I’m so tired of this joke, man. (rant)
I feel like the RAM joke is so overblown, that it has negatively impacted the Protogen species & basically turned into a whole stereotype that Protogens can’t eat anything other than RAM & computer chips, ignoring the fact that they do have digestive systems that allow for the consumption of organic foods. And also that anyone who eats RAM would end up destroying their own esophagus and would do massive damage to their organs.
Now you may argue that “aren’t Protogens cyborgs, and therefore can have digestive systems that can withstand inorganic material?” Sure, but why would you even eat RAM to begin with? It’s an computer chip made for data storage & computer memory that’s far more expensive than groceries (even more so thanks to the whole AI BS), and I doubt it will offer any nutritional value, your essentially just consuming inedible bits & pieces of hardware that won’t offer any nutrition. I feel like you could’ve gotten your money’s worth just getting groceries and cooking a meal at home or just going to a restaurant or ordering takeout. It would’ve provided much more nutritional value, and you wouldn’t have to continually spend close to a thousand dollars just to have the equivalent to a low quality/mediocre potato chip to avoid starvation.
Isn’t this joke unfunny anyway? Like it boils down to “haha Proot eats RAM, now laugh”, and that’s it. It’s akin to saying “oh you have a dog fursona, that means you eat bones & kibble”, “oh you’re a parrot, that means you only eat crackers & seeds” “oh your a cat, that’s means you only eat tuna & mic- you get what I mean. It feels more like unintentionally making a stereotype by tying a single food, or item or whatever as the only thing that an entire species of sentient creatures or an culture of people can eat, based on appearances, while ignoring basic logical critiques that would question or debunk this stereotype.
And what really pisses me off is that rarely anyone seems to care about challenging this narrative. I understand that a lot of the sub community is made up of kids/teens but it’s seems like everyone (or the vast majority of people on this subreddit, if not abroad) has just accepted this because the joke as been repeated so many goddamn times that people just think it’s a fact that protogens eat RAM and nothing else, and among other stereotypes ranging from goofy to outright harmful (cough cough Synths are Natural Doms & Protogens are Natural Subs cough cough) have left the Protogen species stuck in a box of caricatures that has stagnated the species and isolated those who don’t fit in with those stereotypes. And it’s been 8-7 years since the RAM joke began, (Protogens were created in 2017) and I don’t know how long it’ll take for the joke to die before people get tired of protogens and leave for another species because they won’t evolve or change or become more varied and as someone who, despite these stereotypes that I don’t like or even outright hate, still wholeheartedly loves protogens, that sucks.
I know that I may be biased, and based more on my personal experiences and preferences than logical reasoning. I know that I may be overthinking something that may ultimately not be that big of a deal, and I know that I’ll probably get downvoted to oblivion for being a killjoy or a buzzkill. Hell, I’m probably going to get a “nice essay, not reading it” comment. But at this point, I don’t care. I don’t have any ill will towards anyone who enjoys the RAM joke. But I am tired of seeing it again and again, and if nothing else, I want just express my honest frustrations that I’ve been feeling for awhile now. I am open to criticism and other viewpoints, even if I may not agree with them, I do want to at least understand why people like these jokes so much.