"And styles of comedy have political and cultural histories. Bluntly, scholars who study political communication and humor often find that liberals are ironic smart alecks and conservatives are outraged moralists. Some of us are a bit of both, but most of us have a psychological need to be one over the other.... Unfortunately, outrage makes more money, and today’s conservative media is much better at outrage."
Writes Tressie McMillan Cottom in "In the Political Talk Show Race, Outrage Is Winning" (NYT).
Dannagal Goldthwaite Young, a communication professor at the University of Delaware... pulls together a lot of research on psychology, history and media to explain why we find funny what we do. The need for closure is a big one. If you have a high need for clear-cut moral rules, then satire, which asks us to skewer our own beliefs, is going to make you pretty anxious....
Conservative media seems to be doing quite well. Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro are two of the most popular podcast hosts in the nation. There is no liberal counterpart to either.
Huh? What about Rachel Maddow? Last I looked, hers is the most popular podcast. Two sentences later, we're told that "MSNBC looks for its footing after Rachel Maddow’s exit."
When you look across media platforms, it is easier to see how conservative psychological preference for outrage bodes better for their growth in satellite radio, lifestyle media and, of course, social media.
Wait. I am not accepting that liberals don't go for outrage. Rachel Maddow is all about liberal outrage. There's no skewering of one's own beliefs! Liberals aren't satirizing themselves. There's no subtlety or self-deprecation. There's mocking of the other side — mocking based on outrage — and rectitude about oneself.
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Grab them by the pussy looms large on the left.
Wait. I am not accepting that liberals don't go for outrage. Rachel Maddow is all about liberal outrage. There's no skewering of one's own beliefs! Liberals aren't satirizing themselves. There's no subtlety or self-deprecation. There's mocking of the other side — mocking based on outrage — and rectitude about oneself.
This is the problem with leftist humor.
They have no self awareness and they cannot accept the truth about themselves.
That is why they must ban and censor all humor directed at them. That is why Obama could never self deprecate.
Progressives deep down know what they are and who they are and they know that nobody likes mediocre talentless shitheads who just want to tell everyone else what to do.
This makes them easy prey for the Oligarchs who need a technocratic class to manage their empire.
How much Political Humor is there?
If “the personal is political” then all humor is political.
Is Dave Chappelle an Outrage Moralist?
Trump is mostly a Political Humorist. His humor outrages the Left.
Once again, "scientific" research by a liberal academic proves that liberals are morally, culturally, and intellectually superior to conservatives. Dog bites man. This stuff isn't worth reading.
How can they publish that without mentioning the dominant late night host - Gregg Gutfeld?
It's first grade all over again, "You can run faster, but I can run farther."
"scholars who study..." based on grant money and other socially conditioned funding/network. I'm fairly middle of the road, but this sure seems like better relating the 90s or early 2000s than today's media landscape. It's also the case there's significantly more variety of left-oriented commentary simply because of the more outlets of different kinds, meaning scholars have to sift through more to get the results. Makes sense if we're talking about late night talk shows, but less so if we're talking MSNBC or a lot of CNN, where outrage, not ironic humor, both dominated their content and resulted in low ratings. I haven't seen Gutfield, but my sense it's more ironic smart-aleck than outrage.
"The Left can't meme" because they're outraged moralists with no sense of irony.
People with names like Dannagal Goldthwaite Young most often seem to be professors or authors and not as often MMA fighters or hockey players…..someone should study that.
No self awareness from this author.
The intentional destruction of left-friendly humor started in the 1980s. George Carlin would be treated as Joe Rogan is today. Back in the 1990s Jerry Seinfeld stopped doing his comedy routine at colleges because of too many "that's off limits" and "that's not funny" reactions. Joe Rogan is a stand-up comedian and goes pretty much everywhere. Bill Maher is a lefty of the last generation, and has been severely critical of today's left (also the Monty Python troupe). The now right-wing Steven Crowder would have likely been irreverent liberty-center-left back in the day.
The left became the New Fundamentalist Right by reciting politically correct mantras to the young before they could understand satire and irony. This indoctrination backfired and mutated into the Broke Woke, as those naïve adults were naïve in training the 3nd generation left too. Indoctrination always mutates into organic and natural human needs over time. Always.
