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

[Ruin]

Yes! I've been wondering this for awhile. Sweet's wiki is absolutely littered with phrases like "it's likely that his name was based off of" and "it's possible that she was designed after.."

He's a TVtropes Sperg. That's how those guys talk.

 

[Rin]

He's a TVtropes Sperg. That's how those guys talk.

The thing is, it makes sense in context - most Tropers are reporting on media they didn't create. Sweet Bro is just imitating it pointlessly because he doesn't understand the reasoning behind it.

 

[Ruin]

The thing is, it makes sense in context - most Tropers are reporting on media they didn't create. Sweet Bro is just imitating it pointlessly because he doesn't understand the reasoning behind it.

I disagree. I think he understands the logic behind it perfectly and this is just further evidence of his narcissism. He firmly believes Belch Dimension is a pop culture phenomenon that warrants this type of obsessiveness analysis.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

It's not like people are like "man I really hate Jonathan Sweet. Look at how much his comic sucks. By the way, who else got kicked out of college first semester?"

Not only do those of us who go to college (at least normally) graduate, but I think at least most of us here either don't drink, or we drink responsibly, despite Sweet's claim that we're alcoholics.

I think that Sweet wants to think that the "roadblocking progressives" are worse off than he is - just like CWC wants to think that those "dang dirty trolls" are worse off than he is.

[that comic again]

Also, in that last panel, there's newspaper clippings that are apparently a reference to the dorm Sweet lived in being torn down. Sweet wanted to move back into the very dorm room he occupied before he was kicked out, so the massive change of the old dorm being demolished must've been devastating to him.

 

[Adamska]

I fuck off for a day and I learn that Sweet was dumb enough to talk about how he peed in jars like a weirdo in the college paper... and the guys keep it in to fuck with him. I might be monofocusing on Shaner now, but there's a reason why I still check back in here. That level of sheer tactlessness and the delusion he was liked there is so much more amazing considering how the staff let Sweet troll himself with no remorse like any good troll would do.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I'm even more curious what the rest of the articles Sweet wrote were like. The way Sweet describes it, the readers loved the articles he wrote and showered him with gifts.

 

[Adamska]

I'm even more curious what the rest of the articles Sweet wrote were like. The way Sweet describes it, the readers loved the articles he wrote and showered him with gifts.

Oh they might have loved him alright, but as a circus clown rather than as a writer. Mainly because they can boggle at the fucking idiocy he crams into his pieces and learn how you can become the avatar of failure if you read enough of them. I'd know I'd laugh if I was reading a badly designed article in the paper that suddenly reveals the writer tracks how many times he farts in a day.

 

[He Sets Me On Fire]

I fuck off for a day and I learn that Sweet was dumb enough to talk about how he peed in jars like a weirdo in the college paper... and the guys keep it in to fuck with him. I might be monofocusing on Shaner now, but there's a reason why I still check back in here. That level of sheer tactlessness and the delusion he was liked there is so much more amazing considering how the staff let Sweet troll himself with no remorse like any good troll would do.

Did you, um ... did you hear anything about a comic panel he recently revealed?

Now you mention it, I think that Sweet Bro has previously described it as a Barb Wire poster, but in his most recent journal he says "I was given a full-color poster of the film's star Pamela Lee, dressed as a cowgirl."

I stand corrected. You're right, of course - Sweet's got the long-term memory of a glass of pudding.

Also, LOL he's bragging about being in an honor society? Wow that sounds pretty familiar.. who else was it that was bragging about honor.. wait, what was it.. honor something.. honor roll? Oh yeah, Christian Weston Chandler!

Also Sweet I'm pretty sure most people in this thread did not drop out of college first semester. I got my degree juuust fine. Also I am certain no one here got kicked out like YOU did, lmao. How would you know that anyway? It's not like people are like "man I really hate Jonathan Sweet. Look at how much his comic sucks. By the way, who else got kicked out of college first semester?" so basically you're just pulling shit out of thin air.

