Episodios

  • Quackcast 758 - Confidence is Key

    Quackcast 758 - Confidence is Key
    Sep 23 2025

    Confidence is key! Confidence can make very attractive protagonists and villains and it can make almost any character sexy because confidence is compelling. Main characters and villains never have to be confident, but if you want your audience to be drawn to them it's a great technique. To make a sexy, compelling character confidence works was better than skin tight clothes, lingerie, big muscles or bouncing boobies.

    What is confidence? It's self possession, being comfortable in yourself, being sure of yourself and your decisions, positivity, an air of competence, command, and even control. All these things can work together to become confidence. But there are ways of faking it too: Being arch, arrogant, superior, being an arsehole, entitled, bossing people about, relying on a higher rank or superior job title etc. these things are easy to mistake for confidence and many people tend to imitate or strive for these traits thinking it will make them attractive and popular, but it never quite works.

    A character doesn't have to start out with confidence or be confident all the time. Many achieve it on their journey over the course of a story. For some it's only in specific contexts, like when they're experts at something. Some start out confident and lose it in the story in order for them to be rebuilt. The mousey girl with glasses and the ponytail doesn't suddenly become sexy because she takes off the glasses and lets down her hair, rather it's because she becomes more confident and those things are symbols of that.

    Who're some of your fave confident characters in fiction? For me: The Dread Pirate Roberts is a great example, Lord Blackadder in Blackadder 2, lord Flashheart and Captain Flashheart from Blackadder 2 and 4 respectively is a massively confident and attractive character, Elvira Mistress of the Dark is a woman with so much confidence she's a sex-symbol for the ages, Gomez Adams as played by John Astin is supremely confident, Alan Rickman's Sherif of Nottingham stole the whole movie because of the character's confidence.

    This week Gunwallace was is back an in perfect form, he gave us a second take on a theme to Curse of the Office Werewoman - Creepy, driving, compelling, official… HR is sending you directives you simply CANNOT ignore! Get to it, obey like a good office drone and shake dat ass on the dance-floor!
    The first version was live in Quackcast 683 - 16th of April 2024.


    Topics and shownotes

    Links

    Featured comic:
    Critical M4ss - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/sep/16/featured-comic-critical-m4ss/

    Featured music:
    Curse of the Office Werewoman - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Curse_of_the_Office_Werewoman/. - by CorneliusCool, rated T.

    Special thanks to:
    Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
    Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
    Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
    Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
    Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/


    VIDEO exclusive!
    Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
    - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
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    Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
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    1 h
  • Quackcast 757 - Memento Mori

    Quackcast 757 - Memento Mori
    Sep 16 2025
    Mortality is a heavy, heavy subject. It was brought up in the forums a while ago so we're chatting about it now. We talk about death in popculture, how we treat death in our comics and our growing awareness of mortality as adults. You become increasingly aware of mortality as you age, mainly because you witness more and more of it in action; pets, celebrities that you loved, public figures that you're aware of, grandparents, family friends, parents, friends, and eventually even you have health scares. It's a cumulative thing, but eventually you move from being young and immortal to having the spectre of death ever-present. The ultimate goal of ALL life is immortality, it's what it always strives for in various ways; the two main ones being longevity and reproduction. Life is amazing in that it's a self sustaining bunch of chemical reactions and processes that have an inbuilt goal to keep on going forever however that can be accomplished. There are almost immortal things in our world like the earth and our sun that are billions of years old but even they die eventually and they have no way, will, or mechanism to prevent that, unlike life. But even though we as humans have relatively long lives compared to most other living things and we reproduce quite well, we as individuals certainly are NOT immortal and we have to deal with that in many ways. Our cultures traditionally separate death from normal life, we venerate it through religious practice, explain it and mythologise it. In the modern day we're separated from the realities of death more than ever before because childhood mortality is super low, we all live longer than ever before and when we reach the end of life we're hidden away in retirement homes and hospitals. Most people live in cities and don't experience the same close relationship with death that those on farms and fishing communities constantly dealt with. But it never goes away. As time moves on it always draws nearer, like a slowly creeping shadow. Which is a great analogy because light seems so bright and active, warm and enveloping, it seems ever-present and forever lasting- our sun is four and a half billion years old. But the end will come for that too eventually and things will return to darkness. Darkness and non-life are the natural state of things, life is only a brief glow, an aberration, momentary. The idea that life and death, dark and light are equal, different sides of the same coin and in balance is total and complete nonsense: Darkness and death are the normal, ordinary, basic, state of things- it's ubiquitous and universal, whereas life like light is unusual, precious, singular and special. Never forget that. This week Gunwallace was still recovering from his hospital stay so another best off: Life and Death - Light hearted lyrics and classical vaudevillian comical ukulele mixed with synth in the best tradition of flight of the Conchords… but this is Gunwallace !Originally 20th Feb 2017 in Quackcast 311 Topics and shownotes Links Mortality thread - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/180089/ Featured comic: DemiMon Hollow Town Syndrome - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/sep/08/featured-comic-demimon-hollow-town-syndrome/ Featured music: Life and Death - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Life_and_Death/, by Joff, rated E. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
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    58 m
  • Quackcast 756 - Not dumb, layered

