Artist's Note:
Oh hey Crouton, what are you doing here?! Thought you were all the way in Sweden playing VR!
Writer's Note:
Whatever your thoughts on Brexit, you must admit that things might be getting a little too crazy. In the UK, the recent referendum result doesn't seem to have reduced any tensions; if anything, it's sparked an even more toxic environment for civil discussion. Sadly it doesn't seem like the craziness is going away any time soon - even as we published this comic, Boris Johnson (depicted above), one of the main advocates of the Leave campaign, just announced that he would not be running for prime minister, leaving a gaping power vacuum in Westminster and chaos amongst the political establishment.
Most of my British friends are young adults who live in London. They are naturally quite anxious about leaving the EU, but even more than that, they are scared by how quickly the politics of their country has become polarized and driven by fear.
One hopes that we can learn from all this to engage in more constructive political discourse in the future. Having more level-headed political leadership would be a good start. I've heard plenty of people theorize that social media has encouraged the inflammatory speech and echo-chamber thinking that characterizes modern politics, but I think this is too broad a claim. Traditional media is also to blame, with its dependence on ad revenue creating an incentive for outrage maximization. But it's also the fact that politicians and public figures still use social media rather crudely, usually as a megaphone to incite and impassion their followers instead of inform them. Perhaps in time they will learn to refine their use of online tools when communicating with voters, and we will look back on this period as a particularly silly moment in our political history. Hopefully.
