- Joined
- Sep 15, 2014
@tuscangarder is the only leftist to make me laugh, at least when saying left-wing things (Nick Mullen and Zizek get a pass, but their sense of humor is mostly apolitical and verges on right-wing). 100% serious. And I say this as a person with pretty left-wing economic views.
I've thought a bit about this. I think the secret sauce to comedy which the modern left just can't do is not to take yourself too seriously and not to morally grandstand. I think Norm McDonald said it best that one of the big failings of a lot of comedy is that the audience never wants to feel dumber than the guy on stage. A lot of left-wing humor is predicated on the fact that the speaker is morally and intellectually better than you. Compare that to someone like Sam Hyde or weev or Donald Trump, who you would never take to be your moral better. They tap into your id, they say the thing you're not supposed to say, and at the same time you know they're not a hero for saying it. Most of all, they can do it flippantly. That, I feel, is what makes something funny. Sure, Bill Hicks making fun of fundamentalist rednecks might have seemed like a revelation in 1992 to disaffected 20-year-olds, but now it's something you are supposed to say. I'm not one of those guys that says left-wing thought is in anyway dominant (neoliberalism still rules by and large), but it's moral pretensions are largely unquestioned, and right-wingers I think even kind of implicitly assent to that. @tuscangarder understood how to be flippant, not take yourself too seriously, that less is more, and you sure as fuck never felt dumber than him.
Or maybe I just love low-effort bait, who knows.
I've thought a bit about this. I think the secret sauce to comedy which the modern left just can't do is not to take yourself too seriously and not to morally grandstand. I think Norm McDonald said it best that one of the big failings of a lot of comedy is that the audience never wants to feel dumber than the guy on stage. A lot of left-wing humor is predicated on the fact that the speaker is morally and intellectually better than you. Compare that to someone like Sam Hyde or weev or Donald Trump, who you would never take to be your moral better. They tap into your id, they say the thing you're not supposed to say, and at the same time you know they're not a hero for saying it. Most of all, they can do it flippantly. That, I feel, is what makes something funny. Sure, Bill Hicks making fun of fundamentalist rednecks might have seemed like a revelation in 1992 to disaffected 20-year-olds, but now it's something you are supposed to say. I'm not one of those guys that says left-wing thought is in anyway dominant (neoliberalism still rules by and large), but it's moral pretensions are largely unquestioned, and right-wingers I think even kind of implicitly assent to that. @tuscangarder understood how to be flippant, not take yourself too seriously, that less is more, and you sure as fuck never felt dumber than him.
Or maybe I just love low-effort bait, who knows.
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