I've been told it's acceptable to flick a cat's ears (gently, obviously) because that's what a mama cat does to her kittens when they do something dumb. Any opinions on this?
Is there like a specific instance of her doing something?
I've read the following arguments:
her humor is bland, Cathy-level stuff. I like !garfield@lemmy.world so I'm not exactly an expert on humor, but fwiw I like her art style and I find her strips funny more often than not. That sort of thing's subjective anyway.
she had reddit comics-strip mods delete any critical comments about her. Yeah, reddit sucks, that's why we left, I dunno if it's fair to blame her for that.
she supported reddit during the API protests. I kinda disliked her for a while because of this, HOWEVER since then she's done a lot of anti-MAGA comics (most recently like this, this, and this) so I think she's cool bc that's a far more important issue, and I'm not gonna be hung up on reddit forever.
in her strip she sometimes makes fun of people who criticize her. I see this kinda like a stand-up comedienne dealing with hecklers, i.e. it's part of the show, and good on her for not taking shit from people. But some people apparently think this is inappropriate. Others assume that her "hecklers" are sexist, insecure, etc and that creates even more defensiveness. Not sure if there's an easy solution to this.
how are you going to ethically test whether you can manipulate people without… manipulating people.
That's a great question. In the US, researchers are generally obliged (by their universities or their funders) to use an Institutional Review Board to review any proposed experiment involving human subjects. The IRB look for things like: causing physical or emotional harm to the subjects, taking advantage of vulnerable populations, using deception without consent, etc. The IRB might let you do something like manipulate a subject, if the subjects were informed that they might be manipulated or deceived. Yes, this might introduce an observer effect, but this type of review is generally accepted as being necessary for doing ethical research. However, I'm not familiar with the research in question or with the requirements of the Univ of Zurich where the researchers are from.
Dang, you keep quality snacks on hand! I hope we're all invited to the next party at your place!