(For our recent AzureTexan Profile in Commenting, click here.)
Some favorites and a fucking fuck-load of duds from Monday's commenting. (Links function in Firefox.)
Favorites, in no particular order:
Unstarred commenter Sir_Loin put the shtick away and contributed this neatly-packaged one-liner in the Manny Pacquiao post. For his efforts, his comment was promoted and received a +1. Well done.
Also in the Manny Pacquiao post, I really enjoyed IronMikeGallego's sharp, well-rounded dig at Shane Mosley. That's a great job, there.
Gamboa Constrictor got in on the act, dropping this elegant Shane Mosley rip, also in the Manny Pacquiao post. The Manny Pacquiao post was good to the commentariat today.
UweBollocks, When_you_get_the_money_you_get_the_Micah_Hoffpauir, IronMikeGallego, Steve_U, and Insert Clever Name contributed to another great thread today, this time in the Soccer Affairs post. +1s all around.
Steve_U did more than add his voice to a silly thread today. Also in the Soccer Affairs post, I laughed at his long, goofy re-imagining of Doctor Who, and later, in the Jim Tressel post, his stupendous one-liner was perhaps the Comment of the Day. That's good hustle. And last but not least, in the Trey Wingo post, a simple name-pun won an ovation from the crowd.
All Over But The Sharting's funny Kronum joke in the Drew Brees post started an excellent thread, featuring Eddie Murray Sparkles, IronMikeGallego, UweBollocks, and ToddReesingsTurfFacial. That may be the last terrific Kronum joke. We'll see. At any rate, hey, +1s all around.
And finally, in the Andrei Kirilenko Back Tattoo post, I giggled quite a bit at Vodkanaut's outrageous Mikhail Gorbachev joke. He does these long dialogue jokes about as well as anyone.
Total Fucking Duds
Lots of duds today. Without further ado:
Unstarred commenter 214w really should have reconsidered submitting this clunky comment to the Wake Up Deadspin post. The effort to be funny is there, but it's unfocused and more than a little awkward. My advice to new commenters is this: always pare your comment down to a single funny idea, and always finesse that single funny idea into its best, most elegant, most impactful iteration.
The Magic Johnson post was more-or-less a disaster. Most comments were terrible. We'll start with this just incredibly unfortunate offering from unstarred commenter Michael Clark. That's the cheapest, laziest, most worthless comment I can remember seeing. Nothing about it is even remotely successful or even appropriate. Make original, creative, funny jokes. This half-assed, brain-dead, slap-dick refraction of humor will not do.
Unstarred commenter Don't Bring That Kool-Aid To This Gin Party brought some weak-ass Kool-Aid to the Deadspin gin party with this POS ESPN.com comment. Try harder. Way, way harder.
I'd like to know who the hell approved unstarred commenter triple, architect of this pile of shit comment. I'm in no position to insist upon such a thing, but I'd like to recommend that any time a pink commenter is approved, the approving commenter link them immediately to the Commentist Manifesto as part of their approval. This is a flat-out atrocious comment.
I'm not going to slaughter the guy, but DUAN exists for exactly the kind of commentary unstarred guy all oiled up left in the Magic Johnson post. Why is that so hard to understand? Any time you feel like having a conversation about a post or want a serious response, save it for DUAN. The entire commentariat will thank you for it.
I was disappointed to see otherwise solid commenter DJNeuro make this limp, flimsy, lifeless one-liner out of the lowest-hanging fruit in the Magic Johnson post. To be clear, there is absolutely a solid joke in that idea, but my guess is DJNeuro knew it was an obvious go-to pun and rushed this thing out to get there first. That is always a bad idea.
One final Dud from the Magic Johnson post: this lame offering from unstarred commenter JobuNeedsARefill. There's just no ambition whatsoever to this thing. Would anyone anywhere actually laugh at that?
Not a whole lot needs to be said about this joke, from unstarred commenter Notyourvidis, in the Soccer Affairs post. That's just a depressingly cheap excuse for another pancake-flat Greg Oden joke. And Notyourvidis knew it, which is why he stepped all over it. Terrible.
Also in the Soccer Affairs post, this endlessly annoying contribution from unstarred commenter Tea_for_Dong. One gets the impression that either the throwaway nonsense of a joke was just an excuse to blather on about "Giggsy", or the "Giggsy" chatter was a clumsy way of deflecting attention from the throwaway joke. Either way, that's a turd.
This piece of crap, from unstarred commenter DarkhorseFinishedLast, in the Soccer Banner post, is . . .ummm, a piece of crap. Your enjoyment of The Family Guy is not funny, nor is it creative or original.
ToddReesingsTurfFacial struggled today. Mightily. This comment in the Milton Bradley post is, as he pointed out, unoriginal and lazy. It's also, as I Like Cheap Beer pointed out, awkward, clumsy, and off-target. It's annoying as all hell that ToddReesingsTurfFacial knew it was a turd and edited it to apologize for it, but didn't just redact it. But it's even more annoying that he didn't take a few minutes and consider it before submitting it. I've said this before; ToddReesingsTurfFacial is what I call a grinder; his goal is to push out a high volume of comments, and that effort forestalls any chance of his average comment being worth a damn. Later, this. I'll be honest; when I read the name "John Amaechi" in a Deadspin comment, I groan immediately. I'm certain the idea has been beaten to death from every possible angle. But ToddReesingsTurfFacial went with it, and his joke did absolutely nothing to disabuse me of this certainty. At this point, you could replace the entire joke with [insert lame-ass John Amaechi/gay joke] and it would have the exact same effect.
Unstarred commenter TheMisanthrope also sucked today. His lazy-ass rent-a-joke in the Rafael Nadal post was snarked by the comment_ninja, with good reason. Later, in the Phil Jackson Peyote post, he used a photo to make a desperate insult type joke. This is fucking lazy commenting. This guy sucks. Start the death clock.
In the MLS Salaries post, unstarred commenter dickutah threw up this thing. What the hell. Do better.
In the Andrei Kirilenko Back Tattoo post, Disco Choo went to the John Amaechi trough and had his weak shit shuffled off to #notsuperhomowatervolleyball by the comment_ninja. Jesus, if you're going to go down in flames, at least spell the guy's name correctly.
And finally, unstarred commenter Brosef Stalin was too lazy to notice his forgettable one-liner had already been made earlier in the Drew Brees post. It's a crappy joke anyway, but it may not have made the list if he'd been the first or only to make it.
And that's all the news that's fit to print. Welcome back, and have a great DUAN.
Monday, May 9, 2011
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!
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!
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Profiles in Commenting: AzureTexan
Or: Order, Chaos, Order, And Kirstie Alley Is Fat
Commenter Profile Link: AzureTexan
Commenter Style: Silly, wordplay-ish, cerebral, showoffy, inactive-y
[Editor's Note: I have two major criteria for selecting commenters to profile. The first thing I look for is a commenter whose body of work inspires me to think and write about a particular facet or set of facets of humor and joke-craft and Deadspin commenting. The second thing I look for is a commenter who is reasonably active on Deadspin, so that you can read the profile and, if any of the ideas in it are of interest to you, you can take those ideas into future readings of that commenter's work and hopefully find the experience enriched. You should not hold your breath for a profile of a Commenter Emeritus like Clinton Portishead, great and inimitable though he may be, unless asphyxiation is your thing.
Obviously, as things stand right now, AzureTexan violates that second criterion: he has not posted a comment to Deadspin since early March of this year. I have three reasons for making an exception: the first is that AzureTexan's body of work is unique enough - and its terminus recent enough - that I'm willing to make a stretch for the sake of discussing something from a perspective that otherwise might not have been available. The second reason is that I entertain the vain hope that, if the man himself is actually alive, he might read this profile and be goaded into returning to active participation. The third reason is that it's my blog, and no one can stop me, no one at all, ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.]
We’ve been having an ongoing conversation about joke mechanics, about how the structure and timing of a joke deliver a laugh from what’s often a fairly straightforward idea. Let’s back up for a bit and talk something more basic: burritos.
No, not burritos. Let's ask: what is a joke?
In literature and film, the word "horror" is generally used as a catch-all categorization for anything that is intended to evoke fear in the audience, but of course that's totally inaccurate as it relates to most of the very best exemplars of fear-evoking art. Properly, "horror" is overwhelming revulsion at what you can see (or hear or touch or otherwise directly experience), while "terror" is dread - fearful anticipation - of what you cannot see (or hear or touch or otherwise directly experience). With that distinction in mind, it's easy to grasp that, while most things you'll find in the "horror" section of your local bookstore or cineplex or Netflix queue employ large doses of both terror and horror, the most effective fear-evoking books or films - the ones that stay with you later on that night, that chase you from the bathroom down the darkened hall back to your bed, causing you to move more quickly than you otherwise would, and then to chastise yourself for the silliness of it - deal primarily in terror. Horror, in fact, is a kind of relief of the tension that terror creates. Even the most horrifying sight - when the protagonist rounds that corner and sees not the innocent cat, but the grisly murder scene - is at least a small relief to the audience: well, now we at least know what it was. This is why, when you cover your eyes during the terrifying buildup, you also peek between your fingers: it's better to know - to be horrified - than it is to be terrified.
