Friday, May 6, 2011

Friday Roundup, or The Day It Worked and I DID NOT Jinx It

(For our recent AzureTexan Profile in Commenting, click here.)

Some favorites and a generous helping of duds from Friday's commenting.

Favorites
, in no particular order:

I enjoyed this effort, from snoop-a-loop, in the Ice Skating post. This was a joke that needed to be made, and he made it well. Good job.

FavreFail hit one out of the park in the Uncle Mo post. That's a wonderful comment.

The Red Sox Wine post was mostly just many versions of the same joke and would have been funnier tucked into a single thread, but I really appreciated this offering, from Bevraj of Choice, which earned a shower of +1s.

In the same post, Eddie Murray Sparkles cracked me up with a gruesome Ted Williams joke. That's hilarious.

Yes, this is an inside joke, from unstarred commenter NotMyFirstRo-Day-O, in the Rick Reilly post, but it's excellent, and the idea of it is endlessly funny. That's a well-earned promotion.

Hatey McLife, dont-forget-where-you-came-from-cheese-mac, and IronMikeGallego shared this awesome thread in the Rick Reilly post. God, I do love a good thread.

AzureTexan, to my overflowing excitement, contributed this perfectly-in-character, wonderfully random joke to the Willie Mays post. Goddammit. Today is a wonderful day.

And finally, +1s all around to IronMikeGallego, SponsoredbyV8, UweBollocks, DJNeuro, Phintastic, Cyrus_the_virus, NotMyFirstRo-Day-O, snoop-a-loop, Delonte, Interrupted, and SavetoFavorites for their contributions to another hysterical Val Kilmer thread, this time in the Wilie Mays post. I loved Deadspin today.

Total Fucking Duds

Moving quickly now . . .

Unstarred commenter semin plays the bongos could surely have done more with this concept, in the Ice Skating post. There's an idea for a joke there, but not a fully-formed joke. When you've got an idea, it's crucial that you take a few minutes to work it into its best possible version. That's the whole difference between a great joke and a gray joke.

Unstarred commenter Slibbidy Do Da struggled today, dropping noticeably lazy comments in both the Ice Skating post and the Beaned Reporter post. The former is simply not a joke. This may be tough for newer commenters to fully grasp or accept, but in order to really contribute to Deadspin's comments, you need to be submitting jokes, comments that would make you laugh. Comments that express only sarcasm or wryness are just too easy to make and too unspectacular to stand out. Go big every time. Seriously. The latter comment is more like a joke, but again, fine-tune it into something special. These are examples of thoughts, not jokes, not Deadspin comments.

Also in the Ice Skating post, this offering from unstarred commenter Bo Diaz's Satellite Dish just isn't even remotely ambitious enough. Comments cannot be lazy; the stink of a lazy comment is unmistakable among the terrific comments all around it.

There is an opposite end of that spectrum, and this comment, from normally solid commenter OnTheTwelfthNightOfLloydChristmas, is an available example. The idea here is too-obviously to parallel cancer. The premise is not offensive in the slightest, but the delivery is over-cooked. The middle ground can be tough to find, and even very good commenters (like LloydChristmas) will overshoot the ideal set-up from time to time. This comment gets points for being a balls-to-the-wall, all-or-nothing haymaker, but unfortunately, it's a big whiff.

The Drunken Hookup Failure post was again a dumping ground of awful comments. This offering, from unstarred commenter The Minnesota Screwjob, uses a line of text for a flimsy, half-baked Monica Lewinsky joke. As we've mentioned many times, the fact that a commenter has recontextualized a section of text is not funny enough on its own; the actual material of the joke needs to be strong enough to stand on its own. This falls well short.

Also in the DHF post, unstarred commenter dondi203 submitted this, a dangerously shuttledik-like offering. Obviously, that's not a joke. You've got to be funny and creative and original to contribute to Deadspin's comments, and there's just no way this comment is any of those things.

One more from the DHF post; this offering from unstarred commenter The Norv Face. Trust me, there is no such thing as an obligatory joke. The fact that you think it's obligatory should tell you everything you need to know about whether it is funny, creative, and original. If it's someone else's stand-up routine, it is most certainly not at least two of the above. And furthermore, I can't say for sure whether there's such a thing as an "oligatory" comment, but kudos to unstarred guy ohmygodtheykilledkennyrogers for trying to make something from that. Not half bad.

The joke here, in the David Price post, isn't the worst thing ever. It's not very good, but it wouldn't be in the Duds if its maker, unstarred commenter redhoodedrants, hadn't stepped all over it with his own slashy. Believe me, no one needed to be told it was a poop joke, O Master of Subtlety.

I hated this rant from unstarred guy Brute Squad in the Rick Reilly post. Be funny. This may play in your living room where your tone of voice and facial expressions and wild, flailing arm-movements can make up the difference, but in writing, it's just an annoying, over-cooked rant.

Also in the Rick Reilly post, I was annoyed to see unstarred commenter theeschwartz basically copy word-for-word an earlier comment from the same post. Read the Commentist Manifesto.

And finally, I feel like I have to do this, though I am loathe to beat up on the guy; this comment, from Phintastic, in the Golf Swing post. I'm sure he doesn't need me to say it, but it's a low-hanging-fruit type of comment. He's the only one who made the Tiger/Elin joke in this post, but I suspect that's because most people thought it was too apparent and went for a higher degree of difficulty. At any rate, if that joke has to be made, I'd prefer the maker really shoot for the stars in their delivery - take it all the way out into left field and drive around for a while.

Have an outstanding weekend, everyone. Happy Mother's Day in advance in case I don't see ya.

Gooooooo DUAN!

6 comments:

  1. +1. Thanks for another great week.

    -- IMG

    ReplyDelete
  2. +1 for the week's work. I haven't been near a computer since I made my last Val Kilmer comment, so I would have totally missed the return(?) of AT if it weren't for this wrap-up. It was a good Friday for Deadspin.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Good critiques again...except for that shot at Phin...geez, even the sort of good ones miss once in a while.

    - Phin

    ReplyDelete
  4. I deserved that, I guess.

    - Bo Diaz

    ReplyDelete
  5. @Phintastic

    What can I say? We're a dedicated equal opportunity distributor. None are safe from our all-seeing, all-zinging snark-ray.

    That said, you've been terrific lately, which is why I attacked this particular comment with somewhat less fervor than I might have in the past.

    Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nah, I deserved that one. I'm a big boy, I can take it. Thanks for the kind words though.

    - Phin

    ReplyDelete