Pluggers and plugging in
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Pluggers, 9/19/25
Look, you know I can be a little spicy when it comes to pluggers and their culture and values, but I’m not made of stone. I don’t wish ill upon them, really, and the fact that so many recent Pluggers panels have been “jokes” about how pluggers are constantly suffering in physical pain and are almost certainly about to die has been fairly depressing to me. That’s why I really enjoy today’s panel, which reminds us about the “fun” aspects of pluggerdom, like walking around in public wearing clothes that are covered with filth of various types. That’s something we can all enjoy in good conscience!
Zits, 9/19/25
Hey, uh, do the Duncans (in-universe) and the Zits creative team (in real life) know how laptops work. Like, do they know that they come with a power cable that you can plug into the wall, and then the laptop will operate even if you’ve drained the battery. Have these people been using laptops until their batteries died, then throwing the laptops in the garbage, then buying new laptops, for years now. I feel like someone should tell them????
85 replies to “Pluggers and plugging in”
MW: It’s fitting that this conversation is occurring in a giant windbag.
Zits: Jeremy has a laptop, but not a cord. Or a phone. Or a chair. Or any furniture, actually. I think his parents lost all the family possessions playing Yahtzee for money — but they’re so addicted to the thrill of the game that they’ll beg to play with anyone, whether that person wants to or not.
Pluggers: That’s one good thing about underwear — no one can see the stains. (Excuse me while I go scrub my brain.)
Zits: There’s no wall socket in the giant yellow void.
Pluggers: People who lament the passing of physical strips in newspapers and the move to reading the comics online should be grateful that streaming scratch-and-sniff Pluggers isn’t even a remote possibility at this time.
Phantom:
The cook sits, despondent, and ponders his fate
He thinks to himself, “Was it something I ate?”
In happier times, he would “relish” his role —
He fed the informants to Jungle Patrol
In time, he’ll abandon his feelings of dread
A bad guy will soon get smacked upside the head
His mood will shift quickly from somber to droll
His deus ex machina‘s Jungle Patrol
A denouement of this tense episode looms
While Chuma sits back in his office and fumes
I’ll like when the miners and cook are made whole —
I can’t think of more rhymes with “Jungle Patrol” !
***
Infinite props to Uncle Lumpy for inventing and absolutely perfecting this rollicking genre.
Zits: The Duncans live in a featureless yellow void. Jeremy cannot plug his laptop into the wall outlet because he does not have a cord, a plug, an outlet, or a wall. He will have to continue sitting on the floor, staring at his powerless laptop, except that he doesn’t have a floor, either. Coping with life in an environment in which they themselves are all that exist is what the Duncans mean by “bored games”.
RMMD-“Ladies and gentlemen, we are all interested in the future because that’s where we are going to end up.”
FC-“I love me long time.”
MW-“How about making a difference with an old lady, Olive?”
Zits:
“I think I’ll just listen to John Cage’s 4’33”.”
MW: Oh, gad. Now Olive is going to find a way to make a difference…! How’s this?
The grizzled balloon operator suddenly gasped in alarm and cried out, “Har! Shiver me timbers, there’s a tear in the balloon and the gas is escaping! We can’t stay aloft if we don’t lighten the load right away! One of you has to walk the plank this minute or we’ll crash into that mountain! Who’s it going to be?”
Olive, who remembered being a buccaneer, replied the spirit of Talk Like a Pirate Day, and cried out “Avast, ye varlet!” as she tried to prevent the operator from tossing Mary overboard. She knew that her own weight would more than make up for the loss of gas, and said as she leaped over the edge of the basket, “I’m going to make BIG CHANGES to the LAaaaaaaaaaaaaaand!”
“What a landlubber,” the operator breathed appreciatively, as the balloon rose safely above the looming mountain.
Pluggers:
Wow! — Pluggers wear Jackson Pollock tie-dyes?
ZITS: Would have been funnier if the battery had caught fire, leaving Jeremy to choose immolation over board games with the rents.
