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[Blade runner]

That might work if you use it as a running gag in a comedy, but only if you also add some individual twist or reaction to it.

Seeing the same lame pun on a common subject in Every. Single. Comments. Section. where said subject is mentioned is just frustrating,
it feels just like seeing somebody give a thourogh and unprompted explanation of an obvious joke just so they can laugh at their own explanation of the joke.

I guess I was looking at it more as a personal thing. Like I have a friend who does the whole "That's what she said" joke, which is so obvious and so overdone and so tired, but his persistance at it just makes it so hilarious for me, so much so that now when he hears something where it could possibly apply, he just raises his eyebrows at me and I slap my head in groany laughter.

Well, I guess that's different, and I could see how some people could make it a kinda funny joke in person, but then it would only work on friends that know them and their humor.

But piggybacking off something Stupot said, something that DOES grind my gears is people using pre-conceived notions to outright reject or dismiss something with little to no knowledge of it. Taking the example of movies, I got annoyed when a friend rejected my suggestion to watch Shawn of the Dead because "Zombie movies are stupid", and they wouldn't listen that this wasn't that- I mean, yes, I can understand not wanting to watch zombie movies, and I can understand the perspective of someone who thinks that sort of movie is uninteresting, but to be so totally close-minded to just a label is weird.

Well, I can see how it's unfair if you judge a label on a pre-concieved notion whilst having a completely wrong idea on what the thing is actually about;
for example, my father refused to see Blade runner because he thought it was a stupid comedy about men ice skating, and not realizing he had confused it with the movie Blades of Glory,
was a pretty bad misconception that almost made him miss out on a cool sci-fi film. But on the other hand, if you have already seen several films of a genre and not liked any of them,
or in the case of zombie movies, think that reanimated dead who hunt and eat people is a ridiculously stupid and unrealistic concept that you hate, it's probably not worth trying to nag them into watching a zombie movie.
I've literally seen it with my own mom, it doesn't matter if it's a self-aware comedy or a serious attempt to use fantastical things as an allegory for real-world issues, as soon as a film set in the real world
introduces any supernatural creatures or abilities, she growns and loses all interest. Even with Arcane, which I think was a fantastic series, she could barely sit through one episode before giving up on it
because she dislikes superpowers and all forms of cartoons regardless of their art style.

You just can't make people like things just because you yourself like them, and it's just another fact of life to accept.

When people repeat jokes that have been run into the ground. In particular:

"I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."
"Actually, it's only X if it's from the X region of France. Otherwise it's just sparkling [description of X]."

Isn't that sometimes the point of such jokes (I suppose not in the examples you gave, though)? To overdo something to the point of hilarity?

That might work if you use it as a running gag in a comedy, but only if you also add some individual twist or reaction to it.

Seeing the same lame pun on a common subject in Every. Single. Comments. Section. where said subject is mentioned is just frustrating,
it feels just like seeing somebody give a thourogh and unprompted explanation of an obvious joke just so they can laugh at their own explanation of the joke.

["I don't have to watch these things"]

OK then. Like cat, it grinds my gears when people cannot understand that an experience or sensation that is pleasant to them may not be pleasant to others, and attack them for it.

"It grinds my gears when people say they avoid spicy food, because first of all, a lot of so-called 'spicy' food isn't really all that spicy, and besides, what's so bad about a little burning in your mouth? That just means it's achieving its goal. They shouldn't be so childish! I don't have a problem with people who have food allergies or a medical condition, but 'too spicy' is a bad excuse."

"It grinds my gears when people say they don't go to clubs because they don't like loud music and crowds of people pressed tightly together, because not all clubs are like that, and anyway there's nothing wrong with feeling your body crushed by sweaty, dancing people: that's the fun of it! Get over yourself! The only people I can forgive are those who have experienced personal trauma like a mass panic where people were crushed to death, so that it triggers their PTSD. Anyone else has no excuse."

Those are bad takes. So is the one about scary movies.

This.

