I had this exact experience. Growing up I had nothing but good memories of reading Dilbert over my breakfast cereal, and then laughing as I got into the workforce and realized how accurate the satire was. And then seeing what "he" was actually like just completely threw me for a loop.

I had an opposite experience. I found his comics not-funny when I was a kid, but then as a grown-up who had worked in a corporate environment, I found many of them funny.

I had 100% the same experience. I thought they were stupid when I was young, after working in an office for a year or two I thought they were peak humor.

At some point he had a mailinglist called Dogbert's New Ruling Class (DNRC) which would soon come to rule the world. In it he wrote lots of really weird, unhinged, occasionally funny stuff. At the time I thought it was all one massive joke, layers of irony and trolling. But more recently I've been wondering if he was actually serious.

I still read coworkers as "cow-orkers"

If you could share any links to DNRC related content, I'd love to see it. Can't find anything online, just broken links.

I had that same epiphany when reading a biography of Ernest Hemingway.

Another type of work I avoid are "the making of ..." documentaries/accounts of classic works of film, music, and TV shows. Pulling back the curtain really destroys the magic.

Unless it's about the moving forced perspective shot in Bilbo's home, right? That's impressive AF.

I had this same feeling. Same with reading a biography of Kurt Vonnegut. Before reading it, I thought of them in idealistic ways. They had multiple affairs and weren't such great people, even though they both wrote really, really well.

That didn't change if I enjoyed his strip, but it definitely made sure I didn't take anything else he said seriously.

In general, if an "entertainer" has no "offstage" persona, they're batshit and it's not a bit.

I try and also never actually listen to the lyrics of songs, like 90% of the time I'm disappointed and it ruins the song for me.

Opposite of my experience. I love reading the lyrics and Genius annotations on songs I like. Vampire Weekend has a lot of good lyrics. Reading the annotations for The Black Keys' Turn Blue album was kinda eye-opening, and Kanye has a lot of great memorable lyrics as well. I feel it helps me appreciate the songs more deeply on later listens. Also it kinda bugs me if I can't quite catch some words in a song in the live-listen.

Example:

I Write Sins Not Tragedies - Panic at the disco:

So you're a guest at a wedding and you're eavesdropping and passing judgement on people based on a snippet of conversation. Ruined.

Example:

Going the Distance - He's bad at racing and can't realize it. He's burning real relationships. I'd otherwise love this song.

Years ago my brother pointed out that lyrics are just a form of percussion.

I'm glad they add for you, they typically detract for me.

Not paying attention to the lyrics also les me deal with music as just grooves in a flow state as well.