Looking back at the 70s and 80s, it strikes me that progressives were often fairly cheerful and polite, even when they called conservatives fascists, or people hankering to go back to the Middle Ages. Surely the progressives were confident that they had history on their side; that their own picadillos, including the things that now offend the woke, would somehow be forgiven; and that conservatives would be defeated one funeral at a time. It is difficult for older progressives or the woke to have that kind of confidence today. Some version of wokeism may be winning, but they will keep turning on each other for not being woke enough--the way Commies have tended to turn on each other. Conservatives can latch onto certain things that seem traditional and worth defending--like not talking about sex too explicitly to young children; progressives might struggle to say exactly how much wokeism they want in schools. White progressives are prepared to express hatred for themselves and people like them, but how much hatred? How much is owing in reparations? How many distinct issues that seem to take us deeper into nihilism?
Rush Limbaugh could traffic in outrage because he knew, or pretended to know, that politically and culturally precious things, perhaps even the original constitutional rights, were under attack. Pro-choicers can play at least a bit of that old music for the 50-year old substantive right to privacy.
Unfortunately ...today’s conservative media is much better at outrage.
Maybe that's because today's progressives are doing more outrageous things.
"Huh? What about Rachel Maddow? Last I looked, hers is the most popular podcast"
No it isn't. It's not even top 20 by the number of listens per episode. She may be number one in say, Apple Podcasts, but in the aggregate she's average.
Huh. Any idea what she is talking about? The only "smart alecks" I know of are liberals patting themselves on the back and sneering at the right. Stephen Colbert, yeah? The one I think ever "skewers their own beliefs" is Bill Maher. And they're angry at him for it.
Someone actually trying to understand the real world: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/13/liberals-should-worry-conservative-comedy-00031907
Funny how liberals are always the 'smart ones.'
Cottom is wrong. Gutfeld is winning.
Bluntly, liberal scholars who study political communication and humor often find that liberals are ironic smart alecks and conservatives are outraged moralists.
I've added the word (in boldface) that was likely edited out.
"liberals are ironic smart alecks"
Like, who?
"conservatives are outraged moralists"
Rush? Gutfeld? MiIler? Stan Evans? Steven Hayward? WFB himself, for that matter?
"conservative media is much better at outrage."
Take a look at the pro-abortion ads shown locally.
"Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro are two of the most popular podcast hosts in the nation."
Joe is conservative?
"There's no skewering of one's own beliefs!"
Correct. Which makes you wonder if this is an exception to the Althouse theorem that people don't believe what they profess to believe--here, progs do seem to believe their own BS.
They've written the same article every election year for at least 20 years. Liberals asking liberals why liberals are so much more even-tempered and witty than everyone else.
It's pretty clear the success of select "conservative" media outlets is due largely to utter dominance of liberal media overall. Air America didn't fail because each host was bad at hosting, it failed because such product was abundantly available everywhere else.
Bluntly, scholars who study political communication and humor often find that liberals are ironic smart alecks and conservatives are outraged moralists.
The telltale qualifier "often." No one uses it as often as NYT.
If you have a high need for clear-cut moral rules, then satire, which asks us to skewer our own beliefs, is going to make you pretty anxious...
The contention that modern liberal humorists skewer their own beliefs has to be satire.
While bias is intrinsic, prejudice is progressive.
Two things:
1. Real problem - Late night TV is losing to smaller screens.
2. She: "Many Americans think the Supreme Court is partisan, if not outright corrupt."
We did think that, true. But Trump fixed it.
I can't recall the last time I watched Letterman, Conan, Jimmy, Jimmy or Colbert.
Not funny.
Famous libtard bummer sticker: If you're not OUTRAGED, you're not paying attention.
Is there anything on the left that corresponds to conservatives' embrace of being called "Deplorables"?
Oh fer fuck’s sake. Rush Limbaugh, the undisputed king of conservative commentary, was 99 percent ironic smart aleck and 1 percent outraged moralist; during the same period there were at least a dozen humorless scolds on the left serving up black-and-white moral certainty.
Leftwing talk shows skip the real outrage- and focus on the fake outrage and pure hatred of all things not-democrat. These people still believe that Russia stole the election from Hillary.
Joe Rogan is their go to example of a conservative? This sort of half-assed bullshit is exactly why these studies are always garbage. They work backwards from a conclusion and assign roles to meet their needs instead of actually looking at what's out there and analyzing what they find.
Back in the 1960's I saw Bill Cosby live. At one point I was laughing so hard I couldn't breath. Thank God he paused.
Chris Rock is funny sometimes. Dave Chappelle isn't bad, but they don't come close to Cosby in his prime.
The late night guys are awful. The little I have seen of Gutfeld doesn't impress me.
On the other hand I'm old and cranky.
The Left is always sure it is the smart persons' ideology. What is strange is how all their attempts to govern end in failure if not mass starvation. We are getting an accelerated version right now in this country and in Europe.