RMMD: Oh man, by now I’d be banging my silverware on the table, leading a chant of, “Cake! Cake! Cake!”
Zits: At the risk of starting a flame war that will consume the comments section, Yahtzee is not a board game.
Zits: Jeremy may consider himself too cool to play Yahtzee with his parents. But when he’s alone, he cups his hand to his ear, trying vainly to listen in on the fun that his parents are having in the other room. In years to come, his parents will become encrusted in condiments, and shortly thereafter pass away. And whenever Jeremy looks at a blank screen, he’ll be haunted by those distant sounds of rolling dice and echoing cries of “Fuck! That’s a scratch.”
DT: The zap zap gun was developed by these two people alone? No nameless background techs? Is Tess thinking she has enough charge left for one more zap?
She’ll probably want to save one charge for the big show down with the MCU and DT’s auotmatic.
JP: People are complicated. If Neddy is independently wealthy why is she still there? Or is she just too lazy to go explore the world? Alan was onto something – his family is all screwed up.
MW: Next up on the Mary’s pablum list “Olive, with great power comes great responsibility.” So what happens next? Olive gets a premonitions of something falling ? Something catching fire?
Phantom: Just maybe the ghost who walks is taking a more subtle strategic approach – rather than say beating up the goons and the general and taking them to justice, he is taking the classic indirect approach, attacking the general’s “infrastructure”. Scaring and demoralizing his goons, and now attacking the logistics. Soon he’ll be disrupting their transportation and communication networks. A one man guerilla army! Nah, by the next few strips, he’ll be back beating up the goons and the general will get bitten by the dog.
Family Circlejerk – How soon before Jeffy can masturbate while playing this game?
Also – Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day.
Pluggers:
They could have shown rhino-man’s fat ass bursting through the seams of his jeans with the caption, “Pluggers don’t need pre-ripped jeans” and it would have been mocked as a trope and added to the long list of strips that took this easy path. Instead they go in a similar but delightfully different direction and still get nothing but ridicule.
I wish today’s Pluggers had been submitted by Monica Lewinsky.
Zits Power outage = wifi down, want to play table games with the battery-powered lights or stare at dark? There. 30 seconds. Was that really so hard Zits writers?
FC Grim, especially with his happy expression.
RMMD Not that there’s anything wrong with a cash bar at a wedding reception, but wouldn’t that info be in the invitations rather than an MC announcement?
@nescio: Well, there’s an image that will haunt me the rest of my days, and thanks for that.
Pluggers: I once admired a rather sporty piece of fabric one of my patients was wearing at lunch, specifically to prevent such stains on his sweatshirt. “They call them ‘clothing protectors,'” his wife told me. “They’re bibs. You can get them on Amazon, want me to order you one?” The patient himself turned to me with two thumbs up and big grin. Now that’s a Plugger.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think a Pluggers’ LinkedIn should ever contain the sentence “I help guide individuals and families toward achieving their long-term financial goals by creating personalized financial plans based on real objectives.” I also don’t think a Plugger should be posting something I find relatable. I also do wish ill on Pluggers.
Pluggers: I was going to ask what exactly DogMan was working on to get that pattern of colors, until I realized that it’s a perfect deconstructed hotdog, complete with condiments. Nice work, art team!
Zits: For a minute I thought I was reading Dustin, and was wondering why his dad was smiling, or was interested in his son at all. But now I see we’re looking at Zits, which doesn’t hold young people in quite so much contempt. Relatively, I mean.
How do you keep a moron occupied all day? [Shows final panel of Zits.]
MW: The balloon operator would dethrone Libby as my favorite character if he started violently shaking the basket in an effort to throw Mary and Olive out onto the ground. Because he’s either deaf or getting paid way too much to put up with this nonsense.
@pugfuggly: I was just going to add that they missed the obvious [even for them] joke. Q: How do you tell what a Plugger had for lunch? A: Look at his shirt.
MW: Mary – “You CAN make a difference.” Olive – “I’ll do my BEST, Mary. Now, could you please remove your hand from my can?”