    Quackcast 756 - Not dumb, layered
    Sep 9 2025
    Today we're chatting about things that are ostensibly superficially straightforward, but are actually quite clever and layered in many ways. The two prime examples are Paul Verhoven's Robocop and Starship Troopers. They can both be taken as simply dumb, hyper-violent action films, but both are also good, solid, basic satirical critiques of society. Robocop is a critique of over-corporatism and commercialism, where the myth that “private enterprise does it better” is taken to an extreme. A company takes over the police and the governance of the city of Detroit. Policeman, officer Murphy is killed on the job, only to be revived as a cyborg and we find that the corporation owns him even after he's dead. He becomes their mindless robot slave. The whole film can be taken either as a violent action movie about a super robot cop blasting his way to justice, or as the story of a literal corporate slave on a journey to regain his own humanity and freedom and in doing so he has to murder the CEO of the corporation to free himself. Which is a very symbolic act for an American film where CEOs are seen as demigods. Starship Troopers can be taken as a simple story of brave solders flying into space and fighting back on a crusade against disgusting bug aliens that threaten earth. But we learn that the aliens were only after earth because humans threatened them first, and rather than being the underdogs, the humans are actually massively superior and the aliens are afraid… rather than fighting for our existence we're actually committing genocide (or xenocide), which was also the point of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. With that little bit of extra info all the testosterone, gun firing, soldier camaraderie, patriotism and support for the troops takes on a sinister edge. If we look at it with the right angle we see that they were Nazis all along. I really appreciate stories with those sort of simple layers that can be taken in two completely different ways. It can be very easy to fail at though when the audience doesn't see your other layer at all or your “clever” message isn't very clever or well delivered. Stories certainly do not need to have layers and alternate reading to be good. I appreciate simple straightforward stories that are as they appear to be. But these ones with single extra layer which means things have a very different and obvious reading are fun. Fight-club is famously that sort of story, when we find that Tyler Durden was imaginary all along and it changes your reading of the story, you can still just take it as it seemed in the beginning though. I think the Life of Brian qualifies as well: at the beginning we think it's a satirical version of the life of the messiah, directly making fun of Christ and the bible stories, but at the end we learn that Brian really was just a simple normal guy all along like he and his mum claimed and it changes to a story NOT making fun of Christ but rather the mindless populace who never really cared about Brian at all, they just overlayed a symbol on him and worshipped that instead which took away all his control and killed him in the end. Still, look on the bright side…. Do you like these sorts of stories? This week Gunwallace was in hospital so wa unable to give us a tune so the betst off this week is Gumshoe - Groove on into this black and white world of cool. Lazy coiling blue smoke floats out and leads the way down to this underground world of jazz and sophisticated glitz. Let the bass walk you through, take a twirl with the glittering piano keys, high-five those highhats, and take your place at the bar in the coffee lounge. Make yours black, no sugar. You’re staying up all night for this one! From Quackcast 491, 10th August 2020. Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: Cafe Menagerie Blues - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/sep/02/featured-comic-cafe-menagerie-blues/ Featured music: Gumshoe - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Gumshoe/ - by Pencilz, rated T Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
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    55 m
  • Quackcast 755 - My ending is not your ending