Why did I ask "what is a joke?" and then launch into a discourse of the interplay between horror and terror? Because humor, much like the terror/horror relationship, is all about tension and the relief of it. However, whereas the terror/horror dynamic creates unbearable tension, and then relieves it with a shock that confirms the audience's fear of the unknown, humor creates tension and then relieves it with a surprise that lets the air out of that tension and changes our perspective of it. Both terror/horror and humor, in their way, are at their best when the rubble of the tension forms an image that allows a moment of insightful self-reflection on the part of the audience. This is why the greatest jokes are about the most familiar things, and the most frightening moments of horror are ones that corrupt or distort what is most recognizable and comforting.
That dynamic - the buildup of tension, and the relief of it - is precisely why joke structure is so important to humor. Let's look at a classic joke by metronomic joke-machine Henny Youngman:
"A doctor says to a man, 'You want to improve your love life? You need to get some exercise. Run ten miles a day.' Two weeks later, the man called the doctor. The doctor says, 'How is your love life since you've been running?' 'I don't know, I'm 140 miles away!'"
I chose this joke for examination because A) it's a great example of traditional joke structure, and B) it's fairly easy to identify the tension/relief dynamic here, in a way that illustrates how a joke creates tension in an environment - like a comedy club or the Deadspin comment section - where the audience knows a joke is coming. The premise and setup of this joke invoke a perfectly reasonable assumption: that when a doctor says something like "run ten miles a day," his intention, and the patient's understanding, is that those ten miles should be circular, so that the patient returns home at the end of them. He's not telling the patient to run away, ten miles at a time.
But it's the perfect reasonable-ness of that assumption that creates the tension, because the audience knows very well that a joke is coming. Those two factors - a seemingly innocuous, commonplace exchange, and our anticipation that something must go awry - are at odds with each other and cannot be reconciled right away.
Let's imagine Gallagher incorporating the same premise into his routine. Here's how it would go:
"My doctor told me I'd be in better shape and have a better sex life if I ran ten miles a day. 'RUN TEN MILES A DAY'?! In WHICH DIRECTION? Are there fewer hairy feminists THATAWAY???? I guess in fancy-pants medical school, they didn't teach you to BE SPECIFIC! EVERYTHING IS WORSE THAN IT USED TO BE! BAAAHHH HATE HATE HATE! SLEDGE-O-MATIC! I LOOK LIKE DAVID CROSBY'S SKELETON!"
That is not a joke. It is a rant. The punchline is, "I am too stupid and self-satisfied for reflective thought."
Now, the small observation exploited to varying effect by these two comedians is the same: that the doctor did not specify that the patient should run ten miles in a more-or-less circular pattern per day, returning home at the end of each iteration. But whereas our imagined version of Gallagher used that observation to make the erroneous declaration that a contrary, intellectually parsimonious dickwipe is smarter than his doctor, Youngman used it to gently tweak a very tiny, very unimportant, but very common assumption in a way that will surprise and delight the audience.
And he did it with timing and structure. By packing the joke into such a tight, condensed, fast-moving packet, Youngman gets all the way to the punchline before the audience, their minds working to anticipate the joke, have had a chance to recognize the gap in that very minor assumption shared by the doctor and the audience - namely, that "run ten miles a day" implies circularity. And the punchline, rather than delivering back-patting congratulations for being smarter than the doctor, offers a moment of self-recognition (albeit one so minor it won't provoke weighty, unfunny contemplation): the patient's ridiculous behavior is funny for being ridiculous, but also funny because we can recognize that there's something pathetically reasonable about it. We are invited to recognize and identify with the common human foible of failing to read between the lines - of feeling outmatched by and unable to keep up with the complex modern world.
A balloon is less likely to pop when it contains somewhat less than its full capacity of air. Youngman's joke applies a tiny pin to an unimportant balloon with a little too much air in it, and the pop makes you laugh. That's how the best jokes work. And it's why, nearly all of the time, in the best jokes, the punchline comes at the end, after the balloon has been filled to its limit. That's joke structure for you: create tension (or invoke some that already exists), and then relieve it in an unexpected way.
(As it happens, terrorism inverts the terror/horror and humor mechanic: it imposes scenes of horror on unsuspecting bystanders in order to terrorize - to create a widespread, unbearable feeling of fearful anticipation that paralyzes a society and frays its cohesion. This is why terrorists are never funny: their understanding of mechanics and structure is all fucked up. Coincidentally, in comedy circles, this dynamic is knows as The Shuttledik Effect.)
Even airless, acid one-liners and sophisticated wordplays operate this way: the tension comes during those brief nanoseconds during which you try to puzzle out exactly what you just read; then the tumblers click into place and you laugh in surprise and happiness.
What to make, then, of a joke-maker who regularly seems to confound that sense of order? Whose best jokes often seem to lack any real premise-setup-punchline structure, and do not seem to create and relieve tension, and do not seem to package any observation about human behavior, and yet are funny as hell anyway?
The obvious way to handle that challenge is to accept that the preceding paragraphs of this profile are little more than intellectual masturbation. But let's not do that yet, because I think it's more interesting not to.
Let's look at this bizarre joke from several months ago, by (drumroll) Deadspin commenter (it turns out this is, in fact, a Profile in Commenting) AzureTexan, today's subject. As a first pass makes apparent, this comment violates damn near every reasonable expectation of a joke, except the requirement that it be funny. It lacks a clear punchline; it doesn't create or dissipate tension in any readily apparent way; and as a Deadspin comment, it wanders so far afield from the actual content of the post to which it is attached that, were it not funny, it seems reasonable to think it might very well have received a smackdown. And yet: it works. It is funny. It is, in fact, damn funny. How is that?
I'm not sure I have an answer, except: it is. Obviously that's insufficient. I can make some guesses, so let's do that.
Here is where we are going to talk about three concepts that haven't gotten much mention so far in our bone-dry discussions of structure and timing and mechanics: wit, mirth, and silliness. And, sadly, we are going to yet again tip our cap in the direction of the invisible boost longtime commenters (and humorists in general) get from their own body of work. Actually, let's just get that part out of the way, right here:
[tips cap]
Wit is defined by some random internet dictionary as the keen perception and cleverly apt expression of those connections between ideas that awaken amusement and pleasure. Here is where, if you are familiar with the work of AzureTexan (or Steve_U, or Eddie Murray Sparkles), you are nodding vigorously and wondering why I've continued to type.
In gentle, moderate amounts, and paired with economy of words, wit produces a big laugh, as in this spectacular pull from Always Winning.
In larger amounts, as in this gem from EMS, wit requires only the flimsiest whiffs of joke-structure to deliver a knockout. (In this case, the comment is not the punchline: it is the setup. The photograph it references is both the premise and the punchline. Think about that. When I get around to profiling EMS, the entire body of the profile is going to be an M.C. Escher drawing rendered in my ejaculate.)
In the comment we're examining, the sheer amount of wit present is so great that all constraints are tossed aside: you're amused because, Jesus Christ, where the hell did he get that from?
But appreciation (abstract, intellectual) and mirth (joyful, unselfconscious) are two very different things. A comment that elicits a mirthless nose-laugh of appreciation - "Hmmm-hmmm, mmmmyes, capital bit of drollery there, a-hmmm-hmmm..." - is fine every now and then, but nobody's getting profiled on this damn blog for making Manhattan art gallery attendees out of the Deadspin readership. The rule goes, "Be funny," not "be super-duper clever."
And that's where silliness comes in. Silliness is perhaps the single most under-appreciated element of humor. I'd go so far as to argue that, the vastest majority of the time, silliness is exactly what transmutes silent appreciation into audible belly laughs. There are lots of different definitions of silliness, but for our purposes, what I mean when I say "silliness" is the lighthearted, irreverent deployment of the absurd.
Miley Cyrus-branded crotchless hemp underwear is an absurd concept. In the context of its usage in this joke, its absurdity is underlined by the use of five-dollar language like "demarcating" and "particularly vexatious"; conversely, the presence of a word like "vexatious" becomes absurd - becomes silly - when it follows a lowbrow idea like Miley Cyrus-branded crotchless hemp underwear. Those observations are rather cerebral ways of saying that this is a very silly comment: wit, which is itself a leavening agent, leavened by absurdity.
