Monday Roundup

Favorites and duds from today's commenting.

Favorites, in no particular order:

This, I thought, was a clever gag by SavetoFavorites in the Daily Screencap post. I know it was a big, intimidating block of italic text, and it was the first post of the day, but it should have gotten a little more attention. StF can do it all, jokewise, but his most effective method is this sort -- a nontraditional, breathless barrage of humorous ideas burying the reader like a damn dump truck. There's no punchline here, just the expectation that, "Surely he can't find any more parallels between a gunman on the loose and Peyton Manning!" followed by the realization that, "By God, he did it again!" (As I type, I'm recalling StF's rare ability to pull off the picture joke style, which I may prefer in general. Look, suffice to say, he's good.)

Alright, I'll admit it, I had to circle back to this so-stupid-it's-great Rob Gronkowski insult joke in the Brendon Ayanbadejo post by Bring Back Anthony Mason. It was worth the effort, though. Who doesn't love a good forehead-slapper? The neat thing about jokes like these is that they're more or less designed to be read multiple times. The first run through, if you're anything like me, was a little rushed and ended with a head scratch. Still, you see what the punchline is, and you try to piece it together. Once you do that, (and laugh, of course, because it's a damned funny joke) you get to read the setup all over again. Only this time, you know what's coming, so now you get to laugh at all the juicy narrative bits you breezed through the first time. Now the punchline is the setup. It's like turning a sock inside out. Great sock, BBAM. That's the Comment of the Day.

Not totally sure I should be laughing at this poop joke from NoirJuggling in the Ravens-Broncos ratings post, but, truthfully, I did. I don't feel too badly, though, because it's not really low-hanging fruit. While the image on the story might evoke "woman taking a doody" to a lot of folks, putting it together with a pun about stools, standing up, and a laxative requires a certain amount of ingenuity. As it happens, it's more than enough ingenuity to elicit a chortle from me. But those replies, in particular the one that got dismissed, are ghastly.

Even if it's rarer than I'd like, it's so damn good to see Steve U back in the fold, doing Steve U things. The list setup is perfect for a Deadspin type of joke, because it can really be anything. SavetoFavorites, for instance, might use it as an opportunity to make 5 disparate mini-jokes. I can see AllOverButTheSharting using a list as part of an over-arching, absurdist narrative. But Steve U keeps it simple here, and to great effect. With each passing actual hackneyed Australian phrase, the tension builds in anticipation of the monkey wrench. I know the gag's coming when I hit no. 5, but I'm powerless to stop the....the prestige, I guess, to borrow a term. And Russell Crowe is such a worthy punching bag. Good work.

In the same post, here's a cute snag from Bevraj of Choice. Really, really silly. Later, in the James Dolan Is a Creepy Weirdo post, more silliness.

Total Fucking Duds

Some of the worst comments we see now are mind-numbingly base "sports talk radio" sentiments and the execrable "discussions" they spawn. Imagine raytheater, the dolt, patting himself on the back after submitting that gem denigrating the contributions of a spectacularly talented professional athlete, and accidentally herniating a damn disc. As for AllOverButThePaulBlarting: yuck.

Speaking of joke styles, BillyClydePuckett has evidently used the post-Kinja transition to roll out his "inane sports takes" style, forsaking all others. This guy was starred once upon a time. Pull it together, BCP.

Meanwhile, LOUD-NOISES is doing a great job showing you the class and dignity that commenters who come to Deadspin exclusively for Drew's pieces are capable of. I'll just link to his profile page, since picking a single example would be excruciatingly difficult, and the trend of him spewing awful garbage out of his mouth to no one in particular shows no signs of abating.

Don't do this anymore, EricBerrysHorse.

Come on. COME ON. This is meta-awful. 1. It stinks. 2. People take it seriously, and argue. 3. Others defend it as a joke. 4. Someone posts a Jpeg meme with 'butthurt' in it. No one is right here. Fuck this.

Don't worry, folks. Shitehawk'll be back before you know it. To DUAN!