That pounce!

These are all people who had kids because it was ‘the next logical step’. Like they have this mentality of ‘Marriage? Check. House? Check. Well, guess we better have kids!’ And then bring small dependant humans into the world…and get upset when their lives are inconvenienced or changed as a result.

It really saddens me because there’s this damaging culture of children being part of the standard. So people who shouldn’t be parents (and I mean that in the simplest of terms - not in a judgemental way, but a ‘it’s just not for you’ way) feel pressured to have children and regret it. And then the poor child grows up feeling like a burden.

It’s not fair on anyone. The parents, the children.

As a post on this site once said - children and the decision to parent should be ‘hell yes or hell no’. If you think for any reason at all that you might not be big on raising kids, do not actively go out of your way to have kids. Having them won’t magically make you want them.

All the people I know who wanted - really wanted - their kids and to raise kids have said ‘it’s difficult but I LOVE it. I love being a parent.’

Can we please eliminate the idea that parenting should suck? And that having children is a necessary part of adulthood?

And can we please eliminate the idea that people who don’t want children are somehow lacking? And that those who do want children are doomed to misery?

I did okay majoring in Political Science and American Government in undergrad though. I graduated summa cum laude so I figure I must have learned something?

Law school also went alright I guess? I did somehow manage to get an article about the constitutionality and modification of excessive force laws through out the 50 states placed in a national publication. And I also managed to pass the Bar Exam. 

The third season of Rick and Morty began with a convoluted story in which series villain Rick breaks out of prison before breaking up his daughter’s marriage. There’s also a huge battle that includes many Ricks from other dimensions as the story folds back over itself and past seasons, and the whole thing ends with a wonderfully nonsensical speech about how this all happened so Rick can get more of a promotional dipping sauce from McDonald’s.

The joke, which plays with the show’s theme that Rick is empty, alone and despondentdespite having everything he could ever ask for, is that all that work was done for a silly, arbitrary reason. There is no plan, and there is no meaning. It may as well be a dipping sauce.

This flew right over the heads of some of the show’s biggest fans, and McDonald’s stepped right up to take advantage of this fact.

McDonald’s is struggling. It’s an older brand that has become synonymous with low quality and disposable culture. Sales are down, and the new CEO needs to get them back up. So why not turn to the internet?

What started as a silly joke about Rick’s hollow soul became a marketing opportunity, and the best part was that McDonald’s didn’t have to pay Adult Swim anything to cash in. The promotion was never officially tied into Rick and Morty in any way, although McDonald’s did everything it could within the bounds of the law to connect the two brands.

“Look at that art, look at the font,” Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon told Polygon. “Look I’m not being sarcastic when I talk about this. If anyone from McDonald’s is reading this, I don’t see anything wrong with what they’re doing and clearly neither does their legal department.”

But of course the fans revolted. McDonald’s either underestimated demand for the sauce or tried to manufacture scarcity of an old product that was already meant to be promotional — the sauce was originally supposed to tie into the Disney film Mulan — and ugly scenes broke out as fans waited in line for hours only to be told that their location was out of the sauce.

This is a weird situation for everyone, because Adult Swim had nothing to do with the promotion, nor did anyone from the show itself get a heads up about how McDonald’s would try to take advantage of the joke. McDonald’s, for its part, didn’t seem to understand what it was tapping into when it leaned into this gag.

No one was prepared for the enthusiasm of Rick and Morty fans, who are already getting an online reputation for, believe it or not, narcissism and toxicity. And they took that toxicity out on McDonald’s employees, who had little idea of how bad their day was going to get.

Rick and Morty superfans, the ones who are giving the rest of us a bad reputation, like to “joke” about how you have to be smart to understand the show while proving over and over again that they don’t understand the show. Rick wasn’t saying the sauce was important, he was saying that nothing is important. Why not destroy a family over a sauce? Why do or don’t do anything?

The fans responded by giving the subject of that joke an absurd amount of importance in their lives. They felt real anger over not getting their sauce, and they don’t mind taking it out on McDonald’s.

It’s funny because McDonald’s is attempting to reference how Rick talks without paying the creators of Rick anything while making both brands look bad while also highlighting how quickly online fandom can turn into angry mobs in real life. OK, maybe this isn’t funny at all. Maybe the whole situation is sick, and you’re right to feel a little sick when you read about it.

Because the fans don’t understand any level of what’s going on. If they understood Rick, they wouldn’t care about the sauce because no one in the show really cares about the sauce. It was never referenced in the show again. Dan Harmon himself explained to us that the line was put there just to rip on co-creator Justin Roiland’s love for the sauce. If they understood Morty, they would be kinder to the McDonald’s workers who didn’t ask for any of this.

And if they understood the point of the show so far — that living only for yourself is destructive and selfish no matter how smart you are — they would be ashamed at how they’re acting.

But these Rick and Morty fans don’t understand anything about this situation. Not the way commercialism stepped in to cash in on nihilism, nor the irony of how they’ve given something intense meaning and value after being told by a fictional character that it had meaning as a way of illustrating that nothing has meaning.

They’ve turned into Fight Club fans who start their own fight clubs, not understanding that the point of the movie is how easily white male anger is co-opted for violence and mindless support of empty and hateful causes.

that’s

your take huh

not that mcdonalds was stupid and incompetent in sending 20 packets of the sauce to joints that said are gonna have them

after a huge social media buildup with a popular adult swim show fanbase

Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey edited The Force Awakens. Maryann Brandon has worked on almost all of the shows and films Abrams has worked on and Mary Jo Markey is also a frequent collaborator.

Thelma Colbert Schoonmaker has edited all of Martin Scorcese’s films since Raging Bull and worked with him for around 40 years.

Sally Menke edited all of Quentin Tarantino’s films until her tragic death in 2010.

Julia Bloch is an editor gaining attention for her work on Blue Ruin and Green Room.