MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Not all art ages well. As society progresses, people find cause to dismiss offensive content that at one time was merely questionable or in bad taste. How can an artist address the elements of their work that have aged poorly? Jason Oda’s Emogame series of Flash games and Mich Clem’s webcomic Nothing Nice to Say satirized elements of the Emo and Punk scenes in the early 2000s. Both Emogame and Nothing Nice to Say employ a variety of crude and shock humor that often comes across as tone-deaf today.

The work of Oda and Clem connected with a music scene that developed/thrived as a digital subculture alongside the pre/early-social media internet. In this paper, I explore how both artists have apologized for the questionable nature of some of their content. In “I Was and Am an Idiot,” his introduction to Nothing Nice to Say: the Complete Discography, Clem apologizes and takes responsibility for the “casual, normalized sexism” of his comics. In “From the Creator…15 Years Later,” Oda explains he “made the first emogame in 2002 when both me and the internet were very young and immature,” noting “the cartoon sex humor does not pass today’s smell test of appropriateness,” and “apologize[s] for everything terrible in these games in that regard.”

Instead of describing their work as a product of its time, claiming shock humor immunity from criticism, or seeking free-speech martyrdom, Clem and Oda aim to reconcile their work with today’s values. While these explanations do not absolve them of responsibility for their problematic content, their attempt to atone for their work gestures toward a punk ideal of inclusivity. I argue that this kind of retrospective apology demonstrates how these artists have matured alongside the internet and presents one possible avenue for readers/gamers to engage with otherwise offensive work.