Rejoice! South Park sees a return to form with Skank Hunt.
In this week’s episode, Matt Parker and Trey Stone take on the controversial topic of internet trolling. Compared to last week’s episode Skank Hunt is much more focused on its topic, overcoming the criticism Member Berries faced by being overloaded with topics. It, however, is still lacking in the outrageous humor department.
Heidi Turner’s mom gets a dick photoshopped in her mouth (courtesy of student forum troll Skankhunt42), forcing Heidi to take a jump to her death……….. on Twitter. The whole school goes into mourning and police are brought in to question the teachers.
Parker and Stone are amazing when it comes to topics like this. Does internet trolling actually matter? Do we need to go to such drastic measures like quitting social media? The most ironic part is that to mourn this incident, the whole school goes onto social media to post poems, quotes, pictures, and what not in order to mourn Heidi’s quitting of Twitter instead of actually talking to Heidi. Clearly social media has taken over both our lives and the lives of the people in South Park.
As in real life, the internet troll becomes super proud that he/she is making the headlines in the news, only further feeding the troll. Gerald performs his trolling like an art; composing a symphony of dicks and crude jokes all over the internet. Some would argue that trolling is a delicate fine art. It takes a lot to get under someone’s skin and evoke emotion without knowing them.
Scott Malkinson reaches out to Mr. Mackey as he contemplates quitting Twitter himself. Most school counselors are ill equipped in real life when it comes to thoughts of suicide. We see that Mr. Mackey is very caring at first but finally stops caring after being constantly bombarded by Scott. Dejected and tired, Mr. Mackey says “Fuck just do it.”
Parker and Stone hit home when they show us that society tends to condemn people regardless of whether they are guilty or not. “You get blamed for the group you belong to,” says Butters. They do this through the divide of the boys and girls at school. The girls are getting ready to retaliate if the trolling does not stop even though the boys have nothing to do with it. The boys firmly believe that the troll is Cartman based on his past history of trolling. By taking matters into their own hands, they invite Cartman into the woods to have an all-night LAN party playing counter-strike and take him out …… by destroying all his electronics therefore eliminating his ability to post.
Now with all the harm that the troll has done, the viewer now sees the troll in a different light. Because the troll is able to cause so much misery online, he is able to enjoy life without the little things annoying him, such as waiting in line behind a woman using multiple coupons that do not work in a grocery store. The music was on point during this whole scene with “Steal my Sunshine” by Len.
Gerald, the troll continues to grow and is now waging war on Denmark. Meanwhile, the boys have realized their mistake in destroying Cartman and the girls enact their revenge by breaking up with all the boys in tune to ominous Gortoz a Ran by J’Attends (used in Black Hawk Down). The biggest casualty comes with the end of Stan and Wendy. *tear*
P.S. Member berries are still alive and kicking, now available at your local whole foods! Memba Jeff Goldblum!