And hey, lookit: there's your tension/relief dynamic, right there, hiding in plain sight, in that juxtaposition between the lowbrow mental image and the highfalutin' language. The Miley Cyrus sex joke, itself good for a laugh, by its sheer lowbrow silliness creates an edifice of expectation - a balloon full of air; a tension - that the phrase "particularly vexatious" pops. That's ingenious, and if you disagree, shut up.
You see what I did there? The mechanics of humor are inviolable - none are exempt from their dictates! None! THERE ARE NO LAUGHS BUT THOSE THAT OBEY.
So, back to wit. Connecting a metaphorical phrase ("a hard-and-fast line demarcating what's legal") to an absurd literalist interpretation (the U.S. border) is witty. Most commenters would absolutely stop there - something like:
"Also a hard-and-fast line demarcating what's legal? The U.S. border."
Which would be a perfectly non-smackdown-worthy comment, if hardly ambitious. AzureTexan doesn't stop there - in fact, he's apparently confident enough in his ability to steer that idea into wilder and funnier territory that he only uses it as an invisible subtext for the rest of the comment. The recontextualization - that hoary old joke format which is probably the signature move of the Deadspin Commentariat at-large - is present, but it is not itself the joke.
This touches on something mentioned by dont-forget-where-you-came-from-cheese-mac in his Guest Lecture: formulas and memes can be excellent delivery-vehicles for jokes, with their structural template and callback value, but they are not jokes themselves. Here AzureTexan demonstrates the best possible use of the recontextualization formula, using it to craft a joke strong enough to completely obscure the formula.
Of course AT certainly makes (made) jokes that more conventionally conform to the basics of structure: as here, or here, or here - yet nearly always with the same out-there, insanely-high degree-of-difficulty, and the winking silliness which acknowledges that, hey, ninjas and rules and eyeball-searingly high-toned profiles on some loser's third-party blog aside, this shit is fun. And that, ultimately, is why AzureTexan is our subject today: more than perhaps any other commenter, AT's body of work demonstrates that, while the work of crafting successful Deadspin comments is challenging, the standard of excellence astoundingly high, and the mechanisms for succeeding sometimes very technical, the effort to do it well - to be original and smart and funny - is, and should be, fun.
You have no fucking idea what a bear this goddamn thing was to write.
Commenter Rating (out of five stars): «««««
Commenter Style: Silly, wordplay-ish, cerebral, showoffy, inactive-y
[Editor's Note: I have two major criteria for selecting commenters to profile. The first thing I look for is a commenter whose body of work inspires me to think and write about a particular facet or set of facets of humor and joke-craft and Deadspin commenting. The second thing I look for is a commenter who is reasonably active on Deadspin, so that you can read the profile and, if any of the ideas in it are of interest to you, you can take those ideas into future readings of that commenter's work and hopefully find the experience enriched. You should not hold your breath for a profile of a Commenter Emeritus like Clinton Portishead, great and inimitable though he may be, unless asphyxiation is your thing.
Obviously, as things stand right now, AzureTexan violates that second criterion: he has not posted a comment to Deadspin since early March of this year. I have three reasons for making an exception: the first is that AzureTexan's body of work is unique enough - and its terminus recent enough - that I'm willing to make a stretch for the sake of discussing something from a perspective that otherwise might not have been available. The second reason is that I entertain the vain hope that, if the man himself is actually alive, he might read this profile and be goaded into returning to active participation. The third reason is that it's my blog, and no one can stop me, no one at all, ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.]
We’ve been having an ongoing conversation about joke mechanics, about how the structure and timing of a joke deliver a laugh from what’s often a fairly straightforward idea. Let’s back up for a bit and talk something more basic: burritos.
No, not burritos. Let's ask: what is a joke?
In literature and film, the word "horror" is generally used as a catch-all categorization for anything that is intended to evoke fear in the audience, but of course that's totally inaccurate as it relates to most of the very best exemplars of fear-evoking art. Properly, "horror" is overwhelming revulsion at what you can see (or hear or touch or otherwise directly experience), while "terror" is dread - fearful anticipation - of what you cannot see (or hear or touch or otherwise directly experience). With that distinction in mind, it's easy to grasp that, while most things you'll find in the "horror" section of your local bookstore or cineplex or Netflix queue employ large doses of both terror and horror, the most effective fear-evoking books or films - the ones that stay with you later on that night, that chase you from the bathroom down the darkened hall back to your bed, causing you to move more quickly than you otherwise would, and then to chastise yourself for the silliness of it - deal primarily in terror. Horror, in fact, is a kind of relief of the tension that terror creates. Even the most horrifying sight - when the protagonist rounds that corner and sees not the innocent cat, but the grisly murder scene - is at least a small relief to the audience: well, now we at least know what it was. This is why, when you cover your eyes during the terrifying buildup, you also peek between your fingers: it's better to know - to be horrified - than it is to be terrified.
Why did I ask "what is a joke?" and then launch into a discourse of the interplay between horror and terror? Because humor, much like the terror/horror relationship, is all about tension and the relief of it. However, whereas the terror/horror dynamic creates unbearable tension, and then relieves it with a shock that confirms the audience's fear of the unknown, humor creates tension and then relieves it with a surprise that lets the air out of that tension and changes our perspective of it. Both terror/horror and humor, in their way, are at their best when the rubble of the tension forms an image that allows a moment of insightful self-reflection on the part of the audience. This is why the greatest jokes are about the most familiar things, and the most frightening moments of horror are ones that corrupt or distort what is most recognizable and comforting.
That dynamic - the buildup of tension, and the relief of it - is precisely why joke structure is so important to humor. Let's look at a classic joke by metronomic joke-machine Henny Youngman:
"A doctor says to a man, 'You want to improve your love life? You need to get some exercise. Run ten miles a day.' Two weeks later, the man called the doctor. The doctor says, 'How is your love life since you've been running?' 'I don't know, I'm 140 miles away!'"
I chose this joke for examination because A) it's a great example of traditional joke structure, and B) it's fairly easy to identify the tension/relief dynamic here, in a way that illustrates how a joke creates tension in an environment - like a comedy club or the Deadspin comment section - where the audience knows a joke is coming. The premise and setup of this joke invoke a perfectly reasonable assumption: that when a doctor says something like "run ten miles a day," his intention, and the patient's understanding, is that those ten miles should be circular, so that the patient returns home at the end of them. He's not telling the patient to run away, ten miles at a time.
But it's the perfect reasonable-ness of that assumption that creates the tension, because the audience knows very well that a joke is coming. Those two factors - a seemingly innocuous, commonplace exchange, and our anticipation that something must go awry - are at odds with each other and cannot be reconciled right away.
Let's imagine Gallagher incorporating the same premise into his routine. Here's how it would go:
"My doctor told me I'd be in better shape and have a better sex life if I ran ten miles a day. 'RUN TEN MILES A DAY'?! In WHICH DIRECTION? Are there fewer hairy feminists THATAWAY???? I guess in fancy-pants medical school, they didn't teach you to BE SPECIFIC! EVERYTHING IS WORSE THAN IT USED TO BE! BAAAHHH HATE HATE HATE! SLEDGE-O-MATIC! I LOOK LIKE DAVID CROSBY'S SKELETON!"
That is not a joke. It is a rant. The punchline is, "I am too stupid and self-satisfied for reflective thought."
Now, the small observation exploited to varying effect by these two comedians is the same: that the doctor did not specify that the patient should run ten miles in a more-or-less circular pattern per day, returning home at the end of each iteration. But whereas our imagined version of Gallagher used that observation to make the erroneous declaration that a contrary, intellectually parsimonious dickwipe is smarter than his doctor, Youngman used it to gently tweak a very tiny, very unimportant, but very common assumption in a way that will surprise and delight the audience.
And he did it with timing and structure. By packing the joke into such a tight, condensed, fast-moving packet, Youngman gets all the way to the punchline before the audience, their minds working to anticipate the joke, have had a chance to recognize the gap in that very minor assumption shared by the doctor and the audience - namely, that "run ten miles a day" implies circularity. And the punchline, rather than delivering back-patting congratulations for being smarter than the doctor, offers a moment of self-recognition (albeit one so minor it won't provoke weighty, unfunny contemplation): the patient's ridiculous behavior is funny for being ridiculous, but also funny because we can recognize that there's something pathetically reasonable about it. We are invited to recognize and identify with the common human foible of failing to read between the lines - of feeling outmatched by and unable to keep up with the complex modern world.