I don't have PTSD or some obvious trauma, but having struggled with depression and anxiety, one of the most liberating and helpful insights that helped me handle it
was knowing and accepting that "I don't have to watch these things" and being able to feel that I'm not a bad or childish person for not wanting to watch such "entertainment"
and explicit material, and I shouldn't have to have undergone some severe crime or catastrophe to "earn" the right to set boundaries on what I'm willing to watch in my own free time.

Now, I have seen a few horror movies I liked (with a big emphasis on few), but only after checking out content ratings and trigger warnings and skip those without content warnings entirely.
Also, the "watching explicit dark stuff helped me overcome my problems" is such a terrible argument, because mental health is extremely individual and for many, trying those things only makes it worse,
and I can speak from personal experience where several works recommended to me gave me nothing and made me feel worse, and I've spoken to several others who've had similar experiences.

Sorry for the rant, but I guess that so many people still not understanding this topic really grinds my gears.

How ridiculous. I never got why the ‘pineapple on pizza’ thing became such a debate. People either like a thing or they don’t. People only have such strong opinions about it because it somehow arbitrarily became a ‘the thing everyone has to broadcast their opinion about’. There’s another universe somewhere exactly like this one except everybody debates whether or not you should be allowed put cinnamon in a latte (something I hate but enough people seem to enjoy).

I like pineapple on pizza, and nobody should care about what anyone likes or doesn't like (for all things, not just what's on your pizza). But there's one legitamte reason why you might want to discuss it: Shared pizza - half so, half so. You just can't stop the pineapple juice from dripping into the other section and this might lead to some weird taste. Though, why anyone would only get half a pizza when they can get a whole one, I'll never understand. 

It grinds my gears that people seem to have a hard time accepting that I'm not interested in getting and playing Elden Ring.

And as soon as I say it, the discussion turns into "Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior Elden Ring?".
Well, I've seen footage, I've seen reviews and I've watched friends play it and talk about it, and I'm still not interested.
I'm not into souls-like games, I don't like George RR Martin, I despise grimdark fantasy, I'm really tired of games where
the majority of the areas in-game are grimy and decaying, and where I'm at in my life, I'm actively trying to avoid big open-world games
designed to keep the player in a gameplay skinner box for hours on end.

Look, I can see why other people might really, really like the game, as I can also see why some people like classics like Planescape Torment
or Shadow of the Colossus, both massively praised and popular games I did try, and I didn't like them either, and I think that there can be no such thing
as a game for EVERYONE, because everyone is different and there's always going to be outliers.

And while I may not like Elden Ring, I do like pineapple on pizza, but I'm not going to nag somebody who dislikes pineapple to try it.

Sanitarium is now available for free on GOG. 5hrs left as of now.

Aw, I'm late to the party again! 

It grinds my gears whenever someone who doesn't understand the appeal of a certain type of gameplay, decides that it's because that type of gameplay is now dated and a good example of bad game design, rather than because it's not to their taste.
Two really good examples are the inventory item puzzles on Adventure Games and the turn-based combat prevalent in JRPGs.

Indees, it oftentimes feels like there are too many people with zero patience who seem to think all games should be like something you could play at an arcade.

Cute and funny!

There are too many damn thumbnails that depict disgusting boils, skin rashes, q-tips full of earwax, and other similarly disgusting things on online websites.

Even if they are thumbnails for whatever clickbait health solutions are meant to cure those things, I still don't want to see that explicitly depicted on a giant thumbnail
when scrolling by news articles on my phone (and even AdBlock and clicking "Stop seeing this ad" hasn't kept them from popping up).

Just what kind of disgusting people come up with such abominations?

I came by two pretty funny comics today;

Aw, thanks! I'm so happy you all liked it, I'll try and do more once I come up with more jokes! 

I decided to take some snapshots of toys and make them into a comic, what do you all think?

Squid Game is definitely not for kids I’ve only seen ep1, but yeah just on sheer body count and amount of  blood I would not encourage parents to let their kids watch it. Certainly not primary-aged kids, anyway. Secondary age may be a different matter. Like Dan, I was allowed to watch some pretty bad horror from a fairly young age and I actually thank my mum for that. She played it perfectly. There were still rules but my sister and friends lived near a video shop that didn’t care about the age ratings so we were allowed to discover our own limits and didn’t become Disney kids. Thank you, Mum.