Spot on. Sweet has nothing. No money, no prospects, no agency. No control over his own finances, no say in his own home, no home of his own. His most longed-for fantasies involve everyone making his life better. No one will, and he can't do it himself, so he has to find a way to bring everyone else down below him, even if he's spouting empty, unfounded rhetoric - because it's the only thing he can do. One of the most satisfying aspects of interacting with him for me personally was challenging something he'd say, only to have him try to defend with another statement that effectively backed up my rebuttal. "You just agreed with me," I'd retort.

This is late, and long, but I've been held by the question of why Sweet wants to return to "half-past 1997". I agree with a lot of folks here, and thought I'd toss in my take.

Spoiler: Half-half past 1997

Sweet is extremely intellectually stunted. When it comes down to trying to accomplish something that he's unfamiliar with, all he knows how to do is hold his hands out and say, "How do I do this?" He doesn't take it upon himself to look things up, follow the instructions, and observe the results. He just sits there stymied, complaining how "Nobody told me!" how to do relatively simple, or at least clearly explained, tasks.

It's obvious that these shortcomings, whether he realizes he has them or not, clearly make Jon feel insecure. The whole "Thuderbird" issue addressed much earlier in the thread is a classic example of this. When told that there were more practical, modern alternatives to burning CDs, he responded thusly:

"Thunderbird? Is that a program? In my neighborhood, that was what the gangstas on the street corner drank when they couldn't afford Sterno. I had thought when I bought a new computer several years ago that it would be compatible with my old system, and it wasn't. I asked my former mentor at the college library for help, and he refused, flatly insulting me and threatening me with legal action (hence, the extreme punishments I alluded to before). I believe, because he lost his shot at a promotion at the paper for suggesting I start writing columns, he still holds a grudge against me."

I've color-coded this post in order to demonstrate Jon's method of discussion. Yellow represents the part of the post where Jon responds to the actual issue at hand, specifically addressing his technical problems. It is five words long, and the end of his endeavor to find out more about the suggested alternative to an information-storage issue that he had apparently been suffering for quite a while. From there, we have an entire sentence lashing out at "gangstas", which, in fact, has nothing at all to do with the subject at hand. Jon may as well have brought up the Ford Thunderbird, for all his comment was worth. Then we start in with the green section of the reply, the part where Jon starts talking about his past, with a focus on lamenting what befell him due to the evil of others. What befell him, in this case, was the refusal of being allowed to use the machines on a college campus that he'd been well-and-truly banned from. In addition, not only does Jon point out that his former mentor may hold a grudge against him, but that that grudge may have been justified.

Now, how does this response address Jon's problem? This was a clear-cut case of someone from this forum offering him help, only for him to turn away from it, without so much as a "But I can't because-!" What he did instead was deflect from the issue with a paragraph of text that had nothing to do with the issue whatsoever. This is Jon's insecurity in action. Telling him to use an alternate to burning a CD is like telling him to jump in his car and drive to the grocery store to get his own food. He is utterly incapable of handling any of these things. Not just scared - he's mentally incapable.

That, I think, is why he pines for "half-past 1997." Being as perceptually challenged as he was, and continues to be, Sweet may have understood that tuition paid for his sumptuous meals and big-screen TVs, but he never seemed to learn that society does not work along the same lines as college. When you're in college, if you need to burn a CD, but don't know how to, there will be a guy in the computer room who will walk you through it. In college, there are teachers, advisers, and assistants who, even though they may roll their eyes and groan, have to help students perform tasks great or small, because it's part of their job.

In the real world, not so much. In the real world, you are expected to have the intellectual capacity to figure things out on your own. Jon - incapable of leaving a hospital in a reasonable amount of time on his own - simply cannot do this. When we see the ugly monkey touching himself in the deleted scene above, we remember that this was because Jon was being handed something for free, a phenomenon that never happened again since. While it seems strange that a smoking-hot rich girl wanted Sweet's bod like fire wanted oxygen, and yet no woman ever asked him out since then, Sweet doesn't seem to mind the anomaly. It was "how we were taught, and we didn't question it." Of course, there was no "we". It was how Jon figured things within his limitations, and he didn't bother to question them, because they provided instant gratification. Jon doesn't think about the long-term, not seriously.

