A new animated series called The New Norm claims it's "The South Park of X"—but viewers of the cartoon were quick to criticize it for catering to the MAGA contingent, namely for its open mockery of "woke" LGBTQ+ people.
A nearly four-minute clip posted by the show's official account on X, formerly Twitter, seems to blend elements of All in the Family and Family Guy with a MAGA twist.
The show revolves around Norm, a protagonist who resembles All in the Family's Archie Bunker and is apparently under house arrest for threatening his local school board members.
His motivation? Preventing them from “brainwashing” his daughter into believing that “girls aren’t girls and men aren’t men.”
You can see all of this in the video below.
The show features a pink-haired nonbinary character who perpetually wears a surgical mask—a jab at those who tried to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This character, named Chaz, is tasked with "re-educating" Norm out of his "homophobic, transphobic, racist" ways. According to The New Norm, Norm can't be racist because his best friend is Black. Chaz appears wearing a t-shirt with the former logo of the Washington Commanders, complaining all the while that his child has come out as transgender.
Chaz reports to a Washington cabal that includes out trans woman and Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Rachel Levine, former Department of Energy deputy assistant secretary and LGBTQ+ activist Sam Brinton, and someone in a dog mask.
Several prominent conservatives lend their voices to the cartoon. These include former presidential candidate Larry Elder, commentator Dave Rubin, and comedian JP Sears.
Weirdly, the show also includes an unvoiced animated cameo of X owner Elon Musk, who has not openly endorsed the show, which includes the following lyrics in its closing theme song:
"Thank God for Elon Musk and his s**t-post memes / X is the home for free speech."
The clip was profoundly ridiculous—and people were quick to mock it.
In a piece for UnHerd, writer Gareth Roberts tore into The New Norm, asserting that there is "no reason why this show had to be terrible, and yet it is."
Roberts also called out the conceit to describe the show as akin to South Park, referring to it as "leaden and strangely antiquated." To underscore this, he said The New Norm is a show "we might, at a stretch, have welcomed in 2016, when the “woke” world was still baffling us and all the obvious gags hadn’t been made."
Better luck next time, conservatives.
@EdwardLawrence/X
