The Visceral Feeling of “Ugggggh”

I’m subscribed to The Onion on virtually every forum of social media- facebook, twitter, tumblr, and my dad occasionally sends me articles from it which is its own thing entirely. I see pretty much everything they do and 90% of the time, I am happy. For me, they nail it the most when hitting on the mundanities of life and treating them as news, or the utterly absurd and treating them as mundane, such as “Wedding DJ Assures Anxious Man He Hasn’t Forgotten ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’ Request” or “U.N. Report On Magical Realism Warns Of Increased Incidences Of Women’s Tears Flooding The Entire World”.

But sometimes I look at The Onion and I cringe and literally say nothing but “uggggggggh”. Its the profound, visceral feeling of sheer “ugh” that is so powerful it can only be summed up with that one word, more of a noise than anything else: uggggggggggh.

It gets at my revulsion, disgust, and annoyance at seeing this particular editorial from The Onion, written from the imagined perspective of Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau,  the organizer of a kidnapping plot that forcibly removed over 200 girls from a Nigerian school. Something about it is just…ugggggggh. Maybe it’s too glib, maybe I’m overly righteous, but whatever it is, it doesn’t sit right with me.

Its a precarious thing to mock someone so obviously evil. I’m a proud buzzkill who disappoints myself with my own sense of seriousness, but part of me thinks I’m completely correct in wanting a situation largely ignored by the mainstream media to not be satirized. I understand the principle of it- after all, I believe Mel Brooks, the writer of the producers only wrote “Springtime for Hitler” because he felt that as a Jew and a soldier in World War II, it was his comedic duty to get the world to laugh at someone whose very name becomes a codeword for evil. But that was 20 years after the fact.

 I don’t want it satirized like this though. The wonderful thing about these huge issues that are so clearly dark is that this darkness can be combed for humor, but it need to be from the right angle. Make fun of the fact that CNN will literally do anything not to mention this story, or the insane guy who attempted to Americanize the story by somehow connecting that to Monica Lewinsky for literally no reason.

I want to just be happy people are talking about it at all, but ugggggggh, do better than that.

 

Last Week Tonight

Remember Bill Maher? I’m sure you kind of do, but lately I’ve been thinking his days at HBO are numbered, given his descent into both obscurity and boringness. There’s only so many panel discussions a person can endure, even if jokes are occasionally sparsely sprinkled in. Its safe to say that the Bush presidency was good for a lot of angry political commentators but now, six years after the fact, the pool is being pared down to the best of the best, with Stewart and Colbert the rightful kings of this empire. However, a new contender is throwing his hat in and doing it with aplomb: John Oliver, of the new show Last Week Tonight.

It’s a genuinely solid, funny show, something like the recently-separated-formerly-conjoined twin of The Daily Show. True, I shivered at the begin- the electro-guitar theme music and generically urbane desk setup was pretty much a dead-on aping of Jon Stewart. But John Oliver is smart enough to forge his own path. After the opening segment, he simply looked into the camera and said, “welcome, to whatever this is.”

There’s something to be said for dropping a known commodity into an idiot-proof format. This is an outstanding first outing, full of wit and moments that were genuinely shockingly funny. Granted, I haven’t watched any more episodes (mostly because I don’t feel like sending my parents yet another text asking for the HBO Go password because it will inevitably be met with a terse “do your homework”) but as we lose Colbert’s character, we get something with as much potential. Oliver is the wry observer to Stewart’s invested outrage. The two complement each other despite the different networks and there’ no doubt the show will grow in to its own entity free from the shadow of The Daily Show.

So bye, Bill Maher, farewell Stephen Colbert, and hello Last Week Tonight.

HBO has uploaded the whole episode for free on Youtube.

ClickHole

If there’s one thing I love, it’s the Onion. And if there’s another thing I love, its making fun of Upworthy. And, if there’s a third thing I love, it’s making fun of Buzzfeed because I’m secretly bitter about my quiz results (there is no way that Oliver Trask is my dream OC guy. Just no way.)