The stains in a nice neat order of colours is actually kind of impressive. It’s almost enough to distract from the mould. Being a plugger is a life of misery but come on, fight back against the inevitable just a little.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Pluggers should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Using a washing machine is a-okay.
Pluggers – Pluggers are the type to smugly sneer at non-Pluggers for buying designer jeans that are pre-ripped, but at the same time resigned to the fact that everything nice they would buy would quickly degrade under their slovenly care, so maybe they should buy garbage that reflects what garbage people they can be.
The anger Pluggers really have is that they are downwardly mobile precariat who are partly responsible for their own declining state. Unless they are struggling with feeding themselves due to age or health, the ability to not stain their clothes all the time comes from putting in a little effort to eat more slowly and cleanly, and not fast food from the drive-thru while they are driving.
Zits – Ironically, since his laptop it out of power no one can send Jeremy a link to joshreads dot com, where he can read the archives of commentary on Dustin and realize how lucky he is to have loving family who want to support and understand him, instead of of a genetically related gathering of miserable misanthropes belittling each other at every chance.
@Marek: Your version of the joke works, because it would be genuinely self-deprecating. That’s what’s missing from Pluggers. Pluggers love to joke about their own flaws, but refuse to acknowledge those same flaws. They joke about gluttony, poverty, and laziness, but never get to the part where they’re sitting in front of a convenience store with a “heart disease please help” sign.
Yes, I realize that comic strips don’t have to be that grim or literal. But self-deprecating only humor works when you’re honest about your own flaws, and don’t try to sugar-coat them. This is why Pluggers fails where Jeff Foxworthy succeeded. You still remember all those “you might be a redneck” jokes, and they all acknowledge some unpleasant truths. Pluggers never does. Its smug tone makes every caption feel like it ends with “…and that makes them better than you.”
Pluggers – Tomorrow’s Pluggers will be drawn by guest artist Little Pluggy, Age 5. It will feature a young person in ripped jeans pointing at a plugger and saying “I can’t believe you paid EXTRA for a shirt that already has stains on it!”
Don Abundio, translated:
“What do you think of my new pool?”
“I guess I can’t really call it unprecedented!”
“There’s that giant chalk figure on a hillside in England…”
“But I’m really surprised that you didn’t give this Don Abundio a huge penis!”
Pluggers: Same joke as Zits but with a pacemaker battery.
“Yahtzee? No thanks. I’ll just sit here until the ambulance comes.”
MW: Look, Mary, we all know where this is going. You’ve latched on to this needy ignored teen via the Internet, wrangled an invitation to her house, agreed with her about how special she is, taken her away from her parents cross-country, and taken her up in a balloon with only an easily bribed operator. Would you make your move already?
Dustin’s buddy is terrified that his friend is being — shudder— GIRLY.
God, I hate this strip.
@Banana Jr. 6000: This comic already has Ian and Wilbur being disturbing with younger females but Mary can’t make her move or she would be a hypocrite to her own anti-LGBT+ rules.
Crankshaft: The noise of bowling can drown out karaoke. In church, Ed’s Florence Foster Jenkins-level crooning will be laid bare.
MW:
“Being up here makes me feel like those people down there are like ants.”
“They are, Olive. They are!”
Dustin: If I’m going to be invested in these fellows’ worries about performative manhood (and that’s a biiig if, neither of them are in a position to lecture the other until I see one of them change a tire. (Note: My dad taught my sister how to do this a week after she got her license.)
H&L: That guy is orders of magnitude more attractive than any fellow ever seen in this comic. Is it nod to the time when “Cary Granite” appeared on The Flintstones?
FC: Nobody’s gonna teach him to surreptitiously count the petals before Jeffy picks the flower.
Beetle Bailey has to pretend this isn’t one of Gil Thorp‘s cricket bats.
MW: That’s all well and good, Mary, but why is the balloonist putting on a parachute?
Pluggers, even fake bougie Pluggers who live in Highlands Ranch, are absolutely disgusting.
Zits: And here we have the difference between Zits and Dustin: in the former, the parents are merely awkward and, from the teenage son’s perspective, lame and uncool, while in the latter the parents are openly resentful of their children, each other, and the world in general.
