As you all know, in addition to being an artistic prodigy and animation machine, I am also a comedic genius. As such, it is my personal duty to maintain incredibly high standards for comedy and impose those standards on other people. You may think I'm joking but I'm not. I am serious.
Satire rules. It's a great way of making people look like idiots for not being "in the know." It also makes you feel smart 'cause you get to extrapolate meaning from deliberate misinformation. While the content can be pretty mean, it's usually a pretty respectful form of writing in that it trusts the audience to read between the lines a little.
usually
Whoof. Love hearing about my "hard earned money." For the record, I haven't worked a day in my life, so you just lied. You're a liar. In case you didn't pick up on the fact that the video is a joke, they remind you every five seconds by referring to their project as "uninspired" and "cheesy." Thanks man I almost forgot you were joking.
This is disrespectful satire. It’s completely unsubtle and treats you like a fucking moron who doesn’t get jokes. It’s insulting. I prefer that at least half of my audience doesn’t get the joke. That way the insiders can relish in how many people just couldn’t put it together.
Here are some “satire cues” to watch out for. If you see any of these, the writer probably thinks you’re retarded and you should stop supporting his content.
1. They literally just tell you it’s satire
You know like when someone ends a sarcastic post with “</sarcasm>.” If you have to end everything with a big “just kidding,” then you’re probably not a very good satirist. Good satire highlights a faulty line of thinking - it’s not just to “fool” people.
2. Typos
The other day me n’ the boys found a Facebook page called “Laughapalooza.” It’s a parody of spammy Facebook pages that combine stolen quotes and images for likes and shares. Here’s one of their latest posts:
Hahahaha! “huge” instead of “hug.” Did you get that joke? I did. I get jokes. Let’s high five and jerk each other off.
Typos are the easiest way to feign ignorance. You can always tell when someone’s in sarcasm mode when they suddenly start making grammatical errors and using incorrect capitalization. Also when they do a bunch of exclamation points with a “1” at the end. Stop that. We were using that bit before 9/11, and it’s time we retire it.
3. They keep making the same joke over and over
Once you get your point across, you don’t need to drag it out for five minutes. Unless, of course, the idea is to waste the audience’s time for NOT getting it, which is very funny. (Side note: this does not include dragging out a joke forever for comedic effect. It was funny when Family Guy did it in 2002. It wasn’t funny when too many cooks was fucking gay.)
It’s fine to elaborate, but you really don’t need to watch “your shitty kickstarter” after you read the title - you already get the joke. In fact, I’m also banning the word “shitty” in titles. YES I can ban things, YES I have the authority, and YES I will be actively enforcing this.
I liked this game better when I made it
4. They explain the joke right after they make it
Nice one! Love that Kenan and Kel.
This example is actually interchangeable with the last one. I guess a lot of people think satire needs punctuation. This is because traditional sketch comedy usually escalates and follows up with the punchline. In satire, there is no punchline, so they just beat you over the head with their agenda.
5.
I think I had something else but I totally forgot it. I’ll let you know if it comes back to me. Anyway, leave me a comment if there’s something I missed or you want to defend Key & Peele or whatever. ALSO QUICK ANNOUNCEMENT I have a tumblr now so go check it out:
http://k50p.tumblr.com/post/108105205354/
Signing off,
-Doofer
*I couldn’t figure out where put this in the post, but I’m also sick of people saying they’re “being ironic.” I don’t know how ‘ironic’ is supposed to be used, but they’re probably botching it.
PegasuTV
Hey man, you're probably unsatisfied with comedy because you are missing out all of the awesome pokemon parodies people are still doing! Some people really managed to get a grasp of what comedy is really about, srsly you should check those out boi !!911