So, I guess in this huge amazing world of ours, there are only three things I love. I’m ok with this, especially now that The Onion is slated to produce its own version of Buzzfeed devoted to mocking the clickbaiting and relentless positivity that have come to define these things. The website is to be called “ClickHole”, a delightfully innuendo-y name that definitely starts this parody off on the right note.

Still, its hard for me, as an avid consumer of both Buzzfeed and the Onion’s content (though I believe that Upworthy can go wither away in the far corner of the internet) to understand just how this parody will work. Will it employ the now-iconic color scheme of Buzzfeed and the garbled, circuitous headlines of Upworthy? It sounds like they’re trying to create something entirely new, a new comedy empire based more on the idea of what their admittedly fertile source material produces than on reproducing it with the characteristic satirical bite The Onion is so well known for, which presents and interesting creative challenge and one I personally cannot wait to see the results of.

Another Departure From Satire Blogging…

One wouldn’t think to pair together the trials of illegal immigrants and Mickey Mouse, but this series of photos by Colombian photographer Joana Toro does just that in a very affecting way. I’ve always been freaked out by mascots, and by freaked out I mean “seized with a combination of revulsion, fear, and pity”. This series of photos both helps and hurts. It’s helpful to see who is inside the mask from time to time, and while it lessens the visceral childlike fear that takes over whenever I see anyone who is in one of those eerily wide-eyed plastic heads, it makes me feel even worse. Its definitely worth a look.

The Koala

Recently the New York Times published an article about a student publication at San Diego State University known as the Koala. Despite its cuddly name, the publication is a hotbed of misogyny, racism, classism, and homophobia thinly masquerading as satire. The Koala is published every few months and is distrubted around the campus. Some enjoy it. Most, or at least the majority interviewed by the Times seem to see it as a corrosive influence on campus, with professors and students alike objecting to the content.

            Interestingly enough, the students producing the Koala don’t seem to see a huge problem with their work. Their eyes are focused on getting writing experience to prime them for a career in journalism or television writing.

            Sure, I guess people do need to learn where the proverbial line needs to be drawn at some point but I don’t necessarily think a publication that they market and distribute throughout the school is necessarily the finest way to do this.

The constantly changing face of news media means that even something published as recently as 2011 can come off as stodgy and irrelevant when compared to the current state of things. However, the essay about the Huffington Post, “Why the NYT Should Stop Complaining About HuffPo” remains applicable to current media. Though the article itself is written specifically about two news institutions, the stalwart New York Times and the Huffington Post, the fact that there are two different types of journalism dominant in the public sphere today stands. Websites like the Huffington Post, and now, in 2014, Buzzfeed (perhaps the most profound example of a news site that collects content and uses that as the means of production) and the like, can be classified as aggregators and are written specifically for consumers, whereas the New York Times and other bastions of print media are seen as still being the products of careful and original reporting driven by active and engaged reporters. This creates two completely different approaches to the same industry, and consequently, the two cannot be compared.

I think a lot of this article depends on the most tangible part of this divide being seen physically, as a division between print journalism and online journalism. However, I personally believe that this division in journalism is in fact most profoundly visible online. Because they share the same nominal distinction of being news websites, sites that are fundamentally different. A New York Times piece about, for example, the Winter Olympics and a Buzzfeed piece about the same event created two vastly different reading experiences. The New York Times featured interviews, recaps, and human interest stories, including a weirdly fascinating look at the Olympians’ collective struggle to purchase pants. Compare to Buzzfeed, which garnered massive traffic on a list that collected video stills of figure skaters faces and another list of things one might think while watching figure skating. The New York Times’ coverage was reliant on reporters seeking out something interesting and bringing it to the people, while Buzzfeed relied directly on their readership to relate to their content.

Part of me wants to think that sites like Buzzfeed herald a new sense of democracy in reporting, except I have to wonder if lists that are nothing but pictures of kittens and corgis having rough days is in fact reporting at all. Is there an implied sense of cultural elitism inherent in print media especially when contrasted with Buzzfeed? And, is a culture of reporters selecting what people might be interested in a cause of this elitism, or is it an attempt to give the public some dignity and raise the national consicousness, which something like “30 Dogs Who Can’t Even Handle it Right Now” might not?