    Quackcast 755 - My ending is not your ending
    Sep 2 2025
    What happens if an author makes a massively popular story but takes ages and ages to finish that last part of it, and people are waiting breathlessly for years and years for them to end it? Would you support the idea of others taking it off their hands and finishing it FOR them? After all if the IP is popular enough and they've already sold it for tv shows and movies, the public feels they have a sort of ownership over it (Game of Thrones/A song of Fire and Ice)… This was the idea behind Tantz's newspost last week and we wanted to talk it out more. We on the Quackcast all say “NO”, mainly because that's not the right thing to do but also because as a reader it always feels “off” when its not the voice of the actual author. The example I go back to isn't George RR Martin, but Robert E Howard- A big strapping lad from a small town in Texas and a very talented writer for the pulps in the 1930s. He created many amazing characters but most famous among them was Conan the Cimmerian, thief, warrior, and king. The final Conan story by Howard was “Red Nails” and many people regard it was one of his best. Those people are wrong and they are idiots. Red Nails is a reworking of The Slithering Shadow (which I wrongly called “the hidden City” on the Quackcast), the main thing you can tell about Red Nails is that it wasn't written by Howard, it's just not at all in his style, apart from the things it takes from the story it's based on. The Slithering Shadow is a perfect example of a Conan story: it's short, very tightly written, and it expresses all the themes a good Conan story always does- the power of the individual and their will to overcome any challenge, even unknowable supernatural horror, and the contrast between the wild barbarian man who knows himself and the decadent, soft city dwellers who cling to a decaying society built on inequity and evil. The Red Nails on the other hand copies those aspects without understanding them, Conan is a mere side character doing his own thing while pirate Queen Valeria is the main character from who's perspective we see. It's novel and great to have a female character perspective from Howard but he just didn't ever do that. The details and action in this long and sprawling uneven story are paper thin and rushed over without thought which again is something Howard never did. It also includes a great big graphic portion about a woman being captured, whipped and spanked in a very lurid exploitative way, which Howard just didn't do, especially not in his Conan stories. It's an obvious fake that freaks hold up as the best Howard Conan story but I say it's crap and something taken out of the hands of the author and finished by someone else. When Robert E Howard died by suicide in the 1930s the legacy of his writing continued on. Author Lin Carter rather scurrilously repurposed a lot of Howard's other fiction and rewrote them as Conan pastiches, at first claiming they were original Conan stories by Howard, and Red Nails is possibly a good example of that sort of thing. Later on other authors like L. Sprague de Camp and Robert Jordan took on the mantel and continued with the character and he later made his way into comics and movies, the same as James bond, Batman, Superman and a hundred thousand other pop culture and comic characters that are part of the broader cultural landscape now, for better or worse. As a fan, you DO start to feel you have a sort of ownership over characters and sometimes even feel you have a better understanding of them than the original author… So would you ever consider taking over the work of someone else, not in a fan fiction way, but becoming the author of official works? Or could you see that happening with your own work? In many respects I would hate it, but in others I'd be intrigued and interested. This week Gunwallace gives us a lovely musical theme to Wings Of Daera - Welcome to the Star-chamber, prepare to be judged by the super sci-fi, scary arbiters with their laser eye attachments. But you escape into the underground passages and then out into the vast windswept, toxic wasteland beyond, driving fast in your turbo boosted future car to stay ahead of the cannibal mutants that hunt out there after nightfall… Topics and shownotes Links Inspired by the newspost by Tantz - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/aug/22/the-ending-is-always-yours/ Featured comic: Blighted The Odyssey - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/aug/25/featured-comic-blighted-the-odyssey/ Featured music: Wings Of Daera - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Wings_Of_Daera/ - by Ardihel, rated M. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon ...
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    59 m
  • Quackcast 754 - The role of dialogue!

