I advised, yesterday, in a post about a young woman on TikTok whom Joe Rogan seemed to assume was sincere but I thought could very well be a comic actor.
I've encountered a similar case today, this time with Andrew Sullivan possibly not picking up the humor:
Good God. https://t.co/smp0CjFh03
— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) August 17, 2021
Sincerity is difficult! But I assure you that I'm being sincere when I say that I genuinely do not know whether this is a kindergarten teacher who is thoroughly pleased with herself or whether this is a young comic actor — I originally wrote "comedienne" and then de-gendered my terminology — who's embodying the role of a kindergarten teacher who is thoroughly pleased with herself.
Notice that her name is Koe Creation. That suggests a comic persona, but it could also be a name adopted by a real person who wants to express the feeling of creativity or of being a self-creation.
I see that she has a book, "This Heart Holds Many: My Life as the Nonbinary Millennial Child of a Polyamorous Family," and that Amazon lists it in the categories LGBTQ+ Biographies & Memoirs, Gender Studies, and LGBTQ+ Biographies. Not humor.
I really don't know! I won't assume. Maybe it's possible for a person to be nonbinary when it comes to seriousness and humor!
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i couldnt stop laughing it was so damn funny.
I think the point that many are making is that things are pretty bad when you can't tell humor and farce from reality...
IF this is comedy, it is lacking. Where is the twist or the satire or the pun or anything else that makes the watcher say "oh, I get it!" It also does not sound real. I hope it is not real, it it were, she should be brought up on charges of child abuse. No, I think it is a "story." Wish casting, hoping that one day the world WILL be just like that. A world were she can teach children all about their bodies and how those bodies are whatever they want them to be, the genitals used however they want to use them, and the old fuddy-duddy teachers will be all woke and shit and will be amazed at how transformative the new teaching style is where gender and race are the most important things to learn, and numbers and alphabet are only constructs of racist white male hegemony.
End part 1.
Part II, the woke alphabet
A is for Ass, you put things in it
B is for Butt, see A
C is for Caucasian. These are the evil ones
D is for demisexual, cause hetero is a no no
E is for expressive.
F is for unlawful carnal knowldge. We'll explain that after class
G is not for girl, unless you want it to be.
H is not for him or her, See X
I is for identity. Each morning go to the identity table and draw from the fishbowl to see what yours is today.
...
This is very seriously real self-congratulatory in nature. She's sincerely pleased with herself. It's not comedy because it's simply not funny. On the other hand, by today's comedy standards, this could be considered 'comedy' because today's standards does not include being funny. It could possibly be satire, but to what end? Who is the audience? I would not tune into it like I would other satire that is more...humorous in nature. And honestly, I may have missed the satire because my eyes glazed over at her level of self-pleasing.
No- this is real. And just in time. CCP Takes Financial Stake in TikTok
I'm sure the CCP loves and promotes this stuff going into the heads of our young people and especially the little ones. All will be good until they take over remove all of these people to Uighur-style camps. Pronouns will not save them.
Tik Tok, and basically all these ridiculous social media sites are a cancer upon our civilization.
Maybe she just posts TikToks to move the Overton Window, kind of like how our ex President tweeted.
Certainly got attention and conversation, which seems to be the point of that medium
she lost me at "gender and skin color". yes - please tell us this is a joke.
Especially skin color. The skin color wars are the opposite of Martin Luther King Jr's wisdom. The skin color wars are racism, straight up. Toxic poison for young minds.
Sad this is where the whacko left want to take us.
There's nothing wrong with the word "comedienne." So what if it refers to female comedians? It tells the reader something important, the sex of the comedian. There's another pesky gendered word: female.
In another example wokeness, the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine has decided that "breast" is too gendered and "breastfeeding" must from here on be referred to as "chestfeeding." What errant nonsense. If they really want to be consistent, they'll need to change "Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine" to "Academy of the Upper Body Birthing Person Feeding Medicine." But, that might still be too gendered for them.
