Disaster ‘Velma’ Is So Bad It's Spawned Psyop Conspiracy Theories

‘Velma’ Is So Bad It's Spawned Psyop Conspiracy Theories

archived 14 Jan 2023 17:10:03 UTC

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‘Velma’ Is So Bad It's Spawned Psyop Conspiracy Theories

People are certainly talking about Velma, that much is true. Just…not very positively. Velma currently has the lowest audience score I’ve seen for an HBO or HBO Max production, a 7%. To get that low requires not just “review bombing” but your show also likely has to be…genuinely bad.

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‘Velma’ Is So Bad It's Spawned Psyop Conspiracy Theories​

Paul Tassi
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Jan 14, 2023, 10:20am EST
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Velma
HBO MAX
Yesterday, HBO Max bragged that Velma, the new adult-rated Scooby Doo cartoon, was its most-viewed animated premiere ever. I’m not sure precisely what that says, given that the only other Max original animated series I can even think of is Harley Quinn, plus a bunch of other older series that WB Discovery recently murdered.


But people are certainly talking about Velma, that much is true. Just…not very positively. Velma currently has the lowest audience score I’ve seen for an HBO or HBO Max production, a 7%. To get that low requires not just “review bombing” but your show also likely has to be…genuinely bad.

And it is. Velma is very, very bad.

Velma is so bad in fact, that it’s spawning conspiracy theories that creator Mindy Kaling made what is essentially a parody of what the right wing thinks left wing comedy is like. As in, a show that not just recast most roles with new races, but also features loads and loads of “white guys, amiright?” jokes. The idea is that Kaling is a secretly conservative force in media trying to make the left look bad by making a cringey adult cartoon full of “this rich white guy has a small dong” jokes that the right can point at as everything wrong with race-recasted, social justice-influenced media.


I do not want to go down a big rabbit hole about Mindy Kaling’s personal beliefs and influences here. And yet if that wasn’t the intent of the show, it sure feels like it in practice. On one side, it absolutely is working to spark mockery from the right, exactly as you might imagine it would. But on the other, it’s just not defensible at all by those who would normally welcome a progressive series.


Take She-Hulk for example. That was a hugely controversial show where it was very explicit about roasting misogynistic comic fans, perhaps often lacking in subtlety. But I would still very much defend that show, as I think its humor and fourth-wall breaking works, and most of the people who were upset about it are the very people that it’s overtly making fun of…for being upset about it.

Velma is not that. Velma is not defensible by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just bad. Making progressive jokes is fine so long as the jokes are good. They are not good. I heard the show described somewhere as a series written by TV writers who only ever talk to other TV writers. That’s a pretty good summary. And the idea here is that it’s so, so bad at landing its jabs at right wingers that it almost feels like self-sabotage.

There is a world in which this concept might have worked. I can see an “adult” Scooby Doo series where you have an overlooked Velma attempting to claw back credit from a privileged Fred, the “leader” of the gang. And yet here it’s not just jabbing at Fred for being an overconfident white dude, it’s literally “he’s such a whiny white man baby that his mommy cuts his steak and he hasn’t finished puberty so he has a small penis.” Like just…no remote hint of subtlety or nuance or anything that could make the progressive humor work.
An easy counter-example to turn to is the R-rated Harley Quinn series, also on HBO Max, which still feels true to the characters it focuses on, is full of left-leaning messaging on misogyny an LGBTQ issues, but importantly…is funny and compelling. I mean, this show recently did a full bit about the Joker running for mayor as a progressive socialist and it worked.
Velma? I don’t know what Velma is doing. I’m not sure I subscribe to this “Mindy Kaling made a dogwhistle series for right wing trolls” theory, as the Occam’s Razor explanation is that the show is just…bad. The jokes are…bad. That’s really it.
I may continue watching out of morbid fascination, but man, this is truly one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen.

 

[whogoesthere]

Again I had no clue Scooby Doo was even still being watched. I have come to realized this show is quite still fondly loved. I was reading the comment sections on various YouTube channels and indeed people still love this IP. Clown world has a way of really throwing some curb balls. Don't mess with Scooby and the gang I guess

I think its success might be down to that somewhat muted popularity. It scrapped by the TRUMP! years because people just never noticed it. I suspect its a lot of kids with families watching it as well, so no troon shit to show up. I good old pure cartoon for kids, like we used to get and love (and fucking move on from when we are of age to do so).

I mean they raped most of the really popular stuff, this is the next tier now. Just you wait until American Ninja gets a woke remake, and poor old Michael is chastised for his Cannon movies being so shit.