A balloon is less likely to pop when it contains somewhat less than its full capacity of air. Youngman's joke applies a tiny pin to an unimportant balloon with a little too much air in it, and the pop makes you laugh. That's how the best jokes work. And it's why, nearly all of the time, in the best jokes, the punchline comes at the end, after the balloon has been filled to its limit. That's joke structure for you: create tension (or invoke some that already exists), and then relieve it in an unexpected way.
(As it happens, terrorism inverts the terror/horror and humor mechanic: it imposes scenes of horror on unsuspecting bystanders in order to terrorize - to create a widespread, unbearable feeling of fearful anticipation that paralyzes a society and frays its cohesion. This is why terrorists are never funny: their understanding of mechanics and structure is all fucked up. Coincidentally, in comedy circles, this dynamic is knows as The Shuttledik Effect.)
Even airless, acid one-liners and sophisticated wordplays operate this way: the tension comes during those brief nanoseconds during which you try to puzzle out exactly what you just read; then the tumblers click into place and you laugh in surprise and happiness.
What to make, then, of a joke-maker who regularly seems to confound that sense of order? Whose best jokes often seem to lack any real premise-setup-punchline structure, and do not seem to create and relieve tension, and do not seem to package any observation about human behavior, and yet are funny as hell anyway?
The obvious way to handle that challenge is to accept that the preceding paragraphs of this profile are little more than intellectual masturbation. But let's not do that yet, because I think it's more interesting not to.
Let's look at this bizarre joke from several months ago, by (drumroll) Deadspin commenter (it turns out this is, in fact, a Profile in Commenting) AzureTexan, today's subject. As a first pass makes apparent, this comment violates damn near every reasonable expectation of a joke, except the requirement that it be funny. It lacks a clear punchline; it doesn't create or dissipate tension in any readily apparent way; and as a Deadspin comment, it wanders so far afield from the actual content of the post to which it is attached that, were it not funny, it seems reasonable to think it might very well have received a smackdown. And yet: it works. It is funny. It is, in fact, damn funny. How is that?
I'm not sure I have an answer, except: it is. Obviously that's insufficient. I can make some guesses, so let's do that.
Here is where we are going to talk about three concepts that haven't gotten much mention so far in our bone-dry discussions of structure and timing and mechanics: wit, mirth, and silliness. And, sadly, we are going to yet again tip our cap in the direction of the invisible boost longtime commenters (and humorists in general) get from their own body of work. Actually, let's just get that part out of the way, right here:
[tips cap]
Wit is defined by some random internet dictionary as the keen perception and cleverly apt expression of those connections between ideas that awaken amusement and pleasure. Here is where, if you are familiar with the work of AzureTexan (or Steve_U, or Eddie Murray Sparkles), you are nodding vigorously and wondering why I've continued to type.
In gentle, moderate amounts, and paired with economy of words, wit produces a big laugh, as in this spectacular pull from Always Winning.
In larger amounts, as in this gem from EMS, wit requires only the flimsiest whiffs of joke-structure to deliver a knockout. (In this case, the comment is not the punchline: it is the setup. The photograph it references is both the premise and the punchline. Think about that. When I get around to profiling EMS, the entire body of the profile is going to be an M.C. Escher drawing rendered in my ejaculate.)
In the comment we're examining, the sheer amount of wit present is so great that all constraints are tossed aside: you're amused because, Jesus Christ, where the hell did he get that from?
But appreciation (abstract, intellectual) and mirth (joyful, unselfconscious) are two very different things. A comment that elicits a mirthless nose-laugh of appreciation - "Hmmm-hmmm, mmmmyes, capital bit of drollery there, a-hmmm-hmmm..." - is fine every now and then, but nobody's getting profiled on this damn blog for making Manhattan art gallery attendees out of the Deadspin readership. The rule goes, "Be funny," not "be super-duper clever."
And that's where silliness comes in. Silliness is perhaps the single most under-appreciated element of humor. I'd go so far as to argue that, the vastest majority of the time, silliness is exactly what transmutes silent appreciation into audible belly laughs. There are lots of different definitions of silliness, but for our purposes, what I mean when I say "silliness" is the lighthearted, irreverent deployment of the absurd.
Miley Cyrus-branded crotchless hemp underwear is an absurd concept. In the context of its usage in this joke, its absurdity is underlined by the use of five-dollar language like "demarcating" and "particularly vexatious"; conversely, the presence of a word like "vexatious" becomes absurd - becomes silly - when it follows a lowbrow idea like Miley Cyrus-branded crotchless hemp underwear. Those observations are rather cerebral ways of saying that this is a very silly comment: wit, which is itself a leavening agent, leavened by absurdity.
And hey, lookit: there's your tension/relief dynamic, right there, hiding in plain sight, in that juxtaposition between the lowbrow mental image and the highfalutin' language. The Miley Cyrus sex joke, itself good for a laugh, by its sheer lowbrow silliness creates an edifice of expectation - a balloon full of air; a tension - that the phrase "particularly vexatious" pops. That's ingenious, and if you disagree, shut up.
You see what I did there? The mechanics of humor are inviolable - none are exempt from their dictates! None! THERE ARE NO LAUGHS BUT THOSE THAT OBEY.
So, back to wit. Connecting a metaphorical phrase ("a hard-and-fast line demarcating what's legal") to an absurd literalist interpretation (the U.S. border) is witty. Most commenters would absolutely stop there - something like:
"Also a hard-and-fast line demarcating what's legal? The U.S. border."
Which would be a perfectly non-smackdown-worthy comment, if hardly ambitious. AzureTexan doesn't stop there - in fact, he's apparently confident enough in his ability to steer that idea into wilder and funnier territory that he only uses it as an invisible subtext for the rest of the comment. The recontextualization - that hoary old joke format which is probably the signature move of the Deadspin Commentariat at-large - is present, but it is not itself the joke.
This touches on something mentioned by dont-forget-where-you-came-from-cheese-mac in his Guest Lecture: formulas and memes can be excellent delivery-vehicles for jokes, with their structural template and callback value, but they are not jokes themselves. Here AzureTexan demonstrates the best possible use of the recontextualization formula, using it to craft a joke strong enough to completely obscure the formula.
Of course AT certainly makes (made) jokes that more conventionally conform to the basics of structure: as here, or here, or here - yet nearly always with the same out-there, insanely-high degree-of-difficulty, and the winking silliness which acknowledges that, hey, ninjas and rules and eyeball-searingly high-toned profiles on some loser's third-party blog aside, this shit is fun. And that, ultimately, is why AzureTexan is our subject today: more than perhaps any other commenter, AT's body of work demonstrates that, while the work of crafting successful Deadspin comments is challenging, the standard of excellence astoundingly high, and the mechanisms for succeeding sometimes very technical, the effort to do it well - to be original and smart and funny - is, and should be, fun.
You have no fucking idea what a bear this goddamn thing was to write.
Commenter Rating (out of five stars): «««««
Thursday Roundup
(For dont-forget-where-you-came-from-cheese-mac's Guest Lecture on Commenting, click here. Email madbastardsall@gmail.com to discuss how you too can submit content to Mad Bastards All.)
Some favorites and a few duds from Thursday's commenting. (All links function in Firefox.)
Favorites, in no particular order:
I enjoyed titansfan78's reference to Punkin's godawful thread from yesterday, in the Wake Up Deadspin post. The execution could be cleaned up a bit, unless that's an even more clever reference to Punkin, in which case, bravo.
In general, I think the list-a-lot-of-things-and-then-say-KRONUM!!!! meme is running out of steam, but I did really enjoy Same Sad Echo's version in the Ron Artest post. Kronum is a funny concept, but what makes Echo's joke work is the specific choices he made in his list.
Hatey McLife again killed it today. His ruthless Farrah Fawcett comment was the best by far in the Commencement Speech post. Later, a vicious Kathy Lee eye-gouge in the Boobs post earned a round of applause. This kind of humor is what Hatey McLife is known for, and he does it better than anyone.
Eddie Murray Sparkles cracked me up with a delightfully silly contribution to the Bernard Hopkins post. That's just a fantastic image.
And finally, unstarred commenter StuartScottsEye turned a brick from Delonte, Interrupted into a thunderous put-back jam in the Bad Golf Swing post. This guy was in the zone today, and this was by far his best effort. That's a hell of a job.
Total Fucking Duds
In the Ron Artest post, unstarred commenter jddf crapped out this thing and just left it there. This is not ESPN.com. That's not a joke, it's the weakest possible reference, delivered in the least creative, interesting way possible.
In the Commencement Speech post, unstarred commenter coldbeerhello did this, driving me completely fucking insane. Make a joke out of that idea! Do something funny. Anything! It is not funny that you keep thinking of something random. Every fucking comment on Deadspin starts with someone thinking of something funny! Actual commenters do something with the thought beyond just farting it out and hitting submit. This is not your fourth grade classroom, shit-for-brains.