Decades ago, the quadriplegic cartoonist John Callahan drew a panel with the punchline “This is a feminist bookstore! There is no humor section!”
Wait. I am not accepting that liberals don't go for outrage. Rachel Maddow is all about liberal outrage. There's no skewering of one's own beliefs! Liberals aren't satirizing themselves. There's no subtlety or self-deprecation. There's mocking of the other side — mocking based on outrage — and rectitude about oneself.
Yet another time when you cover the topic so well I have nothing left to say, other than "Spot on"
I hate it when Althouse says everything that needs to be said.
I think this little factoid is due to the conservative humor of South Park.
a New York Times/Sienna poll reveals that Gen-X voters favor Republican candidates by a 21-point margin. - Real Clear Politics.
"We hate conservatives, but we hate liberals more," is their motto. That sounds a lot like ironic snark to me
Now that Liz Cheney is a democrat - the cat is out of the bag.
Democrats suck.
Yeah we lost Rush. He could be tiresome at times, but when he was on a roll he was hilarious. Never too serious because he was a happy guy.
Wah.
This, well, just silly. Where's the liberal counterpart to the Babylon Bee? Or to Stephen Kruiser and Stephen Green on Instapundit? Or Mark Steyn? Or, ffs, even Dave Chappelle?
All the genuine humor still around leans rightward. The Left tries to be funny, but the bitterness is literally everywhere.
I'm sure the author, like most of the NYT's readership is over 45, and is remembering how things were 15,25, or even 35 years ago. Letterman may have been funny before he turned into a leftwing crank, but the current crop of talkshow hosts were never funny. Or sophisticated. Or "Ironic". whatever that means.
This reminds of me of they way that old timey liberals still talk about how "edgy" "iconoclastic" it is to attack Christianity or Patriotism. Y'know like it was still 1968.
It'd be interesting to talk to some old boomer like Biden, Pelosi, or schumer, that hasn't lived in the real world for 40 years, and see what they think who the average American is and what Popculture is all about. I'd suspect they think TV shows are still showing All in the Family or the Brady Bunch.
Hey I listened to lefty "comedians" and dabbled in some of Rachel Maddow's snark for a while. Often times that was all that was on offer.
Now there are some "right wing" comedians like Greg Gutfeld. And as comedians might say, Gutfeld is "killing it" and has risen to the top of the heap.
Changes in taste come and go--but I'm liking Gutfeld's shtick to the extent I listen to tV comedians at all.
It's a false comparison. Liberals took over late night talk shows that were expected to have comedy. They could also build on the iconoclastic traditions of 1960s/1970s satire. Conservatives had a slower start. Limbaugh and Gutfeld are actually very good at satire, but liberal professors don't find them funny.
...TRUMP!!!!....TRUMP!!!!...CLARENCE THOMAS!!!...ALITO!!!...TRUMP!!!...TUCKER CARLSON!!!...JORDAN PETERSON!!!...TRUMP!!!....
Where was I; Oh, yes--Liberals rarely get outraged.
The problem with late night talk show hosts is/was that they gave good personality not necessarily good comedy. And what comedy they do/did perform was to vilify their political enemies. Like Jay Leno said " Once you choose a side you've lost half your audience." Damn. I miss Norm Macdonald.
"What is strange is how all their attempts to govern end in failure if not mass starvation."
Not for the ruling powers. Corruption gives a lot of wealth and power to those who are able to rise within the government systems. "Helping the poor" is just a rhetorical path to getting that power and leaving the poor worse off than before while increasingly committed to the cause because of the promises of more help and vilification of other approaches.
Bluntly, scholars who study political communication and humor often find that liberals are ironic smart alecks and conservatives are outraged moralists.
Always interesting to take a look into The Land of the Complete Opposite.
"She: 'Many Americans think the Supreme Court is partisan, if not outright corrupt.'
We did think that, true. But Trump fixed it."
HA! Now that's funny!
Or, it is accurate, if you mean Trump "fixed" it...(wink wink, say no more, say no more!).
I used to see ads for Samantha Bee's Full Frontal. She always seemed to be saying something like, "Anybody who says something good about Trump is probably a fascist, am I right? There was nothing ironic about it. Didn't seem very funny either.
Gutfeld! only wins because the competition is such garbage. The Left are smarmy prigs who wait for The Organs to tell them what to say.
Gutfeld is no great wit or intellect and neither are most of his guests, but they aren't cultists and halfwits either.
Lloyd W. Robertson said...
Rush Limbaugh could traffic in outrage because he knew, or pretended to know, that politically and culturally precious things, perhaps even the original constitutional rights, were under attack.
