of control like that.

It's not. Source: Alabamian. The area Sweetums is from does seem to be the equivalent of the Black Belt in several other southern states, though, so, given the poverty and culture, I can imagine it being the type of place where having you porch collapse means that twenty pets die.

 

[ASU]

This would explain his complex about "Ashleigh" supposedly spurning him because she was "rich," even though by most American standards she was middle-class at most.

Is the ease of getting in the same for the UA system or just the ASU one?

Also, was Jonesboro the place where those two kids pulled the fire alarm at their middle school and then shot the exiting students, in the '90s?

Any public state college so UA would work, you just couldn't pick somewhere like Hendrix.

Yes, Jonesboro is where the shooting occurred.

 

[Meowthkip]

Also, was Jonesboro the place where those two kids pulled the fire alarm at their middle school and then shot the exiting students, in the '90s?

Shit, I remember that. That happened not long before Columbine, IICR. Wow. Would Sweet still have been at ASU when that happened or would he have already gotten the boot?

It usually is.

It could just be his way of saying that his voice doesn't work well anymore (he says it's scratchy and barely audible), which is a symptom of various maladies, some of them permanent.

Okay, the way Sweet says it, he got it by staying out in the heat without water for too long one day when he was collecting cans. The working theory here though is that the unrepaired holes in his bedroom walls and window, and resulting exposure to rain, have probably led to mold and other airborne pathogens that keep him constantly infected. I think our theory is much more likely than his.

I would like to know where on earth he got that idea. I'm sure if he has gone to a doctor about it, his doctor would say that's probably inaccurate, but Sweet always wants a person to blame for anything bad that happens to him aside from himself.

 

[drtoboggan]

It is pretty Republican* to be ignorant of science and shift blame.
(*: yeah, not all, but it's the prevailing mindset)

 

[ASU]

Shit, I remember that. That happened not long before Columbine, IICR. Wow. Would Sweet still have been at ASU when that happened or would he have already gotten the boot?

The shooting was in March of 98. I'm not positive when Sweet was at ASU.

The whole "West Memphis Three" thing happened in that approximate area, too.

 

[DrJonesHat]

Agreed. But I think our speculation can be informed by Mr. Sweet's plethora of posts on this topic and related issues. I'm convinced that if he had a physical condition that qualified him for disability payments, he would be trumpeting it from the rooftops. To qualify for such payments, you have to be seriously physically disabled. Implying that he's on the dole because he has a raspy voice is an outlandishly transparent lie. In comparison , getting a tugboat because of years of generally deranged behavior would be relatively easy. (He's probably qualify based solely on his Internet activity.)

You've suggested autism, and given his general cluelessness about how people actually act, that might be accurate. He's never mentioned hallucinations or any form of psychosis, so perhaps he WAS diagnosed with Autism Specturm Disorder, but therapy is either not affordable, or perhaps he refuses it. He does seem to desire social interaction, but he's bad at it. So the clues are there. Since we're just speculating here, Narcissitic Personality Disorder is also possible. It would explain why he's apparently insufferable in person as well as thinking the world owes him something, and that he was a big man on campus when it's obvious no one liked him at all.

 

[Meowthkip]

You've suggested autism, and given his general cluelessness about how people actually act, that might be accurate. He's never mentioned hallucinations or any form of psychosis, so perhaps he WAS diagnosed with Autism Specturm Disorder, but therapy is either not affordable, or perhaps he refuses it. He does seem to desire social interaction, but he's bad at it. So the clues are there. Since we're just speculating here, Narcissitic Personality Disorder is also possible. It would explain why he's apparently insufferable in person as well as thinking the world owes him something, and that he was a big man on campus when it's obvious no one liked him at all.

I'm still banking on something in the schizophrenia spectrum, especially in regards to his insane paranoia. He's too far gone even for an autist.

 

[DrJonesHat]

I'm still banking on something in the schizophrenia spectrum, especially in regards to his insane paranoia. He's too far gone even for an autist.

But he seems too coherent for schizophrenia. His posts are comprehensible, we may disagree completely with what he says, but that's the point, we can understand what he's trying to say. If he was an untreated schizophrenic, we'd be barraged with word salad most of the time most likely. He's never mentioned hallucinations. You could still be correct, he might have a mild form of it, which manifests in the form of disordered thinking (the hospital incident comes to mind) and the paranoia. I would not be surprised if whatever he does have is comorbid with depression. With meds and therapy, he could turn his life around even now (40's not really that old anymore) and move on, but it would require getting over his 18 year grudge and acknowledging something's wrong with him.

 

[ASU]

They say childhood abuse can cause PTSD, so, it's even possible he was born more or less fine, but became mentally ill later in life. Schizophrenia symptoms also tend to develop after birth, though I don't think he's schizophrenic, maybe schizotypal or something like that, but even that seems off to me. It's difficult to judge based on text interactions just how functional he is, but I don't get the feeling he's losing the ability to verbally communicate or anything.

I think the question kind of comes down to things like "did he think that he could frame someone for child porn because he was delusional and expected people to think it was real, or simply because he's stupid and expected people to think it's real". Personally, considering all the old references and so on that Sweet is aware of, my guess would be that he's somewhat well-read (or was at one time), so it's probably not stupidity.

His fear of everything, paranoia, and so on, is what makes me wonder if there wasn't some kind of legit abuse or fear of abuse in his early childhood. I've known "crazy" kids, and even diagnosed schizophrenic kids, but the ones who acted terrified of everything usually had some parent they were afraid of, either because of constant shouting back and forth between the parents or worse.

I don't know more than what Google tells me for what the requirements for a psychotic diagnosis are. I know psychosis manifests in a thousand different ways, but that's about it. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd developed some degree of psychosis over the years, though, from the isolation and so on.

 

[melty]

I just wanted to thank @ASU and @Dr. Merkwurdichliebe for all the new information! I can't wait to hear more witness stories, that lesbian ranting, that is crazy. I can't say I'm surprised but it was more in depth and crazier than I thought. Of course when he relays the story he makes it sound like the light really hurt his poor eyes and he just let slip "fuck you" or something. I wonder if he'll try to contradict any of the stories.

ASU, I am kind of interested to hear more about dating on campus. Of course no one believes Sweet's crazy phone dating scheme was normal but he has said some other weird stuff, like that "the system" didn't like offcampus girls, maybe some other stuff I'm forgetting.

 

[Meowthkip]

But he seems too coherent for schizophrenia. His posts are comprehensible, we may disagree completely with what he says, but that's the point, we can understand what he's trying to say. If he was an untreated schizophrenic, we'd be barraged with word salad most of the time most likely. He's never mentioned hallucinations. You could still be correct, he might have a mild form of it, which manifests in the form of disordered thinking (the hospital incident comes to mind) and the paranoia. I would not be surprised if whatever he does have is comorbid with depression. With meds and therapy, he could turn his life around even now (40's not really that old anymore) and move on, but it would require getting over his 18 year grudge and acknowledging something's wrong with him.

I was thinking like schizotypal, like @ASU said. I don't know. There's just something that goes beyond the 'tism for me into something creepier.