Thursday Roundup

Favorites and duds from today's commenting.

Favorites, in no particular order:

Here's more of SavetoFavorites being far-and-away the silliest commenter in the business. I laughed at this, in the Anna Benson post. 

The Amazing Sneijderman cracked me up with this out-of-left-field courtroom joke, also in the Anna Benson post. Nice work. 

Here's a wonderfully brutal glance inward from BronzeHammer in the Jiggling Hurdler post. Also, here's something raunchy and hysterical from the Locker-Room Dong post. What can I say? BronzeHammer is on a serious tear these days. 

Raysism pulled the old bait-and-switch with this goofy winner in the Jiggling Hurdler post. I love this stuff. Later, this unusual joke was one of the day's very best. That's great hustle. It's always such a pleasure to see commenters step out of the normal wordplay stuff into completely different types of humor. 

Steve_U earned a huge round of applause for this awesome oneupmanship joke in the Jiggling Hurdler post. Also today, I chuckled at this dig at, well, one of my all-time favorite NBA players. I'll forgive it this one time. 

Eddie Murray Sparkles dropped this terrific reference in the Homophobic Columnist post, earning quite the haul of +1s. Later, I laughed aloud at this Jamie-Moyer-is-old joke in the Sports Photography post. This joke obviously benefits from the kick-em-when-they're-down boost, as previously discussed in other Roundups. Basically, for whatever reason, an old/fat/ugly/poor/stupid joke is funnier in some sort of grey area that hovers just inside the boundary of piling on. Sad but true. I still haven't quite figured this mechanic out.

Here's another great and deeply insensitive horse joke from some guy named BrtStlnd in the Saratoga post. I'm not sure how many more horses-as-cheap-food-sources jokes we can make before they start to lose their juice, but there's obviously still a ways to go.

And finally, here's a sharp, elegant little one-liner from Poignant Theater in the Philander Rodman post. Every possible drop of juice in this joke comes from the actual reworking of the PER statistic, and Poignant Theater has the stones to let that idea do all the heavy lifting here. That takes confidence: often, elongated set-ups are used to make sure a joke has enough overall charm and humor to make up for a mild punchline. It's not a bad approach, either, but in this case, his pull had enough weight on its own.

Total Fucking Duds

I have no idea what obvious ass-hat Jasperr was going for with this pile-of-shit comment in the Usher Doinked post, but I very sincerely hope this goof takes his act back to Yahoo. 

Total fucking moron terriblestjokesever did not disappoint with this horrid effort in the Philander Rodman post. God, please let this be a So Bad It's Good commenting account. 

And finally, I'd like to highlight the spiraling-into-excruciating-embarrassment case of DeschutesDescores, who earned light praise from some and a little overly-enthusiastic praise from one Drew Magary for a Les Mann joke earlier in the week, and has now gone back to the trough multiple times with increasing desperation. Check out his commenting history for a first-person glimpse at a growing disaster. Guy, I hope you're reading this, and I hope this paragraph will convince you to diversify your act a bit. When I praised Raysism's ongoing antagonism of MMA fans, I also cautioned against trying to do the whole watch-me-recycle-this-joke-over-and-over thing, and that's because it's almost always doomed to failure. The More Boyy joke was solid, but it's in the past, man.

Hey, thanks for reading. Have a great night, everyone.

Goooooo DUAN! 

Tuesday Roundup

Some favorites and a few duds from today's commenting.

Favorites, in no particular order:

Here's an excellent bit of silliness from Eddie Murray Sparkles from this morning's Daily Screencap post. Later, I cracked up at this hysterical one-liner in the Racist English Soccer post. That's damn funny.

IronMikeGallego scored a winner with this wordplay/reference two-liner in the Alma Mater White Wash post. Less talented joke-makers would torture this thing all to hell and fumble it away - jokes like this rely upon an extreme economy of words in the set-up or they become forced and laden with too much language and go all to hell.

I feel compelled to mention this joke, from youlovecreed in the Alma Mater White Wash post. See what happened there? The idea is simple and funny: the name "Joe" has become so tarnished by controversy that even "St. Adolph's" is a safer name for a university. The delivery, though, is a nightmare. Back in the salad says of pre-Kinja commenting, this would have been a perfect illustration of the difference between gray and featured commenters. No way Steve_U or Bring Back Anthony Mason fumble this one. Still, youlovecreed deserves credit for having a funny idea and for coming thisclose to delivering it.