As for the violent playground games, that’s nothing new. As long as no one is killed then it’s just a regular playground game, albeit with a new theme. If it does get particularly bad, schools will ban them just as  they banned British Bulldog when I was a kid.

Yeah, while the age you can handle films made for adults might vary, there's still a pretty huge difference between edgy teenagers seeking out such media because they know it's made for adults,
and their parents are ready to acknowledge that and talk to them about what they see and the content they consume, and lazy parents who just not care what their elementary school kids click on when surfing the web on their own.

---when the forum is down, and I fell lost. 

Same here - I'm so glad they are up again!

I'm glad I'm not the only one, these forums are one of the few places on the Internet where I can actually feel like there are worthwhile conversations going on.

Netflix doesn't have a parental control system?

_

If it has, too many parents evidently don't use it.

Well, I want to add that while I get where you're coming from, and I do think kids can handle more than people think they do, I still think there's a huge difference between having media aimed at kids
deal with dark or mature topics in a manner kids can understand, and letting kids have unsupervised access to adult media, often taken out of context to begin with.

Regarding facts and fiction, it's easy to say fiction doesn't affect you as an adult, but kids don't have fully developed brains.
Now, young kids might not be dumb enough to think all violence on the screen is real, but I think plenty of them are just grasping that the people in the show are actors, and they don't die for real, they are fine afterward,
but the kids don't get that the actors aren't physically fighting each other or doing dangerous things for real, and so don't understand that they can't do the things the actors do straight away with no safety precautions.

And sure, many kids have sociopathic tendencies, but much of it is exactly because they don't understand the consequences or implications of it yet, and waving it off can often make it worse.
Like with the animal video, I suspect most making such videos didn't even realize they were actually endangering them, and rather than educate them after the fact, it had probably been better
if they hadn't been given living animals to treat as toys to begin with until the pet shop had verified that they were mature enough to handle living animals without harming them.

As for Squid Game spreading among kids. Personally, I'm already on the hate-bandwagon, especially since I can think of half a dozen anime with the same premise, all of which were probably done better.

Well, I never liked people accusing the Hunger Games of being a ripoff of Battle Royale, because that, in turn, was drawing from Swords and Sandals movies with gladiator fights, which in turn was based on real history like the Romans.

What I do hate about Squid game though, is despite being so blatant with its anti-capitalist message and clearly trying to portray the titular game as wrong and depraved, looking at all social media peddling merch and activities based on the show,
they have failed miserably in conveying the message to the audience.

Say what you want about the Hunger Games, but at least I never saw a bunch of cheap children's toys based on the films or kids being encouraged to recreate the games on social media.

And as for social media, I don't think kids below 16 should have any, period. And any parents who disagree should read this comic:

[AGE RESTRICTIONS EXIST FOR A REASON.]

When people who are coughing and sneezing say "It's okay, I'm tested, it's not COVID". I'm vaccinated against COVID but not against the common cold. Could you please keep your germs to your self, no matter what illness?

I thought it was common sense even before Covid hit to sneeze in your elbow and not on other people.

Anyway, something that really grinds my gears is how the new TV series Squid Game seems to be spreading among kids. I haven't watched Squid Game (I got a bit squeamish reading that there'd be a scene with a man getting his eye gouged out of it's socket),
but from what I've seen it's similar to the hunger games/Battle royale in concept but with children's games instead of straightup gladiator fighting, so it's rather disturbing how I've seen not only reports of kids playing the games of the show and getting violent with
the kids who lose the games, (I've even heard it first-hand from a friend with her kid in elementary school) but a bunch of social media channels aimed at kids featuring squid game themed things (an otherwise kid-friendly crafting channel I followed suddenly made a video on how to make plushies of the squid game guards) and basically promoting an R-rated show to children. It's even ended up promoting straight-up animal abuse with people making animal videos of hamsters running dangerous obstacle courses and fighting "challenges":

It's insane how little monitoring goes into what kids watch and what gets to count as kid's content, but also how lax parents are with what their kids see and letting them onto social media unsupervised. Seriously,
AGE RESTRICTIONS EXIST FOR A REASON.

Thought-provoking and funny.