Mark Trail’s dad enjoys a cup of coffee using his 3rd arm
@Ken: Aargh! Tis no War ye be starten’ By all the bones in Davy Jones’ Locker, tis the Truth ye are speakin’
Forget the outlet, the most unrealistic aspect of this strip is Jeremy using a laptop. He’s, what, a young zoomer? In a few years, he’ll be gen alpha? He’d be more likely to use a phone or tablet.
Zits: So my kids had never played Yahtzee and they got me a Ghostbusters-themed version as a present. After we’d been playing for a while, my oldest said, “This is…kind of tedious.” And we all basically said, “You know, you’re right. Let’s do something more fun.”
So I get you, Jeremy. I get you.
“Yahtzee? Jesus, mom and dad, get rid of that Ameritrash kiddie shit and break out some good Euro games. This fucking house, no Settlers of Catan, no Ticket to Ride, it’s like 1960 in here!”
LUANN: Loving how Bee’s career path is evolving. We all shouted Accounting! when she announced she wanted to go into Counseling. And like so many of us after a year or two of college, she finds her hobbies, interests, work all lead her to what she really is best at. Hope she’s not too stubborn to switch majors.
@Pozzo:
#3. PLUGGERS: As soon as possible, rinse out the darned spot in COLD water. Out, darned spot! (Lady M, paraphrased)
@Voshkod: Or how about some cooperative games? Zombicide could be a real family bonding experience — work together or everyone loses.
DT: “Roberta, life is like a bunch of cattle in a field. And my Momma always said, ‘If you want to be one of the herders, you have to do the death ray murders.’”
MW: ”no matter what your SIZE?” Mary is about to break into Danny Kaye’s “Thumbelina.”
Phantom: Africans don’t traditionally eat a lot of potatoes, do they? Their diet mainly sticks with indigenous root crops, right? So, General Chuma (née Kelly) is part of the great Irish Diaspora?
@Needless Exposition: It’s unclear to me what Mary’s rules for dating even are, except (a) Wilbur is a super guy and women should sleep with him, and (b) she’s not touching Jeff with a 10-foot pole.
Pluggers: Conflicted by attacks by his right-wing heroes, Plugger man is too depressed to wash his Columbia U sweatshirt.
@Ken: I enjoy Hanabi myself. Players have to share information efficiently to perform a larger task correctly.
@Ken: Pandemic (or any of a dozen themed Pandemics), Plum Island Horror, Dark of Winter, John Company, Molly House, Freedom, Spirit Island . . . did I mention I like boardgames?
@CanuckDownSouth:
#20. RMMD: Has our Sid fallen on hard times and is himself acting the role of Lou? If so, maybe he’ll sneak in Willa for a cameo.
DT: Wait, you have venture capitalists lining up to invest in your project and you got in deep with a loan shark, and you’re still running in the red? Maybe your Lorican (sp?) Gel isn’t economically feasible at this point.
Dustin: “What’s next, attending a cultural event? Eating salad? Showing emotion?”
GT: Look, I get it. Deadnames are a sensitive subject in the trans community, and while it’s universally insulting to use one as bargain basement Walter Matthau is doing here, not everyone agrees on how or if they should be acknowledged. Many prefer to leave behind that part of their life altogether, while others openly accept it or (as in the case of high profile figures like Caitlyn Jenner or Elliot Page) don’t have the luxury of eradicating it. But either black out Tobias’ birth name entirely or leave it be, don’t just do a half-ass redaction that anyone can read through.
JP: “Besides, childcare? That’s something servants do. If she’s going to be one of the idle rich she needs to do it the right way, by championing scientifically unsound health treatments and wild conspiracy theories on social media!”
MW: Shut up shut up SHUT UP!
Zit: Its rather optimistic of you to assume that the people who write Zits have ever even seen a laptop, Josh.
Zit: Its rather optimistic of you to assume that the people who write Zits have ever even seen a laptop, Josh.