 

[Super-Chevy454]

I mean they raped most of the really popular stuff, this is the next tier now. Just you wait until American Ninja gets a woke remake, and poor old Michael is chastised for his Cannon movies being so shit.

I got the feeling then Spongebob might be the next target by the woke mob if it wasn't already.

 

[Haramburger]

A friend of mine's been rapidly falling into a mindset recently that's like an outright cartoonish example of the twitter/reddit smug politics bugman fuck stereotype. Despite the fact he now constantly acts like I'm right wing and a conspiracy nut that "fell for the grift" or some weird shit with no fucking basis, the guy has been constantly parroting some theory about how this show's somehow a 5d chess move to keep women out of the workplace and bolster transphobia and homophobia through outrage watches SOLELY because some popular twitter user they follow said that as the reason due to the Mindy bitch making some statement about the office and using what he unironically called "The Tr slur" at some point. I fucking hate the modern state of politics so fucking much this shits fake as hell. Why the fuck can't some people just accept the blatant truth that this velma shitty scooby doo spinoff is just shit because it's a mediocre adult sitcom with scooby characters haphazardly slapped into it? Fucking hell. Guy also keeps spamming dms and group chats with clickbait articles "debunking" shit that literally nobody was talking about which makes this even more fucking wild to me. I've heard this isn't an isolated case and the fact articles are now being made about it really kinda adds to my knowledge of how deep this brainrot runs.

I kind of want an introduction, and to aggravate his condition

The Indians who manage to immigrate to America and immediately land a media career are the top rich 1% of the top rich 1% of their home country, a country that still has its own racial apartheid. Only a scumfuck would do that and then act poor and oppressed on American TV.

Also they aren't used to a country with no open caste system and go fucking insane

It's such a funny, repeating human example of "big fish in a small pond, becomes little fish in a big pond." They come here, get mad that they're the least threatening, least interesting, lowest social currency minority, no one wants to date them, and they can't even cash in on nigger privileges because they were never enslaved(by us, and british colonialism doesn't work on Yanks). Black people are angry but at least comfortable in their own skin and culture. Pajeets don't want what white people have, they desperately want to be white.

 

[NyQuilninja]

I think its success might be down to that somewhat muted popularity. It scrapped by the TRUMP! years because people just never noticed it. I suspect its a lot of kids with families watching it as well, so no troon shit to show up. I good old pure cartoon for kids, like we used to get and love (and fucking move on from when we are of age to do so).

I mean they raped most of the really popular stuff, this is the next tier now. Just you wait until American Ninja gets a woke remake, and poor old Michael is chastised for his Cannon movies being so shit.

Good point out of most of the big name nostalgia Ip's. I don't think there's very many left unwoke.

 

[Slap47]

The last time we saw anything close to this kind of unity was Ghostbusters 2016. That slapped their ass so hard that they completely decanonized it. If Warner Bros response is similar, this'll get memoryholed

No. Ghostbusters had way more defenders.

 

[TyrasGuard]

I mean, so far the show is successful in the sense that it's made bad and controversial on purpose to get people to talk about it. You will get tons of JewTubers making their "Velma is bad and here is why" 2-hour essays.

This doesn't deserve anything beyond judging the cover.

 

[Psyduck]

I thought the edgier, more "adult" Scooby Doo was already made?

Fucking kickass main theme too:

 

[Norbert the Tiger]

It is now 1.6 on IMDb. 0.5 on metacritic. I cannot recall anything with such low scores.

It is now down to 1.5, Not quite like watching it fall in real time. But still remarkable. It was 2.4 when I first checked. How low can it go..?

 

[DeeDee Megadoodoo]

It has a scene where two cockroaches fuck.

That will be remembered as the symbolic peak of 2015-202? media.

 

[Sugriva]

I tried watching the first episode. Fuck white people, Velma swears now because she's cool, and cockroach sex happens within the first MINUTE.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

Fans didn't like it

In America, maybe.

Black people are angry but at least comfortable in their own skin and culture.

Except if they're women, then it's about the same.

I think it's largely a woman thing rather than an ethnic or even immigrant thing.

 

[Happy Fish]

I'll pick a well-known example of an insulting anime called End of Evangelion, directed by the same guy that made Shin Godzilla. So, EoE subtextually calls its audience wankers in about ten minutes, has a whole lot of murder porn in the middle, and it turns into a weird experimental movie for the second half of it. But it's an interesting movie just on how batshit insane it actually is. Fans didn't like it because they wanted a more normal narrative ending to their giant robot show, but a movie like this is very clearly the exception, not the rule. It's more often the rule that anime has a lot of coomer bait, often for the purposes of comedy, which is what fan service is referring to.

