Nice things said about bad things (1152 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.65 on 23 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Spencer Thompson (View user info) at 2006-02-23 07:34:53 EST
The internet has stagnated as a comedy medium. While it has at times shown promise it seems these days that is has now become inundated with rants about Emo kids, people who pop their collars, and how dumb hippies are. And the people who do this are convinced that they're funny and special, entirely oblivious to just how uncreative they are. This applies to a lot of reviews here at Ubersite, too. I'm sorry, "go cry emotears into your boyfriend's popped collar" can get a cheap laugh, but you're not exactly blazing a trail here. You're actually about as unoriginal and tedious as they come, more or less copying Maddox, George Carlin, and tons of other comedians who did the same things before and better than you. Saying mean things about people who deserve to have mean things said about them is just not hard. And I've always been about the level of difficulty when it came to comedy (and gymnastics). Wouldn't it be harder to say nice things about these people and make it funny? It might not just be harder, it might be impossible, but goddamn it I'm going to try.
Emo Kids - For awhile there not a single guy in America could stop complaining about boy bands. They didn't write their own music and they barely did a single thing. Yet one day they disappeared almost all at once and nobody noticed. Why? The 12 year old girls who worshiped them grew up to realize that they were never going to have a boyfriend that cute and had wasted their entire childhood following the every move of five guys without any semblance of talent. And so they got depressed, started cutting themselves, and listened to songs about lost love. And this has benefitted us, as well. From this we now know that depression medications actually improve the possibility that a person may commit suicide. The razor industry is booming like never before. All thanks to Emo kids. And say what you want, but every great writer or philosopher was an Emo kid at heart. Franz Kafka, Nietzsche, Anne Frank... if alive today, ALL would have a LiveJournal.
White Suburban Thugs / Actual Thugs - No matter what your opinions regarding economics and how the government should handle it, you simply can't deny the fact that the gap between the rich and the poor just continues to get wider. The wealthy are becoming richer and the poor are becoming poorer, and this is where we begin to see John Edwards' theory of "Two Americas," the America of those who Have and the America of those who Have Not. Now, we can't stop the widening of the gap. That's called progress. What we can, however, is convince the poor people that they're not really all that poor. By sending our rich white children out into the public wearing crappy clothes, the poor people will begin to think that we're poor, too. Similarly, by giving Tyrone (an unemployed father of three selling crack to buy more, fancier crack) a $500 cell phone and rims we can convince him that he's not actually poor. It's been proven in studies that when you're unlikely to realize you haven't eaten in three days when you're busy downloading the "Laffy Taffy" ringtone. So by this strategic deployment of White and Actual Thugs, we can convince ourselves, and more importantly other countries, we're not slowly killing off the underprivileged to make way for a superrace.
Scientologists - I believe most people are familiar with the theory that if you let a hundred monkeys type at a hundred typewriters for a long enough time they would eventually produce the entire works of Shakespeare. This is equally true with religion. If you let a hundred prophets interpret a hundred sacred writing for a long enough time, eventually they will actually be right. And it's going to happen, but until then, we can't criticize every other "jheh ehrherioy afm,dkbvvsvesjkekl" to come out of the typewriters and monkeys, or in this case sacred writings and prophets, or in this case science fiction novels and struggling authors, room.
People Who Talk on Their Cell Phones - Cell phones are a new form of communication, and sometimes it takes people a few years to adjust. Right now we're in that awkward phase where people don't quite know how to handle it, but that's normal with all new forms of communication. If you lived in the 1890's, you would probably complain all the time "that guy is reading his telegraph right in the middle of the saloon," but if you were to say that now you would sound like an anti-communication prude. You'd also probably be mistaken for a civil war reenacter. People would ask what it was you hated about people learning things and communicating, and would call you a fascist. And a fascist civil war soldier? That makes sense.
Diabetes - Next time you think about complaining that your grandmother has diabetes, remember this: so does Osama Bin Laden. And how else are we going to take him out?
Airport Security - What about the one time that five year old DOES hijack the plane? I mean, those shoes light up, and you know what else does? Enriched uranium. People were saying it's ridiculous that they would prevent a baby from boarding a plane because its name was on the No-Fly List. Yeah, well, who names their baby Muammar al-Qaddafi? People with the audacity to train that baby to wield a box cutter, or at least a sharpened rattle. And with the time you spend standing in line, waiting to go outside, kind of reminds me of elementary school, and those are pleasant thoughts. That's courtesy Southwest. The only trip that won't get delayed is the one down memory lane.
