Part of the reason capitalists tie healthcare to employment is to prevent exactly this. They don’t want people to have this option.
this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2025
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Private equity firms are actively taking this option away you "own" your home, but there lot rent triples
And you keep a toolbox by the bed with everything you need to repair the shitty grey plastic pipes when a joint lets go in the middle of the night. You can usually hear the small sound when it lets go and it will now wake you from a dead sleep. There was a class action lawsuit but it was settled before you even bought the trailer. Underside of the trailer is covered in mold from the leaks and the mud under it is never dry and mixed with sewage.
Oh, and you're working sixty hours a week for not enough money and supporting a family of four. Your spouse has untreated mental illness or a personality disorder and is unable to hold a job. Sometimes she keeps you up all day screaming while you're working graveyard, sleep deprivation, you think she does it on purpose.
The trailer park is built on a swamp so when it rains the septic backs up and the backyards are all full of sewage. Don't let the little kids play in puddles.
The trailer park owner gives you shit if you work on a vehicle in the driveway, but you ain't buying anything while you can keep these running. Sometimes you sit in your truck at the gas station for 15 minutes because you don't want to go home.
This sounds like personal experience... I know because it sounds almost exactly like my experience of trailer life for 3 years, aside from the kids. It was cheap, but I do not recommend it.
Also, you forgot the 96Kbps internet for $100 a month from ATT.
I've said, ever since, that I'd rather live in a cardboard box than a trailer. It was pure hell.
IIRC, NetZero was $25/mo., this was the aughts. There were some months I couldn't pay it.
There is very little I look on with fondness from back then. My twenties were the most miserable time in my life.
My time was from a couple years before and until a decent way into covid. People outside of the park were enjoying modern internet, we were stuck in the past. I used a Verizon jetpack which was awful, but good enough for remote work at least.
Not to mention, the park ended up being bought up by some big ass megacorp in a hostile takeover. They bought enough smaller shares to gain control, then fucked over the elderly woman who ran it prior who'd inherited it from her dad and raised prices just to meet inflation, not to make a profit. Her dad started the place in the 1920s. She only owned 40%, but was the largest individual percentage owner before the company managed to collect the other 60%. They literally said she had to start paying them $4000 a month to stay there or hit the road. She left for Oregon and never came back. Then they jacked up the prices for everyone else and the place started bleeding tenants, either not willing to pay more or sick of how management treated us like we were subhuman.
0/10 overall, do not recommend.
My twenties were the most miserable time in my life.
Ain't that the fuckin truth.
If this comic resonated with you, watch Nomadland, it’s a masterpiece. There’s certain aspects of this lifestyle to be loved but I think this comic is overly romanticizing. Not many people “choose” this lifestyle but rather they’re forced to it by predatory capitalism and a lack of social safety net.
Really didn’t like that movie. I didn’t find it to be particularly engaging. It was like watching a documentary. It’s well made but rather boring. And that’s coming from someone who likes long and slow paced films.
To each to their own. I liked it because it felt like a documentary - the people living in caravans were actual caravan dwellers!
I think this really speaks to, "It's not what you have, it's who you have." You could have millions of dollars and the biggest house in the neighbourhood, but you won't be happy with any of that if you have a partner who is terrible and mean to you.
Happiness comes from finding joy from what you already have rather than longing for what you don't.
Absolutely.
I lived a lot like this during the 2008 recession. I was always looking for work, but there was none to be had. So we spent all day watching arthouse DVDs from the library, having sex, cooking, making art, and talking philosophy in our 250 square foot apartment. At times, it was truly beautiful.
However, there came a time after a year or so where the money really ran out and we got evicted. The relationship imploded and it all went to shit.
My takeaway is that, for long term happiness, stability is important too.
This is what I’m afraid of. I have a plan for getting rich but I don’t have much of a plan for getting over the loneliness I feel.
Actually I’m afraid to get rich because I feel like that will be the end of any opportunity to genuinely bond with people.