@ectojazzmage: I have no idea why my comment showed up twice, once anonymous, once properly.
@Activist:
Yeah, I’m also really hoping this turn towards accounting is permanent, and that “Bernice is working towards a phd in psychology” is completely over and done for. (One big personal reason is that I think it’s really funny that
Bernice’s motive for dropping out of her psychology courses is that a 12 year old scared her away from attending classthis comes after a storyline where Luann talked someone through getting over their issues, like a counselor would, whereas Bernice only ever used her psychology training to accuse people of having flaws (sometimes falsely!)…On the other hand, Bets, who is a business major, and Gunther, who has experience doing admin work professionnally (from a plastic surgery clinic in Peru, okay, but still experience!), can’t handle organising and accounting and need BERNICE to do it all for them
(though it’d be nice if Bets totally COULD handle all that stuff, and is just lying to take advantage of Bernice…)Fred Basset Spanish to English.
@Activist: Bernice is a perfect fit for the Mr. Anchovy role in Monty Python’s “Lion Tamer” sketch.
@Rube:
Dustin is a strip whose awfulness is a reminder that there are better strips. I don’t doubt Zits had Jeremy’s Dad teach him to change his oil and other basic car fixes (especially when it was that old VW van).
I could also imagine a really good two-week series from Calvin and Hobbes where Calvin’s Dad tries to teach Calvin the value of self-reliance and the confidence boosting effects it brings. It would lead to Calvin’s Dad making a mistakes and flubs, but Calvin would take some of the lessons with him when he tweaked his Transmogrifier. We’d probably get a great Sunday Spaceman Spiff fantasy comic incorporating the storyline
ZITS: To the Zits creators: You’re really doing a bit in 2025 about how phone-obsessed Jeremy is solely dependent on his laptop? Why are you making Dustin of all things look like the “hip modern comic most in touch with lives of young people”? The original should still have at least enough pride left in itself to surpass the imitators! Get it together people!
@61 TheDiva:
I think we all would like to throw Bernice to the lions.
Pluggers – Oh – and pre-shit striped briefs….
Zits – Oh sure – and learn a practical skill like arithmetic. Well no thank you….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
MARY WORTH: “I feel so small compared to the planet…up here in my lofty exalted position looking down on everyone.” That’s a “philosophy” that definitely tracks with Mary and Olive. Like, I love that this is attempting to be some kind of deep introspective discussion about a singular person’s relative insignificance, but ground down through the “Hallmark filter” that is Mary’s and Olive’s shared “kindred spirit” comes off as a passive-aggressive “It’s so lonely at the top!”
@Banana Jr. 6000: Her rules seem to be: “People should be paired with who I think they should be paired with regardless of what they want,” “It’s not gold digging if I do it because I deserve it and Jeff is lucky to have me,” and “Wilbur should be free to date anyone he wants whether they want to or not.”
@TheDiva, GT: I thought he was cursing to himself about Tobias, or cursing Tobias under his breath.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: ARRRGH! It’s driving me nuts.
Mary Worth – “We’re capable of making big changes . . . We can make a difference!” What? Mary didn’t remind us how special Olive is? Or more likely, Olive would say, “I know I can make a big difference, because I’m so special and have special gifts. Have I mentioned that I’m special?” It’s been at least a day since anyone said it. People could forget how special Olive is, and we can’t have that. Have I mentioned that Olive is special?
Gasoline Alley – Please don’t wink. This guy is repulsive enough without bringing winking into it.
@Philip: Above all, both Zits and Calvin and Hobbes have a certain empathy and heart which Dustin lacks entirely. Jeremy is often clueless, self-centered, and frustrated with his parents (and vice versa), but that’s because he’s a teenager and (despite their inability to keep up on the current tech) Scott and Borgman obviously remember what that was like. Calvin’s parents often yelled at him and dealt with the fallout from his antics, but they also helped him when he found an injured baby raccoon and consoled him when it died despite their efforts at assistance. Nobody in Dustin ever expresses a kind word or tender emotion; its writers seem baffled by the fact that anyone other than white middle-aged men exists. It’s relentlessly bitter and cruel, a combination of self-loathing and spiteful mockery that is without soul and therefore without real humor.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Turn on a infotainment channel.