Here's a funny line from Raysism in the Paternoville Reaction post. This one gets funnier each time I read it. It's just very silly. Also today, I laughed at this misunderstanding in the Racist English Soccer post. That's a rather creative recontextualization, and I loved it. And finally, I guess I'm the only person who laughed at this stupid Lynn Hoppes joke in the Shane Doan post, but I thought the screwy team names were genuinely funny-as-hell. And FINALLY finally, here's another of those MMA digs.

I was sorry to see this joke buried at the bottom of the comment pile in the Paternoville Reaction post, but I'll tell ya, that [person's] [thing] character has a real future around Deadspin.

This is a fucking riot, from SavetoFavorites in the Joe Posnanski post. As with other SavetoFavorites classics, I started giggling at the halfway mark of this joke and I'm still laughing a while later. And, as with other SavetoFavorites classics, apparently I'm one of the few who saw it or loved it.

Same Sad Echo dropped this humdinger in the Threatening Sky-Banner post, earning a round of applause. I'm the idiot who needed, like, a lot of time with this joke. I got there eventually. Great job.

Hey, look who it is. Our guy Gamboa Constrictor dropped this characteristically spot-on one-liner in the Iroquois Lacrosse post, earning an enormous haul of +1s. Hang around, will ya?

Here's a funny caption from Steve_U in the Iroquois Lacrosse post. Some burner schmuck decided to point out that this movie reference has been made once before. That was more than two years ago. Whatever the statute of limitations is on this kind of thing, the abiding principle is that jokes be funny, and this one is.

And here's our guy All Over But The Sharting with an excellent dig at . . . well, a familiar and tragic demographic. It's really the "grooving with Enigma" line that produces the giggles. Nice job.

It's possible I'm getting a little punchy now, but I laughed aloud at this quip from FreemanMcNeil in the Mike Francesa post. It's random and outrageous enough to practically demand a laugh.

Now I'm sure I'm getting more than a little punchy. For whatever reason, [sighs] [stares at ceiling] in this joke from The Amazing Sneijderman has me virtually incapacitated here at my desk. I'm going to take a break now.

Okay, turns out, that's it for the favorites.

EDIT: Fuck me, I missed the Horse post. Goddammit.

This, from Theodore Donald Kerabatsos, is glorious. I miss the brilliant MS Paint-work of Deadspin's commentariat.

This, from BronzeHammer, is the Comment of the Day. BronzeHammer is a fucking powerhouse. He's been on a hell of a run lately.

And here's a great practical joke from Sponsored by V8. Love it. I can't believe I stopped short of this post. What a jerk.

Total Fucking Duds

This is just a dreadful, brutally awkward reference from MmedeSevigne in the Jerrod Vick post. It's really the LOL that throws it over the top. If you sawed off my skullcap to expose my brain and touched an active electrode physically to whatever ripple causes uncontrollable laughter, I would still only frown at that comment.

Here's a regrettable pun from Cianfrocco's Modern Life. I imagine this thing was designed to get a comedy pyramid going, but it's just way, way too flat for that. It's an even worse comment if it wasn't designed for that purpose, though.

Oh hell, what the fuck is this thing, from some guy named fsu1dolfan in the Racist English Soccer post? Buh. Putrid. This thing comes close to the So Bad It's Good threshold.

Whoever this MiaImaCop character is, I'm not sure I can get on board with the bitterness expressed in this unsettling comment in the Marshawn Lynch post. Creepy.

So! Have a great night. I'll poke my head in DUAN here in a bit and see what's cookin'.

Peace.

Friday Roundup

Favorites and duds from today's commenting.

Favorites, in no particular order:

Here's a funny little pull from Raysism in the Atheist Night post. I'd also like to give a quick hat-tip to Raysism for continuing his quiet little antagonism of MMA fans today. I'm for this - these don't have to be show-stoppers, but by accumulation they become very, very funny. Everyone has to be careful with this kind of thing, but the truth is I found myself chuckling at Raysism making virtually the same needling dig at MMA today as previously. Funny stuff.

Sponsored by V8 dropped this hilarious bit of dialogue in the Atheist Night post, earning a big round of applause. Dialogue jokes on Deadspin are getting better and better. Sometimes longer and more elaborate and imaginative, other times more succinct and elegant. This was obviously the latter - a sharp little back and forth, absolutely stuffed with personality. Great one.

