The Chubb Chubbs

Communication of any sort is based largely on our perception, which is the process by which we make sense of the world around us. We attach a personal meaning to the communication we receive, through an integrated process of selection, organization and interpretation. Thus, individuals decipher messages differently. How then, does an animation ensure that it's targeted audience interprets the intended message correctly? Let's do an autopsy on the above animation, to uncover the seamless workings of communication behind the pixels.

It doesn't take a three year old to tell that the underlying message of the animation is perception- do not judge a book by it's cover. It makes use of the society's common perception of the harmful and the helpless, and swap the personal prototypes around for a twist near the end of the clip. Harm, in this animation, is personified as weapon-wielding, armour-cladding, gargantuan aliens with a looming thunderstorm wherever they go. Helplessness, on the other hand, is characterized by a handful of small yellow balls of fluff, bearing uncanny resemblances with our Earth-bound chicks. These characteristic choices are meticulously created based on the degree of shared perception (convergence) that Man established through communication. Somehow, Man has came to a general consensus that angry creatures with bulging muscles and thunderstorms are threatening; while chicks are, other than being too adorable, basically helpless.

The video utilizes the various stimuli to draw our attention. The element of novelty is apparent in the setting of the video- a bar on an alien planet. Familiar movie characters, such as "Star Wars" and "Aliens", are also deployed all over the scene doing things that we do not catch them doing on screen. If these are not enough, they have included a female alien vocalist, who looks like a hippopotamus, with three boobs! (Again, that may be a male alien. But we Earthlings have already developed a personal prototype that characters with boobs are females- based on our very own Earthling experiences.) The "frequent" stimulus is seen when the main character (the loser alien) repeatedly gets kicked out of the bar for interrupting the song due to his clumsiness. This repetitive slapstick humor drives us to try to predict when is the next time he is going to do something stupid again. Furthermore, a critical message is delivered by a Jar Jar Bings look-alike alien. The "intensity" stimulus here, plays with the fame of the creature to allow us to devote our attention to what it says.

Finally, the twist develops slowly as follows. Someone finally manages to warn the bar that the "Chubb Chubbs are coming!" The entire bar flushes out of the bar, leaving the main character and the handful of innocent looking chicks at the mercy of the wrath of the "Chubb Chubbs". As the main character places the chicks into his bucket in an attempt to save them, the "Chubb Chubbs" with the thunderous storm cloud close in. At this point, audience will probably wonder why in the world will people name such monstrosity a "Chubb Chubb"? Well, they are in for a twist. When the innocent looking "chicks" found themselves exposed to the threatening horde that stood in front of them, they went berserk, revealing their rows of razor sharp teeth and pounced on the giants, tearing them up literally within seconds. Now, does the name "Chubb Chubbs" make sense when we realize that they really are chubby little angry fur balls?

So, the next time you see a chick, think twice, before you pick it up and play with it. For guys, yes, the pun applies. ;)

The "Com(m)" in Comics

Artists (sender) of comic strips employs the use of visual art (channel) to convey messages, usually something funny, to the readers (receivers). Speech, in terms of simple phrases, are added to emphasize a punchline. This being the case, whatever images, especially the characters, have to be meticulously drawn to depict the facial expressions to display emotions, as well as to set the tonality of the character. Due to the fairly simple, almost sketch-like nature of the images, to ensure that the majority of the readers decode the message as implied, universal emotions are usually used. This also means the artists are forced to conform to the perception of most readers.

Shown above is comic strip "Working Daze", titled, "Geek True Love".
As the saying goes: "A picture paints a thousand words." Merely the use of the word "geek" in the title is insufficient to convince the readers that the characters involved are geeks, the characters drawn do not fulfil the social construct in the minds of the readers.
In the above example, the artists have painted a bald chubby man with glasses and a similarly chubby bespectacled woman with her hair done in 2 ponytails, which fits the classic mental picture that our cognitive schemata paints.

Reading the comic strip, the first thing that struck me was that someone's in love. This can be attributed to the use of symbolic "red hearts", the universal symbol of love. Also, the artist complemented that with a facial expression seemingly of someone being mesmerized. To complete the picture, a somewhat colorful background of a rainbow and fluffy clouds are used in the backdrop to bring forth the idea of bliss. This is, of course, due to the cognitive scripts we have already written in our minds.

"I love you just as much as my 'Action Comics #1' in mint condition!"
Geeks are stereotyped as people who love differently from the rest of the world with just a single sweeping punchline. It is apparent that the artist understands the social construct of the interaction between the opposite gender very well to deploy such a punchline, knowing that a normal lady would turn down such a come-on from a gentleman (maybe even term him a loser or simply give him a slap for placing her on the same ranks as a comic).

Generally, if you so much as smile slightly upon reading the comic strip, you've gotten the gist of it by interpreted it the way that the artists intended their readers to. To end this week's entry, I shall leave you with a few comic strips I stumbled upon. Have fun interpreting ;)

A little comic relief...