I want to give a shout out to my cousin's wife who just completed grueling years of preparation and education (late in life) to be a teacher. She now teaches low income and mostly Hispanic children. I doubt very much this woke-gender-race garbage is on her agenda.
" It's not comedy because it's simply not funny."
As I stressed in the post, my question is whether this is *sincere* — is this a real kindergarten teacher or someone playing the role — an actor who has created the character of a kindergarten teacher. Does she think she's sending up this imaginary person? It's quite irrelevant whether it hits the mark for you. For the purposes of my analysis, an unsuccessful effort at comedy is the same as Andy Kaufman at his best.
I think it is sincere simply because it is identical to the way certain people I know in real life sincerely speak on similar topics.
I guess it could be imitation without attempt at exaggeration.
"For the purposes of my analysis, an unsuccessful effort at comedy is the same as Andy Kaufman at his best."
I will always believe that Kaufman is still alive and playing the ultimate prank on all of us. Some day he will return to save the day...
Unless something is VERY clearly satire/humor (or expressly labelled as such) I think the default assumption has to be that when a person speaks to the public, they are sincere.
If we don't have that default assumption, communication in the public sphere literally becomes impossible and every wokester's worst nightmare about power being the ultimate arbiter of things comes true as Humpty Dumptey takes over and says whatever he wants because it doesn't matter. He's master.
So if we are going to assume that people mean things, that means that we have to speak as if people are going to assume that we mean things. The onus of clearly and unqualifiedly demonstrating that we are engaging in satire, or being ironic, is entirely on the speaker.
And with that in mind, if you opt to treat Koe Kreation or whatever her name is like a real person, you're fully justified. And if she ends up getting fired for what she said, "It was just a joke" isn't really a defense.
(That's not to say she SHOULD get fired, or that she even has a job from which she COULD get fired. I happen to think it's a parody myself; it's the "Squee" that was the giveaway as far as I am concerned.)
"For the purposes of my analysis, an unsuccessful effort at comedy is the same as Andy Kaufman at his best."
Some of the best comedy is virtually indistinguishable from failed comedy.
I am Laslo.
Babylon Bee: Biden Administration Deploys Elite Squad of TikTok Influencers to Stop Taliban
Your humor detectors need replacing. Try Amazon, they have everything.
It is possible the Tic Toc creator is making it all up, but the video's purpose would not to be comedy but propaganda. I will take the young lady/boy at her/his word- it really is doing this with small children, and the school is ok with it. That definitely gets a Good God from sensible people.
Judging from an extensive internet and social-media presence, Koe Creation is both an "educator" (mostly for adults) and an occasional performer, but is definitely being sincere about who they are. (Yes, they go by they/them pronouns, which makes sense for someone who identifies as binary -- but it's a little confusing to me, since their overall presentation is that of a fun, attractive, dare I say delightful young woman.) Honestly, I think most of your commenters would just write this person off as a millennial kook if it weren't for the idea of teaching very young children about topics they aren't ready to handle. (For the record, I learned about polyamory fairly early in life myself, when I found an old paperback copy of "The Harrad Experiment" on my parents' bookshelf. It sounded like more trouble than it was worth.)
I'm inclined to go with parody or at least performance. She gets an awful lot of material in and hits her points very rapidly. She seems ditsy but there's nothing ditsy about how she structured this. The anecdote about the more experienced teacher and her reaction would have taken most people far more time to deliver and there likely would have been too many extraneous details. I'm not sure if the "squeee" is a tell. Totally plausible the character would say this.
Poe's Law: Without a clear indicator of the author's intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views such that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the views being parodied.
Corollary: There is no parody of so extreme that it won't eventually be serious adopted by someone.
For the purposes of my analysis, an unsuccessful effort at comedy is the same as Andy Kaufman at his best.
I always thought Kaufmann was brilliant and funny. This TikTok thing is neither. But to just examine the sincerity, as I stated, to me it comes of as very sincere. Horribly, awfully, nonetheless sincere.