Statistically you don't have to worry about it. Unless you have rich parents, your plans of getting rich will very likely fail
Then don't get rich :)
This would be profound if Carly and Rodney were guaranteed free healthcare, UBI, and other minimum requirements for living ao that being happy with what you have isn't crushed by chronic illnesses and endless debt.
I think the message can be interpreted though. It doesn't have to be taken so literally.
I am the exact same person today in my big adult house with my grown-up job as I was 25 years ago in my tiny little apartment living off $9 an hour. Houses, cars, jobs, promotions...these things don't really change who you actually are. A 25% raise at work won't make you 25% happier.
You can still have a job that pays money and benefits and choose to downsize the rest of your life and eliminate all that stress. You don't need a 3,000 sq. ft. house with a 3 car garage and a marble kitchen island to be happy... You're still going to be the same you.
Yes, if you ignore the obvious signs that they are in poverty and bordering on homelessness it is a great message.
I don't disagree. I grew up as poor as the characters in this comic and we were definitely not happy like they are. It's fiction and doesn't account for the harshness of reality and very callously ignores the lack of a social safety net.
However, the point of the comic still hits home. Life was much simpler when I was young and poor. The complexities and unnecessary stress of the life I lead now seem almost ridiculous in comparison.
This. For me, saddest thing about this comic’s message was the fact that I immediately wondered how they would handle needing a root canal or if one of them broke a leg.
In many countries, these basic needs would be a non-issue.
Or a weird lump checked out.
Oh, that's simple. The root canal they'll handle by going to the ER, getting antibiotics, and not getting the tooth taken care of until it has to be extracted completely (or just breaks off at the gum line, and taking antibiotics way too often for it)
The broken leg they'll get done at the er, too.
In both cases it'll lead to debt they likely will ignore, because what the fuck else can they do?
But the lump? That one they'll just ignore. It isn't actively painful, and there's nothing they can do for it, anyway. So they'll just die young.
Money isn't the root of all evil... But is damn sure the tool of evil.
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I mean, the richest man in the world is busy meddling in everyone else's affairs. Clearly money is not enough to satisfy.
Well if he were less of a sociopathic asshole we'd all be better off.
And yes wealth at that level corrupted him.
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If they are unemployed, how do they earn money for necessities like electricity and food? No sarcasm, want to learn
Electricity, unsure. There are programs to help out, but usually are reliant on season. Food is easy. Food banks are or were plentiful. Also food stamps.
Welfare
E: y’all downvoting? It’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. Both are unemployed and money just magically appears? If you’re downvoting because you think my take has negative connotations that’s on you. We should accept as a society that there are those that will never work or will never attain income to provide enough for themselves, people like that have always existed in civilization, the difference is that they were (still are even today) exploited or left to die in poverty, whereas today a civilized society should recognize that and provide a minimum of care. That care being welfare or whatever you want to call it.
At least in my state, there is no way that 2 able bodied people who can’t pass a drug test would ever get any sort of assistance
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Yeah, let the rats do the racing, li'l mouse
I don't get it?
You're not a tiny speck in a vast uncaring universe.
You're a person caught up in weave of the giant sweater that is our reality.
Enjoy the simple pleasures of life. And take some time to stare up at that great big universe that we're all part of.
Its not a joke, its just a message, telling people that being happy doesnt have to rely on wealth and fancy stuff. That there is nothing wrong with being happy with a simple life.
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Even someone who has achieved modern Zen mastery can still get excited about chicken fingers.
Not everyone has to strive to be the best to be happy?
Ah I see, makes sense. And kinda criticizing society for judging based on stereotypes, right?
Thank you!
Well, you now how life sucks a lot?
Sometimes, finding joy in the simple things helps with that.
Once you find that level of simple joy, it opens you up to really look at yourself amd the universe in a new way.
Part of that new way is to be deep into a moment, pondering the connection you have with everything, and then to let go of that in an instant and go enjoy some chicken tenders because that's what life can be about; the mingling of the sublime and the mundane into a numinous whole.
There's a bit of a joke in it too, where it doesn't matter how deep you get, you still have to fuel the body and return to earth. But this comic isn't about being funny per se.
This was beautiful
it still is
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