    Quackcast 754 - The role of dialogue!
    Aug 26 2025
    Dialogue is used for more than just simple speech, it moves the story forward, it indicates what characters want, what they feel, what they want others to feel and more. But it's used a bit differently across different media. Comics have their own particular ways of doing things and it's quite interesting! We thank Banes for coming up with this topic! In pure prose the world is all relayed in text so dialogue is king there, characters can talk and talk forever and everything can be relayed through their speech if the author wants. Radio plays are much like prose, but actors help out with their performances, SFX has a role, and time is a factor. Plays are a different thing, settings, scenes and props are limited so a LOT of work has to be taken up by the dialogue, but it's all governed by linear, limited time, so once something is said it's gone, you can't linger on it or go back over it, so it has to do its job in the moment (this isn't a disadvantage though), but the actors can do all the work of showing expressions, tone, emotions, humour, physicality and many other things. Movies, TV, and games are different again, they're also limited by time (though you can go back if you like), the actors can do a lot of the work and massive amounts of work can be done with the visuals. Lastly we have comics where like prose they are not limited by linear time, and like film visuals can do a huge amount of the work. Dialogue in comics can work very well when there's a symbiosis between the visuals and what is written in the speech bubbles. Like film you can offload a lot of work of the dialogue to the visuals. When I do a page I write out what the text should be but I don't finalise it till I have the page art done, though I know what the characters need to say and how the story should go. When the page is done then I whittle down the text to make it work with the visuals, so a character might just say a single word, but because of the art it can be like a full paragraph of meaning. When I work with a pre-written script like in Bottomless waitress or The Key of Dreams I can't change the dialogue so I make sure the way I draw the scene and the characters delivering it enhances what's said and even helps it say much much more. I also letter things in such a way that it tweaks the delivery of the dialogue, so the characters are “acting” it out in a specific way, like giving each sentence its own bubble and placing them in specific ways, closer together or massively spread out, making them different sizes, colours, or shapes etc. How do you approach dialogue in comics? And how do you prefer to see it as a reader? Next week we're tacking “endings”, mainly when fans or IP owners demand an author get around to ending their work and suggest other to take over that role. This week Gunwallace has given us a musical theme inspired by Stiletto - The coolest of the coo. Step into the warm, cozy, underground lounge and sip an espresso martini. The bass thrumbs a tune out of dark wood, the piano does the tango, the guitar floats on a sunny, serene pool, and the percussion sneaks into a corner to be alone and snuggle. Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: Orcs Company - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/aug/19/featured-comic-orcs-company/ Featured music: Stiletto - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Stiletto/ - by VinoMas, rated T. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
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    1 h
  • Quackcast 753 - driven by internal struggles

    Quackcast 753 - driven by internal struggles
    Aug 19 2025

    Banes was the brains behind the Quackcast this week! His idea is that a character's internal struggle and how that conflicts with the realities they face can be a great driver for a story. -cribbed from listening to Vince Gilligan of Breaking Bad fame. Banes is a much better story writer than me so I can't explain it as well, but a good example is Walter White from Breaking Bad who starts off as a mild mannered dad and struggling chemistry teacher who moonlights at a car-wash to make ends meet- his internal struggle is that he actually sees himself as an unrecognised genius and someone who was unfairly wronged in life and so never reached his full potential. With his cancer diagnoses, the debits and worries that introduces into his life and the opportunity to fix everything by breaking the law, that interacts with his internal conflict to turn him into a drug kingpin/mafia boss/evil villain.