To my great annoyance, there are apparently two commenters named tater, both active today, one of whom is starred and one of whom is not. The unstarred version left this, also in the Commencement Speech post. There's nothing right about this comment. Not the premise, not the presentation, not the obvious lack of anything funny, and certainly not the assumption that the inclusion of a screen-grab from a show that is known to be funny would somehow infuse the comment with ambient humor. Try harder.
And finally, this lazy, shocking-just-to-be-shocking pile of crap from SteveJeltzFan, in the first Dan Snyder post. Is that so funny? I don't find this comment offensive, just stupid and wasteful and meaningless. All this is is a premise. Nothing is done with it at all.
And that's it for today's Roundup. Did I go lite on the Duds? Sure. Yesterday's bonanza was exhausting. Look for something a lot more interesting than this in the very near future from Mad Bastards All. In the meantime, enjoy your DUANing.
Some favorites and a few duds from Thursday's commenting. (All links function in Firefox.)
Favorites, in no particular order:
I enjoyed titansfan78's reference to Punkin's godawful thread from yesterday, in the Wake Up Deadspin post. The execution could be cleaned up a bit, unless that's an even more clever reference to Punkin, in which case, bravo.
In general, I think the list-a-lot-of-things-and-then-say-KRONUM!!!! meme is running out of steam, but I did really enjoy Same Sad Echo's version in the Ron Artest post. Kronum is a funny concept, but what makes Echo's joke work is the specific choices he made in his list.
Hatey McLife again killed it today. His ruthless Farrah Fawcett comment was the best by far in the Commencement Speech post. Later, a vicious Kathy Lee eye-gouge in the Boobs post earned a round of applause. This kind of humor is what Hatey McLife is known for, and he does it better than anyone.
Eddie Murray Sparkles cracked me up with a delightfully silly contribution to the Bernard Hopkins post. That's just a fantastic image.
And finally, unstarred commenter StuartScottsEye turned a brick from Delonte, Interrupted into a thunderous put-back jam in the Bad Golf Swing post. This guy was in the zone today, and this was by far his best effort. That's a hell of a job.
Total Fucking Duds
In the Ron Artest post, unstarred commenter jddf crapped out this thing and just left it there. This is not ESPN.com. That's not a joke, it's the weakest possible reference, delivered in the least creative, interesting way possible.
In the Commencement Speech post, unstarred commenter coldbeerhello did this, driving me completely fucking insane. Make a joke out of that idea! Do something funny. Anything! It is not funny that you keep thinking of something random. Every fucking comment on Deadspin starts with someone thinking of something funny! Actual commenters do something with the thought beyond just farting it out and hitting submit. This is not your fourth grade classroom, shit-for-brains.
To my great annoyance, there are apparently two commenters named tater, both active today, one of whom is starred and one of whom is not. The unstarred version left this, also in the Commencement Speech post. There's nothing right about this comment. Not the premise, not the presentation, not the obvious lack of anything funny, and certainly not the assumption that the inclusion of a screen-grab from a show that is known to be funny would somehow infuse the comment with ambient humor. Try harder.
And finally, this lazy, shocking-just-to-be-shocking pile of crap from SteveJeltzFan, in the first Dan Snyder post. Is that so funny? I don't find this comment offensive, just stupid and wasteful and meaningless. All this is is a premise. Nothing is done with it at all.
And that's it for today's Roundup. Did I go lite on the Duds? Sure. Yesterday's bonanza was exhausting. Look for something a lot more interesting than this in the very near future from Mad Bastards All. In the meantime, enjoy your DUANing.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Wednesday Roundup
Some favorites and a fucking staggering collection of duds from Wednesday's commenting.
Favorites, in no particular order:
In the Wake Up Deadspin post, I laughed out loud at MarkKelsosMigraine's sharp George Will joke. Terrific.
In the Rondo Somersault post, I giggled at Fendi Hotdogbun's dig at Shaq. "Summer sausage" is really what did it.
Our guy dont-forget-where-you-came-from-cheese-mac cracked me up with this awesome recontextualization in the Fantasy No-No post. Great job.
Hatey McLife pumped out a couple of winners on Wednesday. His contribution to the Jayson Werth post was probably the Comment of the Day. Later, in the soul-shattering zone of alienation that was Emma's Boob post, his Brett Pedroia joke was probably the other Comment of the Day. What can I say? Hatey rescued the commentariat today.
Brilliant, wonderful, and deeply-mourned commenter Clinton Portishead came back with a bang in Emma's Boob post, stirring quite the ovation with a characteristically fantastic one-liner. God, please, please, please let the prize for today's misery be the return of Clinton Portishead. It will all have been worth it.
And finally, if only for being spot-fucking-on in its appraisal of the situation, I really appreciated SponsoredbyV8's contribution to Emma's Boob post. It's funny because it's fucking depressing as hell and 100% accurate.
Total Fucking Duds
Strap in, motherfuckers. The little list I make of Duds on a notepad at my desk each afternoon is the fucking white pages. I had a moment today where I considered the possibility that the two Boobs pieces were a not-so-elaborate way of getting rid of my blog. I feel actual pity for those funny featured and unstarred commenters who attempted honest-to-God jokes in that environment. Those efforts were almost entirely swallowed by the most overwhelming crush of flat-out horrible commenting I can remember.
Here goes:
Unbelievably, unstarred commenter shuttledik reappeared, if only very briefly, in the Wake Up Deadspin post, to the dismay of actual commenters. The comment_ninja quickly shut him down again. I'm not sure how this happened, but it's somewhat discouraging. At any rate, our guy Tulos_Mullet earned a warning for his behavior in the thread. I suppose the rule here is Make Jokes, but a warning from AJ is a pretty strong nudge for a mostly harmless reply.
Also in the Wake Up Deadspin post, unstarred commenter CalClutterBuckFutter went with asking for a joke over making a joke. Stop it. Make jokes.
RMJ=H went with an unedited line straight out of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, in the Rondo Somersault post. That's disappointing. Make jokes.
Unstarred commenter Shot_From_The_Musket aimed low and still missed with this lazy offering in the Flying Kick post.
Right below him in the Flying Kick post, unstarred commenter HelenaHandbasket offered a similarly flaccid comment. That's your best effort? Jesus.
I'm not sure what in blazes unstarred commenter 214w was thinking with this comment, but the fact that he offered it in each of the Rondo Somersault posts is deeply troubling.
In the Second Rondo Somersault post, unstarred commenter Terrence_Mayonnaise needed to finesse this comment at least a little bit before submitting it. There's a joke in there, I'm sure.
Terrible unstarred commenter TheMisanthrope had a rough outing today. His first dud came from the NBA Reading post. There's just nothing to like about that comment. Later, a pancake flat, predictable John Amaechi joke drew the ire of the comment_ninja.
And here's another tired John Amaechi joke, also from the NBA Reading post, this time from unstarred guy dondi203. I personally think the John Amaechi topic has been wrung dry many times over, but at any rate, if you're going to use John Amaechi to make a gay joke, it better be clever as hell. Believe me, if it's not mind-bogglingly fresh and creative, it's been made already many times over.
Unstarred commenter Perdueable also had a bad day, first drawing the attention of the comment_ninja with a dreaded photo-joke in the NBA Reading post. Later, in Emma's straight-from-hell Boob post, his was just another totally useless, not-at-all-clever sacrifice to the gods of low-hanging fruit. You're trying already, now try harder.
In the Foul-Mouthed Coach post, unstarred commenter DoxDox left another uninspired "[insert name] is/is not impressed" joke. He's only the 1,324,848,901st person to use that worn out format. Whether that distinction comes with any sort of prize is unclear at this time.
1,324,848,902. (JobuNeedsARefill, No-Hitter post)
No one in the entire universe cares about the plight of your fantasy baseball team, EsotericPopCulturePun, not even in the Fantasy No-No post. In a million years, no single person would laugh at that comment. Be funny.
Also in the Fantasy No-No post, this, from unstarred commenter ttocs. [big sigh]
I did not enjoy this sarcastic quip from wattznext in the Live Magazine post. So there.
Also in the Live Magazine post, this, from unstarred commenter FedorovsGoldenMane. (Running out of steam, here.)
And now we've come to it: the Boobs duo. Holy fuck. [deep breath]
This, from unstarred commenter packman_jon. You were the 100th person to make that joke in that post. Read the Commentist Manifesto.
This, from unstarred commenter slagmire. Have I mentioned my problem with photo-jokes?
This, from unstarred commenter Pyrowrx (slapped by comment_ninja & FAILBOT).
This, from unstarred commenter TorontoMapleBeef. Boy did you read that situation wrong (slapped by comment_ninja).
This, from unstarred commenter Operating_Thetan_VII (banned by AJ).
