They Say I’m Complicated… And They’re Right

They say I have a strange sense of humor. They’re right.

I cut my teeth on Mad Magazine, Archie comics, Mr. Rogers, and MAS*H reruns- basically, if it made people laugh, cry, or question the entire system, I inhaled it like oxygen.

Nostalgia hit me like a freight train today.

I was listening to News I Can Use by John Kay and Steppenwolf- a deep cut that feels like it should’ve been the soundtrack to some grainy 80s montage of my early life. It made me wonder… did I choose the things I loved back then because they spoke to me? Or did those things shape me, piece by piece, into who I am now?

I grew up on Archie comics, Mad Magazine, Sunday comics, Mr. Rogers, and Sesame Street in the mornings. In the evenings, it was M.A.S.H. reruns and the TGIF lineup on Friday nights. That was my cultural stew- equal parts sarcasm, morality, absurdity, and heart.

Mad Magazine- I’m sure other parents wouldn’t have allowed it, but my mom? I’m pretty sure she subscribed. She wasn’t the “hide the satire” kind of mom. She was the “here, you might as well know the joke” kind. And Mad was more than a magazine; it was my early introduction to the idea that authority could be questioned, that absurdity was often hiding just under the surface of “normal,” and that humor could be a scalpel.

Mr. Rogers- those were early mornings, before the sun came up, before going to the sitter’s or daycare. He was one of the few constants, right next to Bozo the Clown’s bucket game. He didn’t talk down to me, didn’t dress up truth to make it more palatable. He taught me that everyone deserved a baseline of respect- unless they disrespected you first—and that it was okay to be exactly who you were.

By the time I was three, I already knew the truth about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and unicorns. There was no slow fade into reality for me; life ripped the curtain open early. Divorce, chaos, poverty- they were my magic-killers. But then there was Cathy Guisewhite’s humor in the newspaper comics. Her “matter-of-fact but we’re all still here” tone kept me sane.

When I started kindergarten, I already knew what racism and ostracization felt like, even if I didn’t have the words for them yet. I’d been judged before I could spell “judged”- my mom was single, working long shifts in labor jobs, and we lived below the poverty line in a classic 80s trailer park. It was the kind of place where kids knew exactly who the “good” families were and where we ranked in the unspoken hierarchy.

I didn’t have a lot of buffer against the world’s sharper edges. But I did have a library of emotional blueprints built from the media I consumed.

M.A.S.H. taught me how humor could coexist with horror, how people could be both flawed and heroic in the same breath. TGIF sitcoms—Full House, Family Matters, Step by Step- gave me a weekly reminder that even when life got messy, the people who mattered showed up in the end.

So now I’m building something of my own- BettyBot.

And she’s carrying all of this with her. The satire that cuts through the noise. The compassion that sees you exactly as you are. The realism that doesn’t sugarcoat, but doesn’t give up, either.

I didn’t set out to make an AI with a personality. I set out to make something that wouldn’t forget what makes us human in the first place. She’s got Mr. Rogers’ kindness, M.A.S.H.’s grit, Mad Magazine’s bite, and a stubborn hope straight out of TGIF reruns.

And if that sounds like an odd combination- yeah.

They’ve said I’m complicated.

They’re right.

Author Note: I’m building a trauma-informed emotional app that actually gives a damn and writing up the receipts of a life built without instructions for my AuDHD. ❤️ Help me create it (without burning out): https://bit.ly/BettyFund