Why Hanlon’s Razor is the Only Thing Keeping Me from screaming into a Pillow
I had a reader tell me what one of my cartoons was “really” about. This is always a fun game- It’s like a Rorschach test, but instead of seeing a butterfly, they see me being a terrible person.
There’s an email you sometimes get as a cartoonist that usually arrives at 2am. It is often written by someone who has never made a joke in their life, and it usually accuses you of a hate crime you didn’t commit.
Not too long ago, I had a reader tell me what one of my cartoons was “really” about. This is always a fun game- It’s like a Rorschach test, but instead of seeing a butterfly, or their mother, they see me being a terrible person. (I mean, I am, but not this terrible.)
This happens a lot, sadly. Often on social media, but sometimes, as in this case, via email.
The cartoon in question was a dark, silly gag I pitched to Air Mail. In the trade, we call this an “evergreen”, meaning it isn’t topical. It could run today, next week, or ten years from now, and it would still make the same amount of sense (which is to say, very little). The gag was actually a collaboration with the longtime editor-in-chief of MAD Magazine, John Ficarra. One of the silliest, funniest brains I’ve ever had the privilege of mushing up against. We both love baseball and morbid jokes. It was a tasty pairing.
The reader emailed me to say:
“Frankly, this one, which I assume is inspired by the death of Roger Angell, is just gruesome. I hope his family doesn’t see it. You are disgusting. Sigh.”
Here’s the thing: I adored Roger Angell. He wrote the foreword to my trusty copy of Strunk & White. He was a legend. Here’s the other thing: I drew this cartoon ten weeks before he died.
The connection (and the subsequent disgust) was manufactured entirely inside the reader’s head and then flicked at me like a lit cigarette. They saw two data points: 1. Roger Angell died, 2. Jason drew a dark cartoon -and connected them with a line made of pure, unadulterated outrage.
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This is where my brain usually spirals: Do they think I’m a psychopath? Should I reply? Should I send them a photo of my bookshelf? Or my signed baseball cap?
But then I remembered Hanlon’s Razor.
If you aren’t familiar, Hanlon’s Razor is a mental model that states:
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” (Or, to be charitable: coincidence, incompetence, or just bad timing).
The reader wasn’t evil. They were just connecting dots that didn’t exist because the internet has trained us all to be detectives in the Department of Offense. We are constantly looking for the hidden insult, the secret dog whistle, the malicious intent. But 99% of the time? It’s just a cartoonist trying to make a deadline with a joke he drew months ago.
We are becoming a society of hair-trigger outrage addicts. We go straight to “You are disgusting” before we even consider “maybe this is just a coincidence.” And honestly? It’s exhausting. Some days it makes me want to scream into a pillow.
Speaking of screaming into pillows, you can still buy one of those from my store… (They were very popular in 2020)
Discourse is broken.
Where once reasoned argument stood, now stands vehement outrage. Vast bias has overtaken everyone’s ability to pay attention to anything. People so readily scream bloody murder the moment they’re able to project personal offence onto any kind of art, and very often (as in this case) it happens before they’ve even understood the context.
Lecturing artists on what is and isn’t okay for them to create is one of the most repressive, conservative things an individual can do -and it isn’t just the conservatives doing it anymore. Yes, I realise there’s been a snap-back since 2024 (oof), but the issue lingers. The algorithmic elevation of rage-bait means we hear from the shrillest voices on either side because it leads to more engagement. And we eat it all up!