    It's a very interesting way to do character development! It can really inform how you change and craft your characters in interesting ways. Unfortunately I had taken a strong painkiller for toothache before the cast so I was not mentally able to understand the topic correctly haha! Part of the Quackcast I talk about how internal struggles are not needed for all characters and that James Bond is a good example of that- he's better when he as no conflict between his internal struggle and an external conflict and he's just supremely confident. Examples of Bond where he does have internal struggles are weaker versions of the character.

    Have you given your characters internal struggles to help them develop and change the story when that internal struggle conflicts with the challenges they face? Or can you look at your stories and see that in your characters?

    This week Gunwallace gives us a lovely musical theme to The Art of Running Away - A thoughtful early morning cup of coffee in a cold, empty room, alone. Contemplations on life, mortality, and the dancing motes of dust in a stray beam of sun, illuminating a disk of warm light on the floor, occupied by a single, happy cat.


    Topics and shownotes

    Links

    Featured comic:
    The Light Thief - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/aug/11/featured-comic-the-light-thief/

    Featured music:
    The Art of Running Away - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Art_of_Running_Away - by Portocor, rated M.

    Special thanks to:
    Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
    Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
    Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
    Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/


    VIDEO exclusive!
    Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
    - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
    Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!

    Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
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    1 h y 2 m
  • Quackcast 752 - Censor 3, how it works on DD

    Quackcast 752 - Censor 3, how it works on DD
    Aug 12 2025
    This is the 3rd and final part of our censorship trilogy, you'll be glad to know! We tackled censorship past in the first one, then censorship present in the second, and now it's time for censorship future… as it applies to us, sticking our money where our mouth is. How do we tackle “censorship” on our comic hosting site? Spammers get their accounts deleted right away, people who steal art and claim it as their own are not welcome either, posting illegal adult content is a no-no, making accounts to harass other members, encouraging hate or violence against other groups, or posting real images of violence or death against humans or animals is also not welcome. We have an old TOS (terms of service) that you agree to when you join the site, plus our old site etiquette document that both ask people to behave nicely on the site and warn that things that aren't appropriate can be deleted. Apart from all that we're actually very open, one of the most open and accepting comic hosts online. We don't police your political or religious views and adult content is fine here. Showing genitals, using harsh language, fair use parody and satire etc. is all OK and we welcome them! We like to think of ourselves a objective and culturally agnostic. Apart from that our main concern above everything else is the health of the community and the preservation of our website, because if there's no community or no site to host it then there's no point to anything, is there? My small team and I have struggled for YEARS to keep this site going, I have personally paid thousands of dollars of my own money and our community have also paid thousands to keep us going through our Patreon and our other community drives. We have put love, many thousands of hours of constant work and vigilance week, after week, after week after week for over two decades to keep the site running and to keep it as a place you can always come back to where your hard work is safe. If something or someone jeopardises that we have to take it very seriously because it's so easy for the site to be damaged now that the internet is so limited by companies like Apple, Google, Amazon, and Meta. By the same token those who make snap decisions about our entire site based on the momentary and ephemeral actions of some miscreant who has temporarily fallen through the cracks and posted inappropriate content, and ignore the struggle, the work, the money, the compromises, the effort, the vigilance, the pain, and everything that goes into keeping this oldest of the free comic hosting website communities running are almost as bad as those miscreants who create the problems in the first place unfortunately. This week Gunwallace has given us a musical theme inspired by Mister Man Eater - a magically expressive carillon. Warm yellow and pink light sparkles as it flows from one side of the room to the other in a mystical swirl. Topics and shownotes Links DD forum topic on the subject - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/180055/?page=1 DD TOS (Terms of Use) - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/terms/ DD Site Etiquette - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/etiquette/ Featured comic: Le French Ninja A True Story -https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/aug/05/featured-comic-le-french-ninja-a-true-story/ Featured music: Mister Man Eater - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Mister_Man_Eater/ - by Jiie, rated M. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
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    1 h y 1 m
  • Quackcast 751 - An internet FULL of censorship!