This, from unstarred commenter Big Willis Style. Lazy, already made by a thousand other bone-heads.
This, from unstarred commenter PerkisPower (banned by Craggs).
This, from unstarred commenter DogRidingRodeoMonkey (suspended by comment_ninja) Hey, that's Scrap-Meta Commenting. I coined that term.
And this, from unstarred commenter Punkin, who managed to miss the joke entirely. Or maybe not. Either way, fuck off.
That's it. God damn every last one of you straight to hell.
Eat DUAN and die.
Favorites, in no particular order:
In the Wake Up Deadspin post, I laughed out loud at MarkKelsosMigraine's sharp George Will joke. Terrific.
In the Rondo Somersault post, I giggled at Fendi Hotdogbun's dig at Shaq. "Summer sausage" is really what did it.
Our guy dont-forget-where-you-came-from-cheese-mac cracked me up with this awesome recontextualization in the Fantasy No-No post. Great job.
Hatey McLife pumped out a couple of winners on Wednesday. His contribution to the Jayson Werth post was probably the Comment of the Day. Later, in the soul-shattering zone of alienation that was Emma's Boob post, his Brett Pedroia joke was probably the other Comment of the Day. What can I say? Hatey rescued the commentariat today.
Brilliant, wonderful, and deeply-mourned commenter Clinton Portishead came back with a bang in Emma's Boob post, stirring quite the ovation with a characteristically fantastic one-liner. God, please, please, please let the prize for today's misery be the return of Clinton Portishead. It will all have been worth it.
And finally, if only for being spot-fucking-on in its appraisal of the situation, I really appreciated SponsoredbyV8's contribution to Emma's Boob post. It's funny because it's fucking depressing as hell and 100% accurate.
Total Fucking Duds
Strap in, motherfuckers. The little list I make of Duds on a notepad at my desk each afternoon is the fucking white pages. I had a moment today where I considered the possibility that the two Boobs pieces were a not-so-elaborate way of getting rid of my blog. I feel actual pity for those funny featured and unstarred commenters who attempted honest-to-God jokes in that environment. Those efforts were almost entirely swallowed by the most overwhelming crush of flat-out horrible commenting I can remember.
Here goes:
Unbelievably, unstarred commenter shuttledik reappeared, if only very briefly, in the Wake Up Deadspin post, to the dismay of actual commenters. The comment_ninja quickly shut him down again. I'm not sure how this happened, but it's somewhat discouraging. At any rate, our guy Tulos_Mullet earned a warning for his behavior in the thread. I suppose the rule here is Make Jokes, but a warning from AJ is a pretty strong nudge for a mostly harmless reply.
Also in the Wake Up Deadspin post, unstarred commenter CalClutterBuckFutter went with asking for a joke over making a joke. Stop it. Make jokes.
RMJ=H went with an unedited line straight out of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, in the Rondo Somersault post. That's disappointing. Make jokes.
Unstarred commenter Shot_From_The_Musket aimed low and still missed with this lazy offering in the Flying Kick post.
Right below him in the Flying Kick post, unstarred commenter HelenaHandbasket offered a similarly flaccid comment. That's your best effort? Jesus.
I'm not sure what in blazes unstarred commenter 214w was thinking with this comment, but the fact that he offered it in each of the Rondo Somersault posts is deeply troubling.
In the Second Rondo Somersault post, unstarred commenter Terrence_Mayonnaise needed to finesse this comment at least a little bit before submitting it. There's a joke in there, I'm sure.
Terrible unstarred commenter TheMisanthrope had a rough outing today. His first dud came from the NBA Reading post. There's just nothing to like about that comment. Later, a pancake flat, predictable John Amaechi joke drew the ire of the comment_ninja.
And here's another tired John Amaechi joke, also from the NBA Reading post, this time from unstarred guy dondi203. I personally think the John Amaechi topic has been wrung dry many times over, but at any rate, if you're going to use John Amaechi to make a gay joke, it better be clever as hell. Believe me, if it's not mind-bogglingly fresh and creative, it's been made already many times over.
Unstarred commenter Perdueable also had a bad day, first drawing the attention of the comment_ninja with a dreaded photo-joke in the NBA Reading post. Later, in Emma's straight-from-hell Boob post, his was just another totally useless, not-at-all-clever sacrifice to the gods of low-hanging fruit. You're trying already, now try harder.
In the Foul-Mouthed Coach post, unstarred commenter DoxDox left another uninspired "[insert name] is/is not impressed" joke. He's only the 1,324,848,901st person to use that worn out format. Whether that distinction comes with any sort of prize is unclear at this time.
1,324,848,902. (JobuNeedsARefill, No-Hitter post)
No one in the entire universe cares about the plight of your fantasy baseball team, EsotericPopCulturePun, not even in the Fantasy No-No post. In a million years, no single person would laugh at that comment. Be funny.
Also in the Fantasy No-No post, this, from unstarred commenter ttocs. [big sigh]
I did not enjoy this sarcastic quip from wattznext in the Live Magazine post. So there.
Also in the Live Magazine post, this, from unstarred commenter FedorovsGoldenMane. (Running out of steam, here.)
And now we've come to it: the Boobs duo. Holy fuck. [deep breath]
This, from unstarred commenter packman_jon. You were the 100th person to make that joke in that post. Read the Commentist Manifesto.
This, from unstarred commenter slagmire. Have I mentioned my problem with photo-jokes?
This, from unstarred commenter Pyrowrx (slapped by comment_ninja & FAILBOT).
This, from unstarred commenter TorontoMapleBeef. Boy did you read that situation wrong (slapped by comment_ninja).
This, from unstarred commenter Operating_Thetan_VII (banned by AJ).
This, from unstarred commenter Big Willis Style. Lazy, already made by a thousand other bone-heads.
This, from unstarred commenter PerkisPower (banned by Craggs).
This, from unstarred commenter DogRidingRodeoMonkey (suspended by comment_ninja) Hey, that's Scrap-Meta Commenting. I coined that term.
And this, from unstarred commenter Punkin, who managed to miss the joke entirely. Or maybe not. Either way, fuck off.
That's it. God damn every last one of you straight to hell.
Eat DUAN and die.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Tuesday Roundup
(For dont-forget-where-you-came-from-cheese-mac's Guest Lecture on Commenting, click here. Email madbastardsall@gmail.com to discuss how you too can submit content to Mad Bastards All.)
Some favorites and more than a few duds from Tuesday's commenting.
Favorites, in no particular order:
In the Manny Pacquiao Puppet post, IronMikeGallego put together this funny shot at Shane Mosley, earning a pair of +1s.
In the same post, I really enjoyed Gamboa Constrictor's wonderfully insensitive one-liner.
Hatey McLife had a few winners today, including this funny one-liner in the Green Men post, and this dark Korey Stringer joke in the Boise St. post. Great job.
In the Serena Williams Stalker post, this joke from Fendi Hotdogbun is just beautifully constructed. The punchline is right at the very end, and without any tortured, awkward use of language to force it there. Nice work.
Also in the Serena Williams Stalker post, I really loved this goofy joke from newly-starred DJneuro. This joke requires a bit of an exaggerated double-take - I read the post, read the comment, went back and read the post again, and finally re-read the comment. It was worth it.
UweBollocks dropped a real winner in that same post, drawing laughter from the crowd. This comment thread is a good excuse to again bring up the topic of following up someone else's joke. For whatever reason, UpstateUnderdog wasn't happy letting the joke stand on its own, and I can see why this would drive someone up a wall. To me, this is stepping on someone's joke. The specific delivery of that punchline is what makes it so successful, and that's 90% of the work that goes into constructing the comment. Then another commenter comes along and walks all over that careful delivery. Why?
I'm trying to put together a Guest Lecture (or something similar) with one or more Deadspin commenters on the nuances of riffing on another comment and the general theme of following a joke vs. stepping on a joke. At the moment, this is just a conversation taking place via email. To join in, email madbastardsall@gmail.com or find me on Twitter.
RMJ=H's silly physics joke in the Leveled Ref Video post was good for a laugh. I'm surprised this comment didn't get a little love from the crowd.
Eddie Murray Sparkles dropped yet another excellent one liner, this time in the Charlie Bell post. Nice, straightforward, deadpan delivery.
And finally, occasional Mad Bastards All punching bag norbizness cracked me up with this silly, imaginative dig in the Softball Commish post.