"Unless something is VERY clearly satire/humor (or expressly labelled as such) I think the default assumption has to be that when a person speaks to the public, they are sincere"
When did Trump ever follow this rule?
Those who don't see my point: Do you spend time watching TikTok videos? I do. I've watched thousands of them. I see their charm, and many of them are young women (and men) doing characters. There's a style of comic acting that I've seen a lot (often with someone who does different characters, so it's clear that it's not the person). No one says: This isn't me but just a character I'm playing for comic effect. You're supposed to figure it out!
Didn't the flat earth movement start as a joke?
"I think it is sincere simply because it is identical to the way certain people I know in real life sincerely speak on similar topics."
This is why it would be satire. You've got something to satirize.
I assure you that I'm being sincere when I say that I genuinely do not know HOW you can pretend that you think that these people are Pretending to be freaks
They may (or may not) grow out of it; but i assure you... They're serious
remember back when You were 20? Were YOU pretending? Or, were You SERIOUS?
"You've got something to satirize."
But you usually try to take it just over the edge, amplify it a little. Therein lies the humor.
"I always thought Kaufmann was brilliant and funny. This TikTok thing is neither. But to just examine the sincerity, as I stated, to me it comes of as very sincere. Horribly, awfully, nonetheless sincere."
Try this experiment. ASSUME the performer is critical of people who act and say things like what you're hearing said in that video. ASSUME she wants the viewer to be horrified and outraged that there might be kindergarten teachers out there who think and act like this. Now watch it. Isn't it devastating satire? That anyone could think it is sincere will then be PART of the humor.
I love when comic actors can do this.
Still, I don't know.
"But you usually try to take it just over the edge, amplify it a little. Therein lies the humor."
2 answers:
1. She does amplify it (especially in the end).
2. Some of the best comic actors do not amplify it. Think of Charles Grodin and Phil Hartman.
"When did Trump ever follow this rule?"
I knew when Trump was joking. It was freaking obvious.
The problem with Althouses' take is that it denies the narrative and blunts virtue signalling. It's the young libtards who will kill woke pc culture. No one cares what boomers and genxers think anymore. It's a brave new world and we are strangers in a strange land. Best to take some Can-D and hang out in the layout with Perky Pat.
Freeman Hunt said...
"Didn't the flat earth movement start as a joke?"
I think it started as an insult (flat earthers = climate deniers) which morphed into parody, then was imitated by real life.
1. I don't watch Tik Tok videos...they are the property of the Communist Party of China.
2. Very nice to see Laslo back in the saddle...
The yellow teeth surprised me. Is that some new fashion trend?
For me, that took at least 60 years!!
"Some of the best comedy is virtually indistinguishable from failed comedy."
What is Python's Ministry of Silly Walks if not recontextualized bad slapstick?
From Wiki: "...Ben Beaumont-Thomas in The Guardian writes, "Cleese is utterly deadpan as he takes the stereotypical bowler-hatted political drone and ruthlessly skewers him. All the self-importance, bureaucratic inefficiency and laughable circuitousness of Whitehall is summed up in one balletic extension of his slender leg."[1]..."
But then -- of course -- the recontextualized bad slapstick grows old, too: from Wiki, again:
"As the years went by amid repeated requests to do the sketch, Cleese found it increasingly difficult to perform these walks. He would say, when told about a new Python tour, "I'm not doing silly walks." Accordingly, the sketch was not performed during Monty Python Live (Mostly), the troupe's 2014 reunion show.[2] It was replaced by "The Silly Walks Song", which was performed by a group of (younger) dancers who mimicked Cleese's original walks while wearing bowler hats and carrying briefcases..."
I would submit that Cleese found the difficultly not just physical but psychological: gamely repeating the humor for repetition's sake is how slapstick became failed slapstick - the belief of the performer in it being funny is gone.
So --in the 2014 reunion show* -- recontextualization, now with multiple dancers and a song: comedy is nothing if not meta, commenting back on what we once found funny and circumventing expectations to try to be funny again with the same set of building blocks.
