The only reason why South Park makes me feel smart about myself is that I watch something that sometimes contradicts my opinions.

I think the author of the Outline article just doesn't like the political stance of the show. The point about Token is in bad faith IMO - he isn't the richest guy in town as a cheap joke, but because changing a few things around from reality makes it easier to have a fresh look at the situation and have new insights. They use this technique all the time. In this case, it separates poor people problems from black people problems.

>The Outline (somewhat ironically imho) summed it up when they said "South Park is not subversive"

I'd say the Outline is the one that does exactly what it accuses South Park of: BS for "fake woke white people". It's just that they want to believe that their white people are more "woke" than the ones watching South Park.

Starting with the BS idea of "high-brow" criticizing what in final analysis is just a funny cartoon show -- this reeks of (real, not imagined) pretentiousness and taking things too seriously itself.

"The main idea that a person tries to convey to others is that he has access to much more prestigious consumption than others think about him. At the same time, he tries to explain to others that their types of consumption are much less prestigious than what they naively think. This is the goal of all social maneuvers. Furthermore, only these discussions generate strong emotions in people."

— Victor Pelevin, "Empire V"

Yeah, thats why I point it out as being ironic - I often get the feeling that The Outline is contrarian just for the sake of trying to be edgy. It just so happens that this time I agree with the point.

> subversive

Seems like a claim no one ever asserted about SP. Maybe Simpsons (at one point).

"Much like a joke South Park made about residents of San Francisco: They smugly inhaled their own farts."

So the non-subversive series made a subversive episode about their own smug watchers? Or smug writer found that non-subversively applicable to non-woke whites?

Please do quotes with a ">" line prefix instead of as a code snippet. I have to scroll horizontally as I read each line of text, which is really annoying.

South Park is awful and sanctimonious at the same time. The fans are also awful and sanctimonious. Nothing about what they do in "satire" is clever.

Your quote nails it. It is for people who want to pretend they are the smartest person in the room, largely because they watch South Park.

Or, you know, is for people who enjoy the humor, in all parts of the world (I'm in Europe) and could not care less about pretending to be "the smartest person in the room".

Not sure about today's episodes (have lost touch), but that was certainly true 20 years ago when we were watching the seasons 1-10 or so.

In my experience people criticizing others for being "pretentious" etc. usually can't fathom anyone liking anything that's either not entirely mainstream or having any second level of reading.

Heck, those people would accuse someone reading e.g. literature (something that billions all over the world have done for millennia) as "pretentious" (as if anything above Stephen King is some kind of crime).

Quoting Bill Hicks:

"I was in Nashville, Tennesee last year. After the show I went to a Waffle House. I'm not proud of it, I was hungry. And I'm alone, I'm eating and I'm reading a book, right? Waitress walks over to me: 'Hey, whatcha readin' for?' Isn't that the weirdest fuckin' question you've ever heard? Not what am I reading, but what am I reading FOR? Well, godammit, ya stumped me! Why do I read? Well . . . hmmm . . . I dunno . . . I guess I read for a lot of reasons and the main one is so I don't end up being a fuckin' waffle waitress."

Bill Hicks would have been described as pretentious by people who disagree with what he says. They'd have also said his humour wasn't clever, it was just insulting, rude, and low-brow. They wouldn't be entirely wrong, but they'd be mostly wrong.

Same goes for South Park or Rick & Morty or The Simpsons. Those who disagree will find ways of protecting their world view against a trickle or tide of inconvenient or uncomfortable alternatives no matter how logically, reasonably, and / or cleverly the alternative is presented.