Total Fucking Duds
Goddammit. It turns out, the long-desired draw-down in Dud chronicling was a pipe dream. Though it consumes an ungodly amount of time, goddammit, goddamn sonofabitch, shit fuck hell, I'm going to include every sack of crap Dud I can find in every Roundup from now on. Why? WHY? Because I missed this, in Monday's Roundup, and some knuckle-dragging degenerate had the stones to call me on it. I can handle missing a winner here and there, because it's possible picking winners is somewhat more subjective than picking the Duds. For the most part, Duds are duds. This comment, from Arthur_Digby_Sellers, is a dud. It's lazy as all hell. Its lack of spark is so great, it actually sucks the humor out of the entire page of comments. I should have included it. I have failed.
On to today's many Duds.
In the Wake Up Deadspin post, I wasn't a fan of this lazy contribution from Hustler of Culture. There is absolutely a joke there, but the raw idea is more or less tossed together here and it obviously fell flat.
Also in the Wake Up Deadspin post, this brutally clumsy offering from unstarred commenter CarlosPutts. That's about as awkward and overt a set-up as you're likely to find in a Deadspin comment. Not to mention, Gilbert Arenas is not an NBA fan, he's an NBA player. /shits diamond
Noted troll Phd_thc left behind this pancake-flat, humorless junk in the Manny Pacquiao post. Recently, somewhere, possibly DUAN, someone offered the wise suggestion that only those comments that actually make you (the commenter) laugh should be submitted. There's just no way this comment meets that standard.
Aptly named unstarred commenter Confirmed Moron used a dreaded inside-joke to step on his own comment in the Rex Ryan post. I hate this. HATE. Furthermore, Confirmed Moron is, in fact, longtime Mad Bastards All punching bag sacoplenty, with a new user name. Yes, I sussed it out. Pro tip: resurrecting your commenting career with a fresh identity is a gray area, but resurrecting your commenting career with the same lousy shtick, naming yourself after an insult hurled at you in a blog post, and then stomping all over your own jokes is about as clear cut an act of stupidity as there is. I will be watching your comments, son. Do better.
Also in the Rex Ryan post, this offering from unstarred commenter dondi203. This is interesting to me, because it's possible this is just a different angle on a joke - I'm willing to entertain that notion. But the specific set-up here makes a bad impression on me; it seems to indicate a lack of care in preparation - he couldn't conjure a clever presentation, so he went with "20 bucks to . . ." There could be a legitimate joke there, absolutely, but this just isn't it.
Nothing needs to be said about this thing, from unstarred commenter smecktacular, in the Green Men post. Try harder. Do better.
Unstarred commenter Duck With a Lisp struggled today. First, his contribution to the Leveled Ref Video post was shipped off to #memorablequotes by the comment_ninja. That's an excruciatingly painful comment, and I cringed at it. One post later, I groaned at his clumsy, false-premise-based comment in the Boise State post. Yikes.
Unstarred commenter DraftKing was viciously snarked by the comment_ninja for what is obviously a very lazy comment in the Leveled Ref Video post. So there.
In the Boise State post, unstarred commenter Kenny Powers left this clunky Colin Cowherd joke. Colin Cowherd is an easy target, and I tend to look favorably upon jokes that snark him. This one, however, is just a flimsy, lazy, pulse-less pile of crap.
I'm not sure what unstarred guy Von Kaiser was thinking with this thing, in the Boise State post, but the comment_ninja justifiably jumped up and down on it. Just suck the humor right out of the post, why dontcha?
And finally, thank God, this treat from unstarred commenter TheCFLAllstar, an entry to the So Bad It's Good file, from the Cricket Announcer post. Goddammit. Nothing about this comment works, and yet, I laughed aloud at it. What the hell.
Alright readers, on to DUAN.
Some favorites and more than a few duds from Tuesday's commenting.
Favorites, in no particular order:
In the Manny Pacquiao Puppet post, IronMikeGallego put together this funny shot at Shane Mosley, earning a pair of +1s.
In the same post, I really enjoyed Gamboa Constrictor's wonderfully insensitive one-liner.
Hatey McLife had a few winners today, including this funny one-liner in the Green Men post, and this dark Korey Stringer joke in the Boise St. post. Great job.
In the Serena Williams Stalker post, this joke from Fendi Hotdogbun is just beautifully constructed. The punchline is right at the very end, and without any tortured, awkward use of language to force it there. Nice work.
Also in the Serena Williams Stalker post, I really loved this goofy joke from newly-starred DJneuro. This joke requires a bit of an exaggerated double-take - I read the post, read the comment, went back and read the post again, and finally re-read the comment. It was worth it.
UweBollocks dropped a real winner in that same post, drawing laughter from the crowd. This comment thread is a good excuse to again bring up the topic of following up someone else's joke. For whatever reason, UpstateUnderdog wasn't happy letting the joke stand on its own, and I can see why this would drive someone up a wall. To me, this is stepping on someone's joke. The specific delivery of that punchline is what makes it so successful, and that's 90% of the work that goes into constructing the comment. Then another commenter comes along and walks all over that careful delivery. Why?
I'm trying to put together a Guest Lecture (or something similar) with one or more Deadspin commenters on the nuances of riffing on another comment and the general theme of following a joke vs. stepping on a joke. At the moment, this is just a conversation taking place via email. To join in, email madbastardsall@gmail.com or find me on Twitter.
RMJ=H's silly physics joke in the Leveled Ref Video post was good for a laugh. I'm surprised this comment didn't get a little love from the crowd.
Eddie Murray Sparkles dropped yet another excellent one liner, this time in the Charlie Bell post. Nice, straightforward, deadpan delivery.
And finally, occasional Mad Bastards All punching bag norbizness cracked me up with this silly, imaginative dig in the Softball Commish post.
Total Fucking Duds
Goddammit. It turns out, the long-desired draw-down in Dud chronicling was a pipe dream. Though it consumes an ungodly amount of time, goddammit, goddamn sonofabitch, shit fuck hell, I'm going to include every sack of crap Dud I can find in every Roundup from now on. Why? WHY? Because I missed this, in Monday's Roundup, and some knuckle-dragging degenerate had the stones to call me on it. I can handle missing a winner here and there, because it's possible picking winners is somewhat more subjective than picking the Duds. For the most part, Duds are duds. This comment, from Arthur_Digby_Sellers, is a dud. It's lazy as all hell. Its lack of spark is so great, it actually sucks the humor out of the entire page of comments. I should have included it. I have failed.
On to today's many Duds.
In the Wake Up Deadspin post, I wasn't a fan of this lazy contribution from Hustler of Culture. There is absolutely a joke there, but the raw idea is more or less tossed together here and it obviously fell flat.
Also in the Wake Up Deadspin post, this brutally clumsy offering from unstarred commenter CarlosPutts. That's about as awkward and overt a set-up as you're likely to find in a Deadspin comment. Not to mention, Gilbert Arenas is not an NBA fan, he's an NBA player. /shits diamond
Noted troll Phd_thc left behind this pancake-flat, humorless junk in the Manny Pacquiao post. Recently, somewhere, possibly DUAN, someone offered the wise suggestion that only those comments that actually make you (the commenter) laugh should be submitted. There's just no way this comment meets that standard.
Aptly named unstarred commenter Confirmed Moron used a dreaded inside-joke to step on his own comment in the Rex Ryan post. I hate this. HATE. Furthermore, Confirmed Moron is, in fact, longtime Mad Bastards All punching bag sacoplenty, with a new user name. Yes, I sussed it out. Pro tip: resurrecting your commenting career with a fresh identity is a gray area, but resurrecting your commenting career with the same lousy shtick, naming yourself after an insult hurled at you in a blog post, and then stomping all over your own jokes is about as clear cut an act of stupidity as there is. I will be watching your comments, son. Do better.
Also in the Rex Ryan post, this offering from unstarred commenter dondi203. This is interesting to me, because it's possible this is just a different angle on a joke - I'm willing to entertain that notion. But the specific set-up here makes a bad impression on me; it seems to indicate a lack of care in preparation - he couldn't conjure a clever presentation, so he went with "20 bucks to . . ." There could be a legitimate joke there, absolutely, but this just isn't it.
Nothing needs to be said about this thing, from unstarred commenter smecktacular, in the Green Men post. Try harder. Do better.
Unstarred commenter Duck With a Lisp struggled today. First, his contribution to the Leveled Ref Video post was shipped off to #memorablequotes by the comment_ninja. That's an excruciatingly painful comment, and I cringed at it. One post later, I groaned at his clumsy, false-premise-based comment in the Boise State post. Yikes.
Unstarred commenter DraftKing was viciously snarked by the comment_ninja for what is obviously a very lazy comment in the Leveled Ref Video post. So there.
In the Boise State post, unstarred commenter Kenny Powers left this clunky Colin Cowherd joke. Colin Cowherd is an easy target, and I tend to look favorably upon jokes that snark him. This one, however, is just a flimsy, lazy, pulse-less pile of crap.