I'm pretty sure your equating Shinji to anime fans is your criticism of anime fans and not Anno's. For all its many faults Evangelion was far more introspective than that. Also EoE was literally what it says on the tin. They weren't satisfied with what they were able to do on a shoestring budget so they gave it a real ending. You sound like someone who leaned about anime second hand from a critical-theory flavored textbook.

 

[T-21]

Psyop? More likely a tax write off ..

Why not both? It makes sense the more I think about it.

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

If only people were this outraged when Discworld was butchered some time back.

Hey dude, don’t despair. The Watch sank without a trace because the audience it should have been guaranteed to show up (Pratchett fans) didn’t watch more than one episode before they noped out in disgust - if they watched it at all, seeing as everyone personally associated with Pratchett disowned the POS. My dad (immense Pratchett fan since the early 80s) watched two episodes and went full retard at how shit is was.

I suspect this show might well get the Watch treatment. Aside fpr disgust from fans of the original very few will remember it long term. It doesn't seem like it is able so far to stir up the "watch it to own the haters!" crowd now that the initial episodes have confirmed the haters are right and it's actively difficult to watch. Which means it's destined to mediocre viewing figures from here onwards, minimal media coverage and eventual obscurity.

The recent Amazing Maurice animated movie is pretty good though.

I just wish it had been darker. Pratchett wore his Watership Down inspiration on his sleeve when he wrote that book and while the film is not awful it's a bit too soft for my liking.

 

[Ahriman]

Daily reminder that Mindy Kaling went to Dartmouth, her dad is an architect and her mom is a doctor, they're from the upper castes of India and Indian immigrants. Her brother pretended to be black for college admissions purposes.

Shaved his head and everything -- yes, you've read that right.

Poses as a black man because he thinks it will increase his chances of getting into med school, then, years later, despite it seemingly having made little to no difference - he comes out claiming affirmative action is damaging to indian-americans:

Chokal-Ingam says his story shows how affirmative action “destroys the dreams of millions of Indian-American, Asian American, and white applicants for employment and higher education.”

HAHAHA.

Ultimately, he told CNN he applied at 22 medical schools and interviewed at 11. He was wait-listed at four schools and got into only one.

“His MCAT scores and science grade point average met SLU’s criteria for admission at that time, and his race or ethnicity did not factor into his acceptance into the University,” the website quoted SLU spokeswoman Nancy Solomon as saying.

In the meantime, Critical Drinker weighs in

 

[East_Clintwood]

So I foolishly decided to go see if Mindy had anything to say about this shitshow, and this is the only thing she's posted in the last few days:

Sounds impressive right?

Wow look at all that competition

 

[Sugriva]

I might get crucified for this, but I don't think it's as bad as people say it is. Yes, it's insufferably woke. Yes, it shits all over the original Scooby Doo. But beyond that, I didn't find it heinous enough to warrant a 1.5 rating. Velma is not characterized as a based brown lady who is always right, she's an asshole that everyone hates and made her mom abandon her family because she was so annoying. Shaggy isn't a based black guy, he's a loser. Fred is even slightly redeemable as he's the only person that defends Velma.

Also, it was competently animated, and the scenes about Velma's hallucinations were actually kinda cool.

 

[Absolutego]

I might get crucified for this, but I don't think it's as bad as people say it is. Yes, it's insufferably woke. Yes, it shits all over the original Scooby Doo. But beyond that, I didn't find it heinous enough to warrant a 1.5 rating. Velma is not characterized as a based brown lady who is always right, she's an asshole that everyone hates and made her mom abandon her family because she was so annoying. Shaggy isn't a based black guy, he's a loser. Fred is even slightly redeemable as he's the only person that defends Velma.

Also, it was competently animated, and the scenes about Velma's hallucinations were actually kinda cool.

It's insulting as a Scooby Doo series, but once you get over that it's the thoroughly mediocre adult animation series Kaling probably wanted to make all along.
Really the biggest surprise is that Velma's a lesbian instead of finding a hot white guy to bone. Maybe she internalized the twitter stereotype about her self inserts.

 

[Sugriva]

It's insulting as a Scooby Doo series, but once you get over that it's the thoroughly mediocre adult animation series Kaling probably wanted to make all along.
Really the biggest surprise is that Velma's a lesbian instead of finding a hot white guy to bone. Maybe she internalized the twitter stereotype about her self inserts.

She's not even a lesbian. She lusts after Fred in the first episode.

 

[Absolutego]

She's not even a lesbian. She lusts after Fred in the first episode.

Her and Daphne make out at some point. Not-Shaggy watches them