Boy, this is just fantastic, from TheCityGame in the Atheist Night post. That's a fucking whopper of a one-liner, from some dude I've never heard of before. Everything about this is wonderful, from the wordplay to the unnecessary but hilarious choice of performer. So great.

Here's the rare successful movie reference, from Lionel Osbourne in the Atheist Night post. The joke obviously lies outside the simple reference, which is why it works. It takes the movie sequence and twists it in a new direction, managing along the way to impart a hefty portion of character with minimal language.

Hey, John Owens is back, doing the razor-sharp wordplay one-liner thing again. This one, in the TDF Face Plant post, is ridiculous and outrageous and funny as all hell. I suspect this guy is a ringer, but I hope not.

IronMikeGallego contributed the day's other successful movie reference in the Zach Greinke post. Sometimes, they work. Not usually, but sometimes. For whatever reason, the question mark is funny.

Here's something funny from Steve U in the Fucking Black Cunt post. I'll be honest: I wasn't in love with this joke until I read the team name at the end, and that was all it took. It doesn't exactly function as the punchline - clearly, the notion that a lack of racism makes a team unfit for inclusion is also intended to carry some comedic value - but sometimes it's the goofiest, silliest touch in the joke that actually packs the punch. We Hate Black People FC is just a hysterical fucking name for a football team.

Oh goddammit, every part of this comment is fucking hilarious, from BronzeHammer in the Olympic Links post. Every single part. The description and each of its component bits, and the attribution at the end. That's a great, great comment. Later, BronzeHammer also did this, in the Mail Sandwiches post. These are wonderful jokes. They utilize virtually the same mechanics to the same tremendous effect. A creative, confident, patient delivery of several funny ideas, followed by a pitch-perfect punch-packing pachyderm. Oh wait, that was supposed to say attribution. Or, better yet, a punchline! No, actually, it's not fair to really even call it a punchline - the whole joke, from top to bottom, is a long run of funny ideas grouped together to maximum effect. The final line might round them all up into a certain context, but that doesn't necessarily make it the punchline. I suppose jokes don't all need punchlines, after all.

Goddammit. You guys are so fucking great. Here's another wonderful, wonderful work of creativity, this one from Mantis Toboggan, M.D. in the July Snow post. To be clear, this joke doesn't have to utilize the whole texting format to work, but if we ever blow hot air about the importance of the cognitive delay in boosting the comedic impact of a punchline, this is a fucking perfect example. The texting format significantly delays the reader's ability to pick up on the fact that it's a joke at all, let alone navigate its mechanics. We're not talking about minutes here, we're literally dealing in tenths or even hundredths of a second, but that's all it takes. It's actually a fun little trick to watch out for when you're laughing at something. Anyway, great comment. I laughed quite a bit at this.


Total Fucking Duds


I'm sure I don't need to say too much about this, from Carmello Yello in the July Snow post. What a total fucking train wreck. Get. A. Clue.

Hey, that's it for tonight. I'd like to thank the industrious chaps over at MKMUB for taking the initiative last night and filling in in my absence without my knowledge permission blessing having to ask, and assure everyone they'll be hearing from my team of attorneys I'll still be doing Roundups as often as I can manage.

Have a great night. Keeping bringing your best stuff - this week has been really excellent. Great work, everybody.

Happy DUAN!

MBAOT (July . . . what day is this?)

Jokes and jokes and jokes and jokes. Everyone's a comedian.

You too can make the jokes, in the not-bitter-at-all open comment area below. Fun!

UPDATE: The 14 seconds it took to post this stupid video really took it out of me. Better find two interns!

Wednesday Roundup

Some favorites and duds from today's commenting.

Favorites, in no particular order:

Madoff's Mets got things started this morning with this simple, funny little sequence in the Daily Screencap post. Nothing fancy, just an easy little spoof packed with personality. Nice work.

Here's your comment of the day, from Eddie Murray Sparkles in the Broken Horses post. That's such an Eddie Murray Sparkles joke. I'm sure you understand.

This outrageous offering from Bevraj of Choice, also in the Broken Horses post, isn't too far behind. Jesus, you guys were fucking terrific today.

Hey lookit! ClintonPortishead appeared today and cracked me up with this funny recontextualization, also in the Broken Horses post. I'm still chuckling. That's great.

I laughed at Poignant Theater's stuff today. First, he did this, also in the [heaven-sent] Broken Horses post, and later, he really cracked me up with this bait-and-switch act in the Racist South Carolina post. Dammit that's funny. I had to leave a lot of quality stuff off the Favorites today. You guys were awesome.