I'm not sure what unstarred guy Von Kaiser was thinking with this thing, in the Boise State post, but the comment_ninja justifiably jumped up and down on it. Just suck the humor right out of the post, why dontcha?
And finally, thank God, this treat from unstarred commenter TheCFLAllstar, an entry to the So Bad It's Good file, from the Cricket Announcer post. Goddammit. Nothing about this comment works, and yet, I laughed aloud at it. What the hell.
Alright readers, on to DUAN.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Monday Roundup
(For dont-forget-where-you-came-from-cheese-mac's Guest Lecture on Commenting, click here. Email madbastardsall@gmail.com to discuss how you too can submit content to Mad Bastards All.)
Some favorites and mercifully few duds from Monday's commenting.
Favorites, in no particular order:
I loved this comment from Vodkanaut in the Robot post from this morning. We're still buying charming and silly at Mad Bastards All. Great job.
Also in the Robot post, this incredible thread, featuring UweBollocks, Eddie Murray Sparkles, IronMikeGallego, All Over But The Sharting, Same Sad Echo, cobra.la.la.la.la.la, bigredgambler, and all oiled up. Fantastic. +1s all around.
One more from the Robot post: this simple goofball joke from Eddie Murray Sparkles. Loved it.
In the Roger McDowell post, I really enjoyed this clever comment from UweBollocks, and so did the crowd. I'm searching for the appropriate term for a joke that references something from the actual visual or grammatical make-up of a Deadspin post. I first started thinking about this a while back when Hatey McLife used the thumbnail from the Monster Jellyfish post as a part of his joke in a separate post - the joke is a reference to what is seen on the screen, and not necessarily tied very tightly to the meaning of the article. Cinematography? Mise en scene? How can it be that I am actually devoting precious moments of my life to considering such things? It's realizations like these that really [gunshot]
I thought dont-forget-where-you-came-from-cheese-mac's Rent joke in the Heat Jersey post was terrific, even if it did blatantly encroach upon MarkKelsosMigraine's turf. In fact, I thought MarkKelsosMigraine's response was hysterical for its tongue-in-cheek tone. And, and, I laughed at Tulos_Mullet's final reply, referencing the other half of MKM's famous shtick. Awesome.
I like to think All Over But The Sharting blacked out while reading the Kronum post and woke up some time later painted in +1s. First, he did this. Moments later, this. Mere seconds later, he took Phintastic's challenge and dropped this. Still not out of Kronum jokes, he finished with this gem. That's just ridiculous. That's a lot of inspiration from a single post. Great, great job. Unbelievably, All Over But The Sharting pulled another Kronum joke out of thin air, this time in the Drunk Giants post, initiating this awesome thread, featuring Tulos_Mullet and Eddie Murray Sparkles. Kronum . . . who knew?
Gamboa Constrictor had by far the best joke in the Lebron/Bin Laden post, earning a round of applause from the crowd.
And finally, in the Terrifying Ledes post, David Hume went back to good old Kronum for a long, uproariously funny comparison. The crowd went nuts over this one.
Total Fucking Duds
I was a little gentler in my culling of Duds for today's Roundup. I've been meaning to get back to cutting down on this list, and today was a genuine opportunity to start, as there weren't so many flat-out terrible comments. There were still the average number of bad comments, but thankfully, most of them were honest-to-God jokes.
Our first Dud comes from unstarred commenter Broxtons_Buffet in the Snapshot of America post. Obviously, there's a lot wrong with this comment, but nothing more so than the self-referential nature of it. I can appreciate that in some crazy-ass head-on-backwards misguided sort of way, the "BOOM! TOPICAL!" thing is part of the joke, in the sense that Broxtons_Buffet surely thought it was funny and a funny way to accent the humor of the cruelly tortured one-liner before it. Sometimes, new commenters have a tendency to step on their own jokes or those of other commenters with either unnecessary explanations or follow-up or brutally clumsy, desperately misguided piggy-back jokes. Our guy Phintastic referenced this in a Mad Bastards All comment recently, in fact. This is an interesting, multifaceted topic with a fair share of subtlety - what is an appropriate riff on someone's comment? When is it appropriate to follow up one's own joke? The discussion, as I see it, is about the art of following a good joke, and it's a good one, and I think it'd be a lot more interesting if handled by a familiar name from the Deadspin commentariat. So, to Phintastic and everyone else, use the email at the top of the Roundup, and we'll put this thing together.
And finally, from the What In God's Name Were You Thinking file, this mind-bogglingly wrong-headed disaster from unstarred commenter The Misanthrope. Are you fucking kidding me? If I were The Misanthrope, I'd be pants-shittingly terrified that the comment_ninja might stumble across that thing. Holy macaroni.
Hey, welcome back, folks. Have a great DUAN.
Some favorites and mercifully few duds from Monday's commenting.
Favorites, in no particular order:
I loved this comment from Vodkanaut in the Robot post from this morning. We're still buying charming and silly at Mad Bastards All. Great job.
Also in the Robot post, this incredible thread, featuring UweBollocks, Eddie Murray Sparkles, IronMikeGallego, All Over But The Sharting, Same Sad Echo, cobra.la.la.la.la.la, bigredgambler, and all oiled up. Fantastic. +1s all around.
One more from the Robot post: this simple goofball joke from Eddie Murray Sparkles. Loved it.
In the Roger McDowell post, I really enjoyed this clever comment from UweBollocks, and so did the crowd. I'm searching for the appropriate term for a joke that references something from the actual visual or grammatical make-up of a Deadspin post. I first started thinking about this a while back when Hatey McLife used the thumbnail from the Monster Jellyfish post as a part of his joke in a separate post - the joke is a reference to what is seen on the screen, and not necessarily tied very tightly to the meaning of the article. Cinematography? Mise en scene? How can it be that I am actually devoting precious moments of my life to considering such things? It's realizations like these that really [gunshot]
I thought dont-forget-where-you-came-from-cheese-mac's Rent joke in the Heat Jersey post was terrific, even if it did blatantly encroach upon MarkKelsosMigraine's turf. In fact, I thought MarkKelsosMigraine's response was hysterical for its tongue-in-cheek tone. And, and, I laughed at Tulos_Mullet's final reply, referencing the other half of MKM's famous shtick. Awesome.
I like to think All Over But The Sharting blacked out while reading the Kronum post and woke up some time later painted in +1s. First, he did this. Moments later, this. Mere seconds later, he took Phintastic's challenge and dropped this. Still not out of Kronum jokes, he finished with this gem. That's just ridiculous. That's a lot of inspiration from a single post. Great, great job. Unbelievably, All Over But The Sharting pulled another Kronum joke out of thin air, this time in the Drunk Giants post, initiating this awesome thread, featuring Tulos_Mullet and Eddie Murray Sparkles. Kronum . . . who knew?
Gamboa Constrictor had by far the best joke in the Lebron/Bin Laden post, earning a round of applause from the crowd.
And finally, in the Terrifying Ledes post, David Hume went back to good old Kronum for a long, uproariously funny comparison. The crowd went nuts over this one.
Total Fucking Duds
I was a little gentler in my culling of Duds for today's Roundup. I've been meaning to get back to cutting down on this list, and today was a genuine opportunity to start, as there weren't so many flat-out terrible comments. There were still the average number of bad comments, but thankfully, most of them were honest-to-God jokes.
Our first Dud comes from unstarred commenter Broxtons_Buffet in the Snapshot of America post. Obviously, there's a lot wrong with this comment, but nothing more so than the self-referential nature of it. I can appreciate that in some crazy-ass head-on-backwards misguided sort of way, the "BOOM! TOPICAL!" thing is part of the joke, in the sense that Broxtons_Buffet surely thought it was funny and a funny way to accent the humor of the cruelly tortured one-liner before it. Sometimes, new commenters have a tendency to step on their own jokes or those of other commenters with either unnecessary explanations or follow-up or brutally clumsy, desperately misguided piggy-back jokes. Our guy Phintastic referenced this in a Mad Bastards All comment recently, in fact. This is an interesting, multifaceted topic with a fair share of subtlety - what is an appropriate riff on someone's comment? When is it appropriate to follow up one's own joke? The discussion, as I see it, is about the art of following a good joke, and it's a good one, and I think it'd be a lot more interesting if handled by a familiar name from the Deadspin commentariat. So, to Phintastic and everyone else, use the email at the top of the Roundup, and we'll put this thing together.
And finally, from the What In God's Name Were You Thinking file, this mind-bogglingly wrong-headed disaster from unstarred commenter The Misanthrope. Are you fucking kidding me? If I were The Misanthrope, I'd be pants-shittingly terrified that the comment_ninja might stumble across that thing. Holy macaroni.
Hey, welcome back, folks. Have a great DUAN.
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