*reunion shows succeed or fail by this recontextualization, too: too stuck in the past seems sad, whereas too modernized seems offensive to those that loved the original. In this loop one can also think of Saturday Night Live, in which every new cast is a reunion show with none of the previous members.
Because someone was the first to slip on a banana peel: (a long excerpt from Mental Floss but worth it, not just for Harold Lloyd reconnecting the joke) --
"...It is now a deadly weapon in Mario Kart and a slapstick comedy staple, but how did the banana peel gets its reputation as such a threatening object?
Before the discovery of its comedic potential, the banana skin was considered a real public hazard. In the mid-19th century, a man named Carl B. Frank began importing Panamanian bananas to New York City. The fruit quickly became a popular street food throughout America, but the surge in urban migration and lack of sanitation regulation posed a major problem in cities. People often tossed their garbage into the streets, leading to a general foul stench and public waste buildup. A fresh banana peel might seem non-threatening, but a rotting banana peel was a slime-covered booby trap...
Whether or not people frequently slipped on the rotten skins, the banana peel came to symbolize poor manners. Around 1880, Harper’s Weekly admonished anyone who tossed their banana peels on a public walkway, as this would likely result in broken limbs. In the book Bananas: An American History, author Virginia Scott Jenkins describes how Sunday Schools warned children that an improperly discarded peel would not only definitively lead to a broken limb, but that the person with the broken limb would inevitably end up in the poorhouse due to this injury. In 1909, the St. Louis city council completely outlawed “throwing or casting” a banana rind on public thoroughfares...
...The slipping-and-falling gag is widely accepted to have originated on the Vaudeville stage. The AV Club points to Vaudeville comedian “Sliding” Billy Watson – not to be confused with competing Vaudevillian Billy “Beef Trust” Watson – as the self-proclaimed inventor of the banana-peel pratfall. Supposedly, Watson witnessed a man struggling to maintain his balance after slipping on a peel. This inspired the “sliding act” which brought him great fame in the 1900’s.
Vaudeville comedian Cal Stewart often told many banana peel jokes as his copyrighted stage persona “Uncle Josh.” A 1903 recording of the bit “Uncle Josh in a Department Store,” features many references to banana peel-laden sidewalks.
The gag first appeared on the silver screen in the Harold Lloyd silent film The Flirt. While sitting in a restaurant, Lloyd’s character diligently peels a banana then tosses the skin on the floor. A snooty waiter walks by with a full tray, slips and falls. Chaos ensues. Buster Keaton heightened the gag in his film The High Sign (1921). Walking down the street, Keaton encounters a banana peel on the sidewalk. He proceeds to walk over it, but contrary to the audience expectation, he does so totally unharmed. Keaton puts his hands to his mouth and mocks the peel, only to slip on a second peel he didn’t see.
Though the traditional gag became very commonplace in silent cinema, comedians continued to find ways to improve the wheel, if not reinvent it. In their 1927 picture The Battle of the Century, Laurel and Hardy use the banana peel trick as an impetus for a full-scale pie fight..."
I could go on.
I am Laslo.
This isn't comedic, and she isn't trolling. She is dead serious.
Dumb Lefty Mark: "When did Trump ever follow this rule?"
Everytime he spoke.
Your team of wokey woke wokester hipsters simply chose to pretend the jokes weren't jokes so you could use the "serious version" as a political weapon.
Because you are dumb.
This is not complicated.
I think the video was quite serious. Granted, it can be hard to tell, e.g. "Gaia's Dancing Indigo Children" was run off of Facebook for tweets I thought hilariously satirical, and the Babylon Bee has been "factchecked" more than once. But I really think this is serious. It's missing that over-the-top edge that you can usually detect in comedy.
TikTok is today's 8x10, the pick-me-platform for now-people. And why not? Top earners pull down upwards of $5 mil a year. And if they become Influencers, a lot more $$$ pushing products. As to the above performer: she comes off like a cringey dope. Not funny as a comedian; kinda sad/needy as a person.
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