Limbaugh?! Outrage?! Bombast; yes! Hyperbole, yes! Outrage, never! The only outrage that came out of a Rush Limbaugh broadcast was came from the Left hating on Rush and his listeners!
Bluntly, LIBERAL scholars who study political communication and humor often find that liberals are ironic smart alecks and conservatives are outraged moralists.
FIFY.
"Anger" and "rage" seems to be the script. If Republicans win big next week it will be described as a tantrum, a result of anger and rage. When Democrats win big, the media assumes it's because of the Democrats' better ideas and general betterness.
Then there is the Molly Ivins' gambit. Leftists and progressives are always "punching up" and speaking truth to power while conservatives are always "punching down" and kicking the disadvantaged. There's much that's not true in that, but it's a handy template for leftwing journalists and academics.
Speaking of people who think the Eighties are still going on, I'm watching Starsky and Hutch (Seventies). In those days they did not wear seat belts in cars, anyone who wanted to smoked wherever they felt like it, women were attractive but not slutty, police officers had to find a payphone and a dime to call in. But nevertheless Hutch, the college guy, had all the ideas of the woke. He pushed them, too, but he didn't condemn and draw away from his partner, Starsky, who laughed at them all. It's strange looking at that show these days when we know how mean those who hold those ideas have become, how widespread those ideas are and how little things have improved.
Accidentally tuned into Limbaugh when he played montage of 19 msm personalities following orders and stating Cheny was lacking gravitas to be VP.
Became a fan.
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2021/03/04/one-of-the-greatest-eib-montages-of-all-time-gravitas/
I actually stopped watching TBS because they would insert two insufferable Samantha Bee rants per episode of Married With Children. I am happy she is gone, but I have moved on.
"Unfortunately, outrage makes more money, and today’s conservative media is much better at outrage."
Whereas "progressive" media excels at making unsubstantiated assertions.
Those "scholars" obviously never looked back to the 1940's and 50's when conservatives like Bob Hope, Jack Benny, the goofy Red Skelton, George and Gracie, Sid Caesar, Carol Burnett, Tim Conway, Dabney Coleman and many others were delivering their comedy without ever expressing "outrage".
Many others deliberately zinged both sides: Johnny Carson comes to mind. Ditto Rodney Dangerfield.
So the scholars are simply "studying" today's crop, but ignoring the history falsifying their argument.
What's more they've given the always outraged, ultra-liberal Meathead a good leaving alone.
p.s. Stephen Wright refused to comment.
Gutfeld has an eye for talent and likes smart people around him so the show beats its competition. It ain’t great just better than nothing, which can be a high standard.
Is there anyone more affable than Joe Rogan? More empathetic than Jordan Peterson? Was there anyone more cheerful than Rush Limbaugh? Even Michael Savage giggles between screeds. Mark Steyn can tell more sophisticated jokes in a minute than most lefties can achieve in a lifetime.
Taki Takidoris. Jim Goad. Even your better angels are trying to not laugh.
In contrast, the left has Chris Cuomo's giant Q-tip.
NPR has a satire show called "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me". I used to try to listen but it became impossible.
There's only one joke, endlessly repeated.
"Hey, did you hear conservatives are stupid?"
"Yeah, and they're evil too!"
Haw, Haw, Haw, Haw.
And yeah, it wasn't very funny the first time either.
Easily the most annoying repeated trope that comes from left wing pundits is this myth that progressives are 'too nice', 'too evenhanded', 'don't play dirty.' This would be the same left that ran with gang rape allegations against a Supreme Court nominee. Or the same left that boosted the candidacies of Trumpers in the primaries with the hopes they would be easier to beat. Never mind the collusion that took place to frame a duly elected president as a traitor. But sure they don't play dirty. I could list 500 other examples of how dirty the left plays.
But the one that really drives me crazy is the idea that the Republicans are uniquely the 'party of fear.' As if the Democrats don't constantly warn that Republicans want to destroy the earth, bring back slavery and are a threat to 'our democracy.' And on and on.
And now you have some one at the NYT pretending that only right wingers traffic in outrage. Its laughable and the lack of self awareness boggles the mind. Especially when bringing up the topic of 'liberal comedy.' Self awareness is at the heart of comedy. You really can't be funny while also being self righteous. Well, I guess you could be unintentionally funny, but...
In a cool medium, outrage jumps off the screen.
If this article was an attempt of Tressie McMillan Cottom to skewer her own beliefs, it would be mildly funny. The fact it seems serious makes it funnier.
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