After a while, however, everyone got tired of him. Jon was booted into reality, where there were no helpers, no advice centers. Now, you could argue that the world is filled with billions of people who will happily dispense free, accurate, helpful advice, but that's not what Jon wants. He wants simple solutions that lead directly to fabulous rewards - Press the button, win a prize, no real work involved. What's more, he wants to be respected and celebrated. Jon often writes about himself in the third person, as if being covered by another party that was impressed with his work. This is because no one is impressed with his work, and no one will celebrate him. The real world is a place where people are far more quick to point out your faults and slap you down. Jon may have gotten in trouble or irritated someone on ASU's campus, but he wasn't jailed there.

In summary, I think Jon wants to return to his idealized 1997, because it was the last time everyone gave him things for free, and were nice about it. He didn't have the social or intellectual capability to figure out why these things were happening, but because he was getting his jollies and gassing up his gut, he didn't care. When the college teat was yanked from his mouth, he faced a future of working for a living, stuck in a world that did not care for him or his ineptitude, leaving him stuck with nowhere to go, save for a cold, lonely, starving future.

 

[Adamska]

Did you, um ... did you hear anything about a comic panel he recently revealed

Was it him being obstinate on racist names, or was it the comic posted here that I still can't read because Sweet cannot draw or write a comic that's easy on the eye?

 

[Chan the Wizard]

I know it's often asked about Chris, but what happens to Jon when Momma Sweets dies?
Since Jon isn't even in control of his tugboat and hates his brother, what happens?

 

[Ti-99/4A]

I know it's often asked about Chris, but what happens to Jon when Momma Sweets dies?
Since Jon isn't even in control of his tugboat and hates his brother, what happens?

He'll piss in a bottle and do nothing because nobody TOLD HIM what to do.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

or was it the comic posted here that I still can't read

Sweet posted a (censored) comic of himself fapping whilst talking on the chinaphone. That is the ideal relationship to Sweet - what college dating is (supposedly) all about.

"Thuderbird" issue addressed much earlier in the thread

Something I've noticed is that Sweet claims that there's way too many rules and way too many harsh penalties for breaking said rules, that are laid down by progressives. What I think could really be the case at ASU is that the situation there may look that way to a person with more or less zero social awareness* - seeing as how "AS(S)U" isn't really a "liberal college," at least according to @ASU.

Also, last time I checked, the government isn't micromanaging our lives to the point of telling us what school to go to, what to eat, or who to date.

*When one loudly makes crunching or neck cracking noises near others, yells at photographers, butts into conversations, writes columns about "TV-B" and pee bottles, and harasses and threatens when kicked out, people are probably going to get really annoyed.

 

[Le Bateleur]

He's a TVtropes Sperg. That's how those guys talk.

This is true. He even borrows TVTropes' habit of referring to Wikipedia as "the other Wiki"; calling the Farms "the other forum".

I know it's often asked about Chris, but what happens to Jon when Momma Sweets dies?
Since Jon isn't even in control of his tugboat and hates his brother, what happens?

Interesting question. I think to a large degree it's dependent on why he's not in charge of his own money. Is it something which has been ordered by a court, perhaps as a result of Jon's legal problems or habit of running up debt? Or is it something that was initiated by his mother after Jon fell for another work-from-home or self publishing scam?

Other than Weed Bro, there are more responsible members of Jon's immediate family who might step in to help look after him. Or maybe his mother will have made some kind of provision for him that, along with his tugboat, will set him up with somewhere to live.

There's a lot about Sweet's living situation that's mysterious. He says his bedroom has a plastic sheet where the window should be, and that he sleeps under a hole in the roof. Why doesn't he at least move the bed? Can his family not afford to fix the hole, or is there some kind of dispute over how it should be fixed that prevents the work getting done? Why doesn't he make the link between being exposed to the elements at night and his laryngitis?

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Why doesn't he at least move the bed?

No one told him a bed can be moved?

Really though, I didn't know about the hole thing being like that. The impression I got was that a hole in the wall was made by Sweet's brother punching it, and rather than treat it right away, they didn't do anything about it, and the hole - much like an untreated infection - deteriorated into a bigger one due to the elements and had to be boarded up.