Olive: “I’m Special! Les Moore Special!”
Zits: I wonder how the good folks at Milton Bradley feel about their intellectual property being mocked as less interesting than a blank screen.
@Voshkod: “Yahtzee? Jesus, mom and dad, get rid of that Ameritrash
Yahtzee is based very closely on the game of Yacht (various spellings), similar in nature to games from Latin America, England, and Scandinavia if Wikipedia is to be believed. National aspersions aside, and on second thought, never mind about the mention of IP – I have no idea how their lawyers achieved any kind of protection.
Today, in a very special The Familliar Mucus: Jeffy finds out he cant even stand himself.
@I speak Jive: Olive is so special that Hatchetface Naomi and her friends, feeling rebuffed by Olive ditching them to spend two weeks with creepy old people, are going to initiate her into high school with a swirly in the boys’ bathroom.
REX MORGAN M.D.: So…this isn’t a “wedding” is it? These muthafuckers are so cheap and incompetent that they couldn’t even reserve this fucking bar for a private event, and they just invited everyone for a “regular” night a Lou’s that just happens to involve one of the acts getting married (which is probably going to happen in the bathroom, conveniently where Mud once pretended to take a shit, while everyone else watches the real main attraction on stage.)
Mary’s Worst: “Remember,Olive, meddling in things that are none of your business IS *making a change*! The.more you annoy the people around you, the bigger the change you make!”
@Just John: ‘Ameritrash’ is a commonly used term for anything considered basic or too reliant on plastic figures, particularly by the Eurogame fanatics. So Monopoly, Risk, Acquire, etc. What can I say? Jeremy’s a board game snob.
Seeing that Wilbur’s choices generally put him in danger of being murdered or imprisoned, I have to side with Mary on this one.
LUANN: Huh? The way people were talking around here, I thought this was going to be some major change in Bernice’s career trajectory. But this is just a storyline of how she’ll inevitably be a bossy anal-retentive nag about the whole thing. That’s a typical Tuesday with Bernice.
@TheDiva: Zits and Calvin and Hobbes (and also Peanuts) were good at giving the proper weight to their own stories.
Calvin’s parents were snarky and sarcastic, but when things got too real, they became solid parents. They were loving, nurturing and protective when that raccoon died; when their house got broken into; when Hobbes got lost; when Calvin backed the car out of the driveway and then ran away out of fear. As much of a bitch as Lucy Van Pelt was, she showed her true colors whenever Charlie Brown was seriously hurt, and when Linus needed rescuing from the pumpkin patch. Zits keeps things pretty light overall, but if they wanted to do a more serious story, I’d trust its creators to get this right.
Dustin’s family are the same assholes at all times, no matter how light or heavy the context is. Yes, Dustin needs to solve some of his own problems. But the best thing he could do is get away from his toxic, abusive family.
@Needless Exposition: And afterward, the mean girls could spread some malicious gossip about Special Olive. Don’t disregard how vicious gossip can be.
Moy has made quite an accomplishment – making readers approve of bullying as long as Special Olive is the target. I know I feel that way.
@2+2=7: Wanda is going to wear her dressy waitress uniform and lacy apron and will be one of the servers during the reception. “More wedding cake?” “Can I have that corner with the flower?”
I think it’s sweet that they’re having their wedding at the place where they met, but they’re going about it in the tackiest way possible.
@Needless Exposition: As usual, you’ve perfectly described the unwritten rules of this comic strip. But I think you missed my larger point: Mary has been grooming a teenager for almost two months. Pointing out Mary’s lack of moral consistency on relationship issues is a much milder criticism than what’s going through my mind right now. You’re praising her with faint damns.
@I speak Jive: Moy has made quite an accomplishment – making readers approve of bullying as long as Special Olive is the target. I know I feel that way.
(SEE ALSO: Cooper, Sheldon; Hill, Bobby.)