You rarely see minor internet outrages pop back up to be revisited—there’s always the current one and the next one to focus on—so it’s interesting to look at this Chris Ware illustration from ten years ago and remember it was hotly controversial and widely mocked on twitter for suggesting children play outside more and use screens less. At the time, in 2015, Twitter was perhaps at its cultural zenith and everything—every joke, movie, and wind-blown autumn leaf minding its own business—was fodder for a perpetual roiling discourse.

In the time since, twitter has mostly collapsed, the internet has become shittier… and I’ve had children. Along with a lot of millennials who probably once saw criticism of “phone bad” as some sad Boomer mentality, but now must contend with the fact that it has immiserated them, a quarter of their most-online friends have lost their minds, their parents believe in conspiracy theories, and they wrestle daily with how to navigate parenthood and screens. It has to be the number 1 topic parents turn to now, if my (normal, largely offline) friend group is any indication of the wider population.

Man, it’s bizarre to look at this cover now and think of where the debates have come with regards to screen time, parenting, the online world—and recall the dysregulated howls over encountering a tame, frankly obvious, illustration and joining in some ritualized public performance of anger around it. Yeah, no one needs to go outside more lol.

For whatever it is worth (likely nothing) I don’t agree with this author’s in-depth and thoughtful analysis below; I think the cover relays a simple message that critics understood clearly. They reacted so strongly to it because its message was an implicit judgment of them, too, and it was simply this: touch some grass.