Here's something so stupid and simple and hilarious from Lionel Osbourne, in the Lynn Hoppes post. Also, here's another ridiculous, wonderfully silly offering, this one in the Banned 4 Life post. I'm such a huge sucker for silliness.

Here's a deliciously elegant little recontextualization from IronMikeGallego in the Lynn Hoppes post. You know, this type of comment has turned into a bit of a high-wire act: most of the time, when people use the turn-it-into-a-quote format, it comes across as cheap or lazy or unimaginative. In this case, the wordplay somehow has that hidden-in-plain-sight characteristic that creates that oft-mentioned cognitive delay, the one that boosts the value of virtually any punchline. That, or I'm a fucking dimwit. Or both. Either way, I loved the joke.

Sean Newell and David Hume, two Deadspin legends, teamed up to create this spectacular back-and-forth in the Shark Bait post. I really enjoyed this. It's possible, just possible, that this is where Kinja and its stupid algorithms really shine. I would guess in virtually all scenarios this kind of comedic tennis match would rocket right to the front of the presentation line, exactly where it belongs. At any rate, boy would Deadspin benefit from more of this kind of thing, no matter the layout.

Here's a funny contribution that is actually a surprising and sophisticated wordplay joke from OnTheTwelfthNightOfLloydChristmas in the Shark Bait post. That's clever, is what that is. Nice pull.

This joke, from Chamomiles Davis in the Racist South Carolina post, is so dumb. And yet, it works! What the fuck. Once upon a time, I mentioned how I always had this guilty feeling whenever I laughed at the jokes of fat-leaveher. This joke gives me that same vibe. It's goofy and clunky and genuinely funny.

God I fucking love this one-liner, from RMJ=H in the Audition Explanation post. That's a perfect comment. Sharp as hell and perfectly constructed and right to the point. Bravo.

Total Fucking Duds

Here's a fucking brutal pun from iknowsoftware in the Jeremy Lin post. So much of what is done on Deadspin boils down to simple puns and wordplay, it's probably pretty easy to think just about any simple word-association will pass muster. That is so totally not the case. A person would have to be either under the age of seven or so shit-face wasted they couldn't stand up straight in order to actually laugh at that.

Madoff's Mets pulled a rare two-fer today, allowing his name to be attached to this gasp-out-loud flaming train-wreck of a terrible idea in the Banned 4 Life post. Man oh man. There's a way to make that joke that employs subtlety and the attribution of the sentiment to a third party in order to mock that stereotype, rather than relying upon the wink-wink-nudge-nudge yuckiness of a bunch of anonymous internet creeps giggling over those silly minorities and their drink preferences. I don't doubt Madoff's Mets was poking fun at the stereotype rather than the group, but the joke really fails to pull it off. Oof.

We Need Approvals

Dipshit burner Boriqua670 demonstrated the intellect of all of burner-kind with this proud exclamation in the Scott Hairston post. In a million years, this crap would never have found its way onto the visible part of the comments section before the arrival of Kinja.

I don't intend to be a Kinja/Deadspin antagonist. I really don't. In general, I think things are moving in the right direction. This will not be some sort of nightly feature. But from time to time, I think it's worthwhile to point out exactly where some of the recent changes are failing the overall goals of the Kinja project. Yes, this shit is hidden behind the arrow, but all it would have taken is one or two asshole non-regulars taking the bait to bump this puppy right to the front of the line, where it is suddenly the apparent representation of what is done in Deadspin's comment sections for all new readers. Whatever is coming down the pike to de-emphasize or otherwise isolate burners just can't get here soon enough.

Hey, thanks for reading. A special thanks for a really excellent day of Deadspin comments. Keep on keepin' on.

Happy DUAN.

Tuesday Roundup

Favorites and duds from today's commenting.

Favorites, in no particular order:

Here's a funny goofball question from WyclefChen in the Daily Screencap post. I have to resist the urge to call him "unstarred guy WyclefChen" now. To me, all you stars are still stars and anyone else is a gray job.