Something tells me that the Sweet house - like 14 Branchland Court - has seen better years.

As for the laryngitis thing, maybe there's mold growth that causes respiratory issues?

 

[The I Scream Man]

Part of the reason this thread is so fucking amazing is because of the giant essays that @He Sets Me On Fire writes. You're the man dude.

Expounding upon my friend's point here, I completely agree that he hasn't the mental fortitude to either understand why these things are happening to him or even what in particular is happening. Cause and effect are words that, while I'm fairly sure he knows the meaning of (or at least some butchered variant), don't really factor into his mindset. "Stove hot -> I get burned", is what your standard cause and effect relationship looks like to you or me. Perhaps not quite as dramatic, but you get the picture.

But Jon must just kind of exist in some sort of world bereft of one of its pillars, in this case, that actions have consequences. What would such a world look like, I wonder? Perhaps it's akin to being colorblind, or deaf, or otherwise suffering some sensory impairment. That isn't to imply that those are bad things, mind: simply that to us they would be, because we exist in a world of colors and sounds. I could even use a very nerdy analogy and say it's like people and objects and ideas have invisibility spells cast upon them, at all times, in all situations. Thus, when you burn your hand, you have no idea why because the stove simply doesn't exist in a manner that you can perceive. You possess no wondrous abilities of your own, and if you can't see it or hear it, how can you be sure it exists? That is what I picture Thumbelina's world to look like, guys: whole chunks missing. I'm dead certain that he knows that something is there, in the same way that physicists are aware of dark matter: the absence of a detection method doesn't mean that there's nothing there, because they can perceive the effects of the force upon other things.

And this, right here, is the good part. See, I think that he can perceive the analogous dark matter of consequences pressing upon his world from all sides and angles, but because of his ego and insecurity, as mentioned by HSMOF, he's...I don't know, trained his brain to disavow any knowledge of the causes of his problems? I'm having a hard time constructing a framework by which to understand Knuckle Neck because his mindset is so alien to me. I almost feel like it's a failing of mine, you know? Like I'm somehow bereft of empathy because I can't for the fucking life of me fathom a mind willing to go to any lengths to not be wrong quite like his is.

Edit for one more good zinger: in much the same way you'd have a really hard time describing the color red to a blind guy, describing the whole "actions have consequences" thing to him must really be difficult. Because, I mean, he's been hearing it his whole life, from before ASU even, I'm certain. The ASU Conspiracy was his mind's last, most desperate attempt to shore up the walls, so to speak, and holy fucking shit where are you mentally when THAT bullshit is what makes the most sense to you.

 

[melty]

Part of the reason this thread is so fucking amazing is because of the giant essays that @He Sets Me On Fire writes. You're the man dude.

Expounding upon my friend's point here, I completely agree that he hasn't the mental fortitude to either understand why these things are happening to him or even what in particular is happening. Cause and effect are words that, while I'm fairly sure he knows the meaning of (or at least some butchered variant), don't really factor into his mindset. "Stove hot -> I get burned", is what your standard cause and effect relationship looks like to you or me. Perhaps not quite as dramatic, but you get the picture.

But Jon must just kind of exist in some sort of world bereft of one of its pillars, in this case, that actions have consequences. What would such a world look like, I wonder? Perhaps it's akin to being colorblind, or deaf, or otherwise suffering some sensory impairment. That isn't to imply that those are bad things, mind: simply that to us they would be, because we exist in a world of colors and sounds. I could even use a very nerdy analogy and say it's like people and objects and ideas have invisibility spells cast upon them, at all times, in all situations. Thus, when you burn your hand, you have no idea why because the stove simply doesn't exist in a manner that you can perceive. You possess no wondrous abilities of your own, and if you can't see it or hear it, how can you be sure it exists? That is what I picture Thumbelina's world to look like, guys: whole chunks missing. I'm dead certain that he knows that something is there, in the same way that physicists are aware of dark matter: the absence of a detection method doesn't mean that there's nothing there, because they can perceive the effects of the force upon other things.