#CancelColbert

Its crazy that we live in a country where something with a name like the Washington Redskins can exists, but here we are. Detractors call the name racist, a relic, whereas others uphold it as a tradition as American as apple pie. On the Colbert Report last Thursday, the show reported on…well, just watch the clip.

However, context can get lost. The internet is a tricky place. And a line from the segment above got posted online without context. And Suey Park, an activist and grad student with a devoted following of justice-minded individuals responded with a call to #CancelColbert. She was quickly inundated with support, people telling her she was wrong, and people threatening to kill her. 

I think while most people can agree that #CancelColbert was a response that didn’t exactly fit the crime, it would be remiss of the conscientious observer not to at least try to see where Park is coming from: a frustration with self-appointed liberals who don’t question the institutions that hold up their politics, especially in an age when these institutions are more so shows like the Colbert Report than say, MSNBC.

I’ve felt very conflicted about this story. Yes, I think the tweet was taken out of context and that twitter activism is, at best, a quick way of getting a pithily chosen cause out into the world. I’m committed both to the causes of social justice and of thinking Stephen Colbert is probably the best comedian of our age. So what’s a girl to do?

I think there is some validity in the idea that we have to constantly be questioning satirical institutions. Anytime I feel myself getting too comfortable with anything, I have to wonder why that is. Where would I myself draw the line for the Colbert Report? The truth is, I don’t know. I’m so conditioned both by my own self-proclaimed progressivism and liberalism and my love for the show. Perhaps I’m not even the best person to make this judgment.

A lot of satire, and indeed, a lot of comedy hinges on power. Allison Silverman,  a former head writer for the Colbert Report, uses the term “status shift” to describe power dynamics in comedy: “It’s not funny to see someone powerless being mocked. I think most people react against that, actually—unless they are a particularly cruel audience. What’s much more fun is to see someone who does have power, and is in the dominant position, become exposed”

This is clearly evident throughout the show. A lot of Colbert’s humor comes from the character posturing as though he has the power, whereas the audience knows what he’s saying is idiotic, overinflated, offensive, and absurd.

So perhaps calling to cancel the show is extreme, but maybe we can admit that sometimes even the best comedians miss the mark, though perhaps that was not the case this time. And it’s definitely not ok to threaten to kill or rape the woman who tries to point this out. Colbert himself said as much.

And oh yeah, the owner of the Redskins is a terrible person. That’s probably the most important takeaway here. Just saying.

The Philadelphia Accent

I read this article back at home in Philadelphia over a long weekend and was understandably distraught. NO! The accent of my youth, disappearing like the Tangier Island accent (also worth looking up). I myself don’t have one, a product of my parent’s midwestern roots, so I immediately had to call up my best friend from high school and have her say the following words to me so I could hear her butcher them in the gloriously ugly way I have grown so accustomed to: water, daughter, orange, horrible (the one word I myself pronounce with a tinge of Philly influence), Oregon, and hoagie. You know, the classics. However, I didn’t feel I could discuss on my blog because there was no element of satire in it.

This is no longer the case.

This clip from Comedy Central’s “Kroll Show” shows the hideousness of the Philadelphia accent in all of it’s glory. In all honesty, it’s not so much satire as it is a chance for Nick Kroll, the show’s creator and main writer to show the fact that the Philly accent is indeed imitable (take that DeNiro!) and sounds especially hideous when talking about things that people in Philadelphia would conceivably be discussing, meaning it sounds ugly ALL THE TIME: King of Prussia Mall (although anyone truly in the know calls it KOP with just the slightest hint of irony), the Philly Phanatic (designed to distract from the existential despair that comes with witnessing the spread of humanity at any Phillies game. Once I saw two old men fight each other next to  a cheesesteak stand and the one who started it was wearing what appeared to be a customized Phillies jersey with the word “drunk” on the back instead of a player’s name), and above all, how much Pittsburgh sucks.

Also, I can’t speak as to the accuracy of the Pittsburgh accent, because Pittsburgh is a garbage town that I have never been to but hate on principle. I can’t back this up with any reason other than that they are not Philadelphia.