David Hume kicked ass today, first killing me with this awesome impersonation in the Chris Berman post and later bringing the house down with this amazing chef-tip in the Lance Armstrong post. That's a real doozy, the latter one. I'd also like to draw some attention to the reply from SavetoFavorites in the first comment - I know it amounts to a +1 and probably isn't intended this way, but the fact that he totally flubbed the naming of his Taco Bell selection strikes me as a perfectly SavetoFavorites kind of thing. Later, down the line, when I start acting like an adult and am no longer obsessing over Deadspin on a daily basis, it's this kind of stuff that I'll remember more than any particular joke: the real and specific and unique and wonderful voices and personalities of the individual commenters. Without recalling a particular Hume joke, for example, I doubt I'll forget his particular brand of humor any time soon.

You guys are the best.

Speaking of SavetoFavorites, here's a damn funny sneaky recontextualization in the Chris Berman post. I enjoyed quite the giggle at this. 

I laughed at this Harold Reynolds dig from RMJ=H, also in the Chris Berman post. So good. There are some jokes you read and enjoy and move on from, and then there are those jokes you wish you'd made yourself. What's the difference? I can't put my finger on it, but this is one of the latter. It has something to do with the punchline relying upon something lifted verbatim or (in the case of a photo) unedited directly from the post and turned on its head, that feeling that you could have hit that same homerun had you just been as sharp and clever as the author.

IronMikeGallego cracked me up with this sharp dig at the Tweeters(?) in the Chris Berman post. No shit, they deserve it.

Here's a funny shot at Yon Sports Dipshit from MaverickIsAirborne in the Lance Armstrong post. Nicely done.

I suppose I'm the only person who laughed at this simple sequence from Same Sad Echo in the Berman Mix post. Was I also the only person who laughed, like, a lot at the mix itself? God, I'm a moron.

Sponsored by V8 earned a mighty haul of +1s for this funny one-liner in the Bryce Harper post. I really am a moron. I needed a lot of time with this one. A lot. Had there not been a giant thread of +1s behind it, I might not have bothered to get there at all.

And finally, I really enjoyed this dialogue joke from The Amazing Sneijderman in the Bryce Harper post. The real shame is how this comment is buried under the also-ran arrow. I'm glad I checked.

Total Fucking Duds


Yes, you missed the joke, dailylama, you fucking idiot. Grow a sense of humor, jackass. Christ.

Really?! We're still doing this, cobra, brah!? Surely, surely you can do better than that. For crying out loud, you had a star. 

We Need Ninjas

I'm sure we've all seen this fucking abomination from Joe Gordon in the WFAN post. Clearly there's a difference between a dud, which is usually a bad joke or a spectacular misstep or brain-fail, and this kind of shit. If it were up to me, a little notification would pop up on my phone every time this kind of shit is said anywhere on earth, and with the push of a button I could send a hard wooden fist shooting up out of the ground directly into this person's genital area, right where they stand.

Whatever else is wrong or right about Kinja, whatever can be said in its defense, it cannot be argued that this kind of thing would ever ever ever have made it into any discussion on any post anywhere on Deadspin before the transition. Pink commenters have been lobbing this kind of shit at the filter since I've been around, but the approval system ultimately always won. And when approved and/or featured commenters went off the reservation, it wasn't long before the Comment Ninja Squadron came along to deliver (at best) a solid hip check.

Something's got to be done about this exact kind of thing, because behind all the tedious moaning and wailing and rending of garments, the chief concern, poo-pooed at every possible checkpoint, was the fear that these fucking yokels, these aptly-referenced Yahoos would suddenly have a voice and a presence on Deadspin that they'd never been granted before. And I was among those who dismissed that fear, but I'm given pause nowadays.

Look, I understand approvals and the hierarchical system ain't coming back. I'm encouraged to see cheese-mac make a reference to steps that may be taken to quiet the burner noise. I still think Deadspin needs ninjas. Active, ass-kicking moderators with the power to ship the kind of thing that will flat-out ruin Deadspin commenting off to the void. We can't have this kind of stuff. How are commenters supposed to not respond to that kind of ignorance? If I'm standing in a room with someone who says that kind of thing aloud, am I supposed to just ignore it? There's just no way. Moderators relieve the commenters of that burden and lower the likelihood that this kind of thing will escalate and come to dominate a given post. We had the best moderators anywhere, and we want them back.

Hey guys, I meant it when I said I'd try to keep this thing going as long and as often as I can. It's been a wild and crazy couple of weeks, and I'm not sure I'm totally out of the tall grass just yet, but I intend to bang out another of these tomorrow.

In the meantime, I'll poke my head in DUAN tonight if anyone wants to have a big stupid conversation about, I don't know, norbizness or something.

Kick ass.