And this, right here, is the good part. See, I think that he can perceive the analogous dark matter of consequences pressing upon his world from all sides and angles, but because of his ego and insecurity, as mentioned by HSMOF, he's...I don't know, trained his brain to disavow any knowledge of the causes of his problems? I'm having a hard time constructing a framework by which to understand Knuckle Neck because his mindset is so alien to me. I almost feel like it's a failing of mine, you know? Like I'm somehow bereft of empathy because I can't for the fucking life of me fathom a mind willing to go to any lengths to not be wrong quite like his is.

Edit for one more good zinger: in much the same way you'd have a really hard time describing the color red to a blind guy, describing the whole "actions have consequences" thing to him must really be difficult. Because, I mean, he's been hearing it his whole life, from before ASU even, I'm certain. The ASU Conspiracy was his mind's last, most desperate attempt to shore up the walls, so to speak, and holy fucking shit where are you mentally when THAT bullshit is what makes the most sense to you.

So it's kinda like the Allegory of the Cave, except instead of chained prisoners, it's an autistic man sitting at a scrumptious campus buffet and anticipating chinaphone calls?

 

[Chan the Wizard]

Did the chinaphone calls start after the articles? I want to hear more about the chinaphone from Sweets. What did they talk about? How many chinaphone calls were there? Did he spank it during the first call? Did Ashleigh know he was spanking it? Was she just a troll the entire time? Is she Bluespike's mom?

 

[sonichuis44]

Spoiler: Half-half past 1997

Sweet is extremely intellectually stunted. When it comes down to trying to accomplish something that he's unfamiliar with, all he knows how to do is hold his hands out and say, "How do I do this?" He doesn't take it upon himself to look things up, follow the instructions, and observe the results. He just sits there stymied, complaining how "Nobody told me!" how to do relatively simple, or at least clearly explained, tasks.

It's obvious that these shortcomings, whether he realizes he has them or not, clearly make Jon feel insecure. The whole "Thuderbird" issue addressed much earlier in the thread is a classic example of this. When told that there were more practical, modern alternatives to burning CDs, he responded thusly:

"Thunderbird? Is that a program? In my neighborhood, that was what the gangstas on the street corner drank when they couldn't afford Sterno. I had thought when I bought a new computer several years ago that it would be compatible with my old system, and it wasn't. I asked my former mentor at the college library for help, and he refused, flatly insulting me and threatening me with legal action (hence, the extreme punishments I alluded to before). I believe, because he lost his shot at a promotion at the paper for suggesting I start writing columns, he still holds a grudge against me."

I've color-coded this post in order to demonstrate Jon's method of discussion. Yellow represents the part of the post where Jon responds to the actual issue at hand, specifically addressing his technical problems. It is five words long, and the end of his endeavor to find out more about the suggested alternative to an information-storage issue that he had apparently been suffering for quite a while. From there, we have an entire sentence lashing out at "gangstas", which, in fact, has nothing at all to do with the subject at hand. Jon may as well have brought up the Ford Thunderbird, for all his comment was worth. Then we start in with the green section of the reply, the part where Jon starts talking about his past, with a focus on lamenting what befell him due to the evil of others. What befell him, in this case, was the refusal of being allowed to use the machines on a college campus that he'd been well-and-truly banned from. In addition, not only does Jon point out that his former mentor may hold a grudge against him, but that that grudge may have been justified.

Now, how does this response address Jon's problem? This was a clear-cut case of someone from this forum offering him help, only for him to turn away from it, without so much as a "But I can't because-!" What he did instead was deflect from the issue with a paragraph of text that had nothing to do with the issue whatsoever. This is Jon's insecurity in action. Telling him to use an alternate to burning a CD is like telling him to jump in his car and drive to the grocery store to get his own food. He is utterly incapable of handling any of these things. Not just scared - he's mentally incapable.

That, I think, is why he pines for "half-past 1997." Being as perceptually challenged as he was, and continues to be, Sweet may have understood that tuition paid for his sumptuous meals and big-screen TVs, but he never seemed to learn that society does not work along the same lines as college. When you're in college, if you need to burn a CD, but don't know how to, there will be a guy in the computer room who will walk you through it. In college, there are teachers, advisers, and assistants who, even though they may roll their eyes and groan, have to help students perform tasks great or small, because it's part of their job.