The Balance of Humor

Wow, remember when I chose an ambassadorship topic for this blog and decided to make it about satire? Whatever happened to that huh? When did it turn into me insulting a bunch of articles that I think are lame, even for print journalism?

Part of it is that the world can just be so detestable that even the veneer or humor seems like a weak substitute for the power of genuine vitriol. But maybe this is what breeds satire, or at least this is what an article in the Atlantic argues. While most of the article examines the neurological eccentricities of comedians, seeking to answer the question of just what it is that makes them perhaps inherently predisposed to a life of joke slinging, it has a fascinating diversion in the middle that explains our psychological reactions to comedy. Humor, the kind that provokes true, genuine laughter hits at sweet spot directly between light and  dark. I especially enjoyed the look back at the issue of The Onion that was published immediately after 9/11, perhaps the most perfect example imaginable. It didn’t shy away from an immense tragedy but used it to its advantage without seeming exploitative. It doesn’t lose its satiric bite but its not harmful. It’s funny, but not cruel, heartfelt but not saccharine. It strikes the perfect balance.

The more I think about it the more I agree. Everything I think is funny is also kind of sad and dark in its own way. Something like The Office, a show I adore, can be so sweet, so life-affirming, that it can send me soaring into a state where I think humanity, even in tiny microcosms like a corporate office that sells something as boring as paper, is a beautiful, beautiful thing. But then you remember- these people are paper salesmen and thats just their life, they live in Scranton, their lives are small and, in the case of the lead character, Michael Scott, they have no idea about any of this.

Therein lies the comedic balance.

Now I’m off  to feverishly apply this theory to every other thing I find funny.

On the “Ugly Selfie”

The gender politics of selfies have been the subject of an inordinate amount of coverage. However, these articles are often decisive, opinionated screeds, delivered with an enviable certainty. They are all about young women taking pictures of themselves. These women are either very, very vain or very, very subversive depending on who you ask.
This article in the New York Times attempts to suss out a new trend in our culture of selfie taking- this newfangled thing called the ugly selfie. Perhaps the rarest of all beasts in the selfie taxonomy, the person posing in the ugly selfie is not covered in makeup, blurred by the shroud of an instagram filter or making a cute face. Rather, these teenage girls, if you can believe it, are trying to look ugly. On purpose!!!

BREAKING: when girls feel comfortable and are just hanging out together, they’re comfortable looking ugly.

The attempt to make a point about how women are now more comfortable looking ugly  comes off as woefully out of date and furthermore, kind of pathetically out of touch.

Perhaps its because I myself have only recently exited from the world of teendom (RIP Emily’s adolescent phase [2006-2013]) but I found myself staring blankly at this article. Literally, I just looked at it and thought, “yes, and….?” It’s a lot of work to take a cute picture of yourself. Its fun to have a cute one. Its fun to take an ugly one. Next topic, please.

I think any girl would react the same way too- its exhausting to try to be perfect, and we live in a world that demands perfection from young women, especially in public. It’s fun to feel comfortable with your friends and do stupid, weird things with them. Smash the patriarchy, etc.

In our class discussions about the New York Times’ beleaguered crawl towards modernity (see Jennifer Lee’s article in “Page 1”), one has to wonder if an article based off of nothing but good natured incredulity about the kids these days that ultimately attempts to segue into a grand cultural assessment can really stand up on its own. If you have ever spent more than five minutes non-creepily observing two or more teenage girls, you’ll know that ugliness is its own currency among them.  You can find them pushing their noses back to make little piggy noses while they snort at each other or grimacing in group photos or wearing dumb outfits and posing like they look good. A cursory glance at my Facebook feed shows all of this and more. If you’re comfortable being ugly with someone, you’re their friend. I still remember the moment I, a woefully insecure teenager too anxious to even wear my glasses to school, discovered that I could wear sweatpants to a friends house and not be crucified for it. This is by no means a new thing.

This isn’t to devalue the article entirely. I think people should know- perfection is boring and probably unattainable. I think most people know it. I think most teenage girls become aware of it pretty quickly. I think what I found so repellent about it is that its being treated like a new phenomenon. They push perfection at young girls and are shocked when they get tired of it and make it a statement.