    Quackcast 751 - An internet FULL of censorship!
    Aug 5 2025
    Last time we talked about old fashioned censorship, NOW we're talking about how it's used these days! Back in the day there were limited pathways for you to disseminate information: newspapers, radio, TV, public speaking, posters, books, film, pamphlets, ads… They were all easy for governments to shut down in various ways. But then along came the internet and suddenly it was a free for all! Anyone could easily make a website and info was freely shared for good or ill, and it was almost impossible to stop. Then Google made things easier than ever to find. Youtube meant we could share videos. Along came social media where it was easy to connect with others and get info out, Twitter users were even described as “citizen journalists”. Smartphones from Apple and Google made it even simpler to share stuff. But little did we know the seeds had been sown for a return to the bad old days… Monopolies are usually a bad thing and now the internet is divided among a small cadre of huge monopolies. The massive success of social media at connecting us, Google search, Youtube for videos, and Apple and Google at managing our phones and online lives has narrowed us all down and made us far more vulnerable. It's still possible to skirt them all and use other services, but their reach, versatility, utility, ubiquity and user-bases means you're sacrificing a hell of a LOT if you do. Governments are still ineffective at censoring these but they can ban and restrict them which means the media companies that own these services introduce there own forms of restrictions and censorship as a way to try and avoid that and the loss of revue it would mean. The impact of those restrictions are massive since so much of our lives are online now. They can have all your online accounts deleted, it can affect access to all the photos you've taken of your kids, your phones and tablets can become useless, work contacts and friends can be lost, years of work at building an online client base or fans can be wiped out in seconds with no way to get it back, and that's just a small sample. There are REAL costs involved too, these media companies like Meta can steal your money from you and you have zero recourse- the building of those fanbases and connections, online galleries, video production etc has REAL monetary value FAR in excess of the service they provide you (especially since their ads and data mining pay for it), but they treat you and your work as a free resource. Corporate censorship is THE worst issue facing us now in this context, because of its power, reach, arbitrariness, and total lack of any accountability. With a simple change of their Terms of Service, new policies, the AI bots they're using to police stuff suddenly for no reason you can find yourself in peril. Lastly there is the idea of “cancel culture”, which has been quite exaggerated because it's seen as left wing and therefore scary. The truth is it's always been around and practised equally by right wing, left wing, and centrist people. The internet HAS given it more reach and made it a bit easier to “cancel” people because you can more easily find out info about them and what they've done and you can also easily make up things and spread campaigns to attack people whether they're based on truth or lies. What is “cancel culture”? Basically it's a kind of mob justice with all the issues and problems mob justice always has: people are stupider in groups, there is no presumption of innocence or context, and there's no possible limit to the “justice” enacted. For every righteously cancelled person there will be many more who it was done to maliciously. And ALWAYS remember when you support stuff like this, if it can be done to others then it can be done to you. We like to think that these things are only done to “bad” people, but reality doesn't work that way, anyone can see you as bad at any time. Out of it all though, corporate censorship is by far the worst, as the official Drunk Duck Instagram can attest. In an ironic twist it was taken down and deleted by Meta after this Quackcast was recorded. Drunk Duck has had itself “censored” repeatedly by Google because their system downgrades us on its search engine for their own silly reasons, like lack of a mobile site option, putting social media results ahead, we got downgraded for lack of HTTP even though it's not needed at all on our site because accounts contain nothing sensitive and don't deal with money, so we had to pay money to get that up and running to retain our visibility… Have you been the victim of any form of censorship? Even as a viewer? I know many people who've suffered losses and issues do to corporate censorship. Gunwallace wasn't able to do a theme this week so instead we have a reprise of Tales from Two Tiny Tittybars - Bouncing boobs in DA CLUB! This was originally from 6 Nov, 2017 in Quackcast 228. Topics and shownotes Links Previous Quackcast on censorship - https://...
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