In the real world, not so much. In the real world, you are expected to have the intellectual capacity to figure things out on your own. Jon - incapable of leaving a hospital in a reasonable amount of time on his own - simply cannot do this. When we see the ugly monkey touching himself in the deleted scene above, we remember that this was because Jon was being handed something for free, a phenomenon that never happened again since. While it seems strange that a smoking-hot rich girl wanted Sweet's bod like fire wanted oxygen, and yet no woman ever asked him out since then, Sweet doesn't seem to mind the anomaly. It was "how we were taught, and we didn't question it." Of course, there was no "we". It was how Jon figured things within his limitations, and he didn't bother to question them, because they provided instant gratification. Jon doesn't think about the long-term, not seriously.

After a while, however, everyone got tired of him. Jon was booted into reality, where there were no helpers, no advice centers. Now, you could argue that the world is filled with billions of people who will happily dispense free, accurate, helpful advice, but that's not what Jon wants. He wants simple solutions that lead directly to fabulous rewards - Press the button, win a prize, no real work involved. What's more, he wants to be respected and celebrated. Jon often writes about himself in the third person, as if being covered by another party that was impressed with his work. This is because no one is impressed with his work, and no one will celebrate him. The real world is a place where people are far more quick to point out your faults and slap you down. Jon may have gotten in trouble or irritated someone on ASU's campus, but he wasn't jailed there.

In summary, I think Jon wants to return to his idealized 1997, because it was the last time everyone gave him things for free, and were nice about it. He didn't have the social or intellectual capability to figure out why these things were happening, but because he was getting his jollies and gassing up his gut, he didn't care. When the college teat was yanked from his mouth, he faced a future of working for a living, stuck in a world that did not care for him or his ineptitude, leaving him stuck with nowhere to go, save for a cold, lonely, starving future.

I don't think Sweet's disability is an intellectual one. He made it through a degree and into grad school, which just isn't something that happens if you're retarded. He seems to have a good command of the English language, a wide vocabulary, and some amount of spatial skills, judging by his artistic abilities (I make no claims about what he's done with those abilities, just that he has them). He definitely has some kind of social deficit though.

I'm starting to wonder if John really isn't on the autistic spectrum. He understands that there are unwritten rules for interacting with others in society, but he seems completely unable to figure out what they are or when he's violating them. He's debilitatingly obsessed with a narrow band of topics (ASU/The Herald, cartoon history, burping/sneezing/farting). He has extremely inflexible and rigid thinking. H has a very eccentric personal appearance, but doesn't understand what exactly other people object to about it. Part of this I'm basing on my own interactions with a friend of mine back in high school who had really bad untreated Aspergers, but there's something about the way his train of thought runs that reminds me of her. Like in that Thunderbird quote above - I bet Sweets thought that was making perfect sense, and can't understand why we couldn't follow it, and it's part of why he thinks we're dumb. (My high school friend also had an obsession with bodily functions in a creepy pseudosexual way, dressed in very loud, bold colors, was scared tot he point of panic by people of the opposing political party, and managed to get through a four year degree. Really the more i think about it, the more parallels I see.)

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I bet Sweets thought that was making perfect sense, and can't understand why we couldn't follow it, and it's part of why he thinks we're dumb.

There was the time when Kiwis suggested that Sweet get a bike and that he could've walked home from being stuck at the hospital for hours. Sweet thought we were dumb because we offered "unworkable solutions" - because we didn't know that walking from the hospital would involve walking through a "black neighborhood" (as Sweet put it) at night, and that the town he lives in has a lack of sidewalks, making bike travel supposedly impossible.*

It's as if Sweet knew it so he thought that people who aren't living in some obscure part of Arkansas would also know it. Once again, Sweet demonstrated a very poor theory of mind.

*(nobody told Sweet that one can ride bikes on land without sidewalks, even if riding in the road is a bad idea)

 

[PacSol]

Riding in the road isn't that hard, though it's probably easier here in Japan, where almost no one can park in the street. Just be aware of your surroundings, make yourself visible, avoid sudden changes in speed or direction, and don't do anything stupid.