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something I’ve been thinking about today is how humor shapes culture
the shift from the 90’s “Beavis and Butthead” era (it’s fun to shock stuffy conservatives”) to the 00’s/10’s Cards Against Humanity era (“it’s fun to shock sensitive liberals”) affected more than just comedy
the shift from the 90’s “Beavis and Butthead” era (it’s fun to shock stuffy conservatives”) to the 00’s/10’s Cards Against Humanity era (“it’s fun to shock sensitive liberals”) affected more than just comedy
like they’re both connected by the common threads of cynicism and nihilism, but a lot of 90s humor was about poking fun at like the Boring Traditionalists of the Reagan era, whereas “South Park” set this trend that peak humor is to mock the very idea of caring about anything
even just the device of killing Kenny over and over is like a reminder that they don’t even want you to get emotionally attached to the CHARACTERS, that’s how much caring about things is anathema to them
whereas now Peak Humor is like, the kids with the vines and the memes and the tiktoks, and it’s more about just surrealism and absurdity and it’s cynical in a different way?? less cruel, more .... empathetic slash exhausted?? but there’s not the same glee in punching down
which is why in some ways it’s fruitless to be like “I NEVER liked that” or “I NEVER thought that was funny” because like .... it wasn’t just one show or one game, they were incredibly powerful social forces that shaped what we thought was okay to joke about across the board
I also feel like at some point we might need to have the conversation about how a lot of the aforementioned toxic cynicism and nihilism was shaped by the fact that one of the dominant voices in comedy and culture for DECADES was an increasingly weary and bitter Jon Stewart.
I loved The Daily Show, you loved The Daily Show, we all loved The Daily Show, it gave us Sam Bee and John Oliver and Larry Wilmore (who all went on to produce their own much more complex and thought-provoking shows)
(R.I.P. Larry Wilmore’s show which was honestly so underrated)
(R.I.P. Larry Wilmore’s show which was honestly so underrated)
But like Jon Stewart’s version of The Daily Show is indisputably a creation of that era of humor and its tone was very specific