|
| Just like in that movie guys. |
Watching news of North Korean despot Kim Jong Il's death roll in across the Twitterverse last night was educational in a lot of ways. For one thing, it was fascinating seeing what media outlets are asleep at the switch when it comes to midwifing other's scoops through the internetty birth canal, as one after the next shared the same news, re-tweeted, re-reported, and so on hour after hour. But more relevant to my interests was watching the real time disintegration of actual world-changing news as it devolved into a series of hacky jokes and Pavlovian pop culture referencing reflexes in record time.
As Max Read points out in this Gawker piece (which was also educational for me in that it reminds me to always be sure to instantly blog any thought I have no matter how inconsequential it seems at the time, or how many whiskeys deep one is into a Sunday night football coma, because if you don't someone else is going to beat you to it), Twitter is "the best place in the world at the moment news breaks and the worst place in the world five minutes later."
I had the same reaction as Read to the the "Team America" references in regard to Kim Jong Il's death -- whose name I have typed out in full because I'm not sure how to refer to a Korean the second time in an article, which is totally racist. Jong? Il? -- they were embarrassing to watch. It's not that I think the joke itself racist, because it may or may not be, it's that so many thousands of people's first reaction to the death of a truly horrible dictator, one of the worst of our time, a person who ruled over a literal dystopian horror show of a country, was to quote a not-that-funny joke in order to tap into the worldwide moment with their own "unique take."
"Hey, remember that pop culture reference we've all heard of?" is what passes for comedy on Twitter and Facebook now, and political discourse as well. Then again, I've never once laughed at South Park or anything else Parker and Stone have done, so maybe I just don't 'get it.' While I'm at it, get off my internet lawn.
My cringing reaction to the Twitter deluge of repetitious and predictable shtick is something I've been feeling a lot lately. As I wrote recently: "I simply can't follow people who's every tweet is a Twitterly-Twitter joke anymore. No one likes a try-hard who's always on. Be more boring."
You know the type of people I'm talking about, the ones with the non-stop word diarrhea accounts (and way more followers than my piddly 800ish), who fling joke after joke after joke at the wall, and seemingly never stop to reflect on anything else unless it can be distilled into a meta-internet quip in the exact same passive tone that everyone else is using. I never thought I'd say this bro, but what song are you listening to right now on @Spotify? What's your favorite pizza place? Just..give me something else. Take a knee for a minute. Be more human.
There's an important lesson here for these type of gag posters, whose identities depend so much on churning out product on the laff factory assembly line, which I am highly qualified to hold forth on because I'm the funniest person you know who's also made millions as a professional comedian: A big part of being funny is not being funny for a minute or two before you get around to the actual joke. It allows us, the audience, or the reader, to be surprised, which is the entire basis of humor. When we're constantly braced for the oncoming gag it makes us feel like a skittish squirrel trying to dart across the highway of bits.
There's a reason we maintain different levels of respect for the Carrot Tops and Gallaghers of the world than we do for someone like Louis CK, who meanders off the beaten path from time to time, lulling us back into a sense of security before he tears down the veil. The current Twitter comedy mode is the equivalent of watching a never-ending animated .gif of an air quote watermelon being smashed over and over again.
That's why I've had to stop following most of the "funniest people on Twitter!" personally. I guess they'll have to be content with their tens of thousands of followers without me on board. I just don't want to hang out with someone who's constantly on, forever doing shtick. Like a lot of you, I spend more time hanging out with my Twitter feed than I do actual people, so it's become exhausting to keep up with.
Do you actually know anyone who's a stand up comedian in real life? Miserable and quiet in their down time, right? Why, because they know there's a time and place for jokes. Also their fathers all hate them, and that sort of thing can really weigh a dude down.
--------
TURN IT OFF, DUDE
PTSOTL reader Philip Matarese feels the same way. He wrote a post on the subject just now that I was going to make it's own thing here, but we're essentially saying the same shit, so I've included it below:
After re-watching Hearts of Darkness, a documentary that’s arguably better than the film it’s about, Apocalypse Now, I got to thinking about how ‘pretentiousness’ really isn't a thing anymore. Francis ‘bum-wine’ Coppola was warranted in his concerns. The dude was wasting millions on a ‘magnum opus’ that wasn’t coming together. Plus, he was coked out of his noggin. Plus, Marlon Brando was just so fat. Super fat.
As for us Internettors, it’s unclear if the label ‘pretentious’ is applicable. For one, I don’t think anyone’s really proud enough of what they do. Everyone’s got that (now inherent) veil of ironic detachment. They try, but it’s just, like, whatever. Also no one’s even paying attention long enough to use a big word like “pretentious.” We’re all just “fags.”
Anyway, what I’m whittling down to is something PTSOTL’s tweeted last night: “Can't follow people who's every tweet is a Twitterly-Twitter joke anymore. No one likes a try-hard who's always on. Be more boring.”
There it is. Instead of making Apocalypse Now, we make puns and Photoshops and rebloggable nostaligia. While making jokes on Twitter isn’t pretentious, doing it all the fucking time kind of is. It’s gross to see a profile solely filled with fake thoughts and satirically misattributed quotations. Turn it off for a goddamn second.
To me, pretentiousness isn’t highbrow. I think of it as the forceful presentation of garbage. It’s a dude shining a spotlight on a pile of shit and going: “Right?!!!”
That being said, my Twitter is filled with quips about stupid shit. Fag.
brought to you by
3 comments:
"Hey, remember that pop culture reference we've all heard of?" is what passes for comedy on Twitter and Facebook now, and political discourse as well.
Spot on O'Neill. Here's something to think about though: hasty research shows that about 175 million ppl r on Twitter. Now, as long as we're assuming that most people are unimaginative boors that find shows like South Park funny (with you on that, never so much as a giggle from that show,)than think about how bad it will be when Twitter reaches Facebook type numbers.
Also, I always hear from people "I don't understand how Twitter works." Is that just because I live in a Midwestern armpit? And is there a specific "way" Twitter is supposed to work? Were people fooled by the notion that their Twitter account should be a non-stop joke stream as opposed to FB's "what I had for dinner" stylings?
Regardless, it's interesting to watch this evolution take place.
I used to not understand how Twitter worked -- I was pretty late getting onto it, like, really late -- but then I started to use it and, voila!, I understood it. Weird how that seems to go with, you know, everything.
It's like this piece http://motherboard.vice.com/2011/12/16/dear-congress-it-s-no-longer-ok-to-not-know-how-the-internet-works says...
Dear Congress, It's No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works
"Hey, remember that pop culture reference we've all heard of?"
-Seth McFarlane, rolling around on a mountain of cash with 14 rent boys.
Post a Comment