Reality TV - The term "reality television" is a misnomer. It's not intended to show reality, but rather to drag us back into it. Every single sitcom I watch these days becomes more and more formulaic, nearly as much so as my actual life. As one show's Anti-drugs episodes segues into another show's Anti-drugs episode segues into your brother going to rehab for a prescription drugs addiction, sometimes we forget where exactly our lives end and television begins. Without reality television we might forget what reality actually is. After two hours of family sitcoms we need to see some guy get voted out of a small apartment made of marshmallows to remind us "Oh yeah, TV is fake."
The Postal Service - It does seem like you can't send a package anymore without it arriving all chewed up and destroyed. But that's not so much shoddy service as it is an action-packed adventure. Getting a package safely from my place to someone else's is much more exciting than Frodo and his group of Merry Men trying to take the One Ring to Mordor, because that lucky ring had the advantage of being handled by people that actually cared, not mention they weren't
dead and unfeeling inside. I imagine the package first not being stamped "fragile" as requested, setting the stage for its upcoming hardships. Then I see it avoiding falling boxes as it slides across the floor of a badly driven van. Delicately navigating the airport as it attempts to get on the airplane bound for its eventual destiny. Narrowly avoiding exploding letterbombs as it makes its way through the nation's capital. And finally making it home to the post office without being delivered to the wrong house, that of a serial package rapist. If you can't get excited about that perilous journey, you don't have a pulse.
This article - It might have been another time where I had a good idea, and it could've been good if only I could have executed it properly and make the jokes more subtle, and while we're at it, funny... but you know what we learned today? When you type Scientology into WordPerfect, it's recognized as a spelling error. Emo, on the other hand, is not. And if that doesn't entertain you in some strange way, then goddamn it I'm done even trying.
User Reviews
Submitted by CrazyHorse (user info) at 2006-02-24 15:24:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Funny
Damn Funny..
Damn Fucking Funny...
yo..
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2006-02-24 00:50:50 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I laughed multiple times.
Submitted by leilani (user info) at 2006-02-23 23:23:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
funky fresh
Submitted by Kale (user info) at 2006-02-23 23:11:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by IronRhino (user info) at 2006-02-23 22:46:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Good concept, but it dragged a bit.
Submitted by ampersand (user info) at 2006-02-23 16:03:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
+1 Some good points, particularly about the poor people with $500 cells and bling blinging rims.
+1 The bit about the poor people with bling is a really, really good point. That bugs me to no end.
-1 You go on about how unfunny and unoriginal everyone else is, but this wasn't very funny and only semi-original. Plus, saying nice things sarcastically doesn't qualify as nice.
-1 All great writers/philosphers were Emo kids? I think Aristotle and Plato might disagree. So might Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Wilde, and Byron. Especially Byron.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2006-02-23 15:29:37 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
was this supposed to be funny?
i hope not.
Submitted by mtgn37 (user info) at 2006-02-23 15:14:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
im going to word to check that out now.
Submitted by pragmatic (user info) at 2006-02-23 14:11:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I like it, good ranting.
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-02-23 14:07:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
nice things about bad things would be turning the other cheek kind of deal. or love thy enemy. most people just don't have the capacity, this was great though.
Submitted by retrospect (user info) at 2006-02-23 14:07:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
i likey
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2006-02-23 14:05:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by BuckeyesTHEGAME (user info) at 2006-02-23 13:08:38 (#)
Ranking: 2
What the fuck, man? Absolute crap gets a zillion hits. Spencer writes something new and fresh and it's ignored.
This place is SO not what it used to be.
--------------
it's not self-fellatious enough for this place. tigerlilly is making prosthetic leg jokes somewheres else so everything worth reading must be ignored.
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2006-02-23 13:59:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
on a serious level, it really is baffling as hell to think positively about things you dislike. It's wishing well a person who disgusts you, or hoping the Colts win the super bowl, or getting excited about shopping. i liked this.
on another level, i didnt understand any of the jokes because there were no swear words and no reference was made to rape, but one time. the serial package rapist. i laughed once.
Submitted by BuckeyesTHEGAME (user info) at 2006-02-23 13:08:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
What the fuck, man? Absolute crap gets a zillion hits. Spencer writes something new and fresh and it's ignored.
This place is SO not what it used to be.
Submitted by G-prime (user info) at 2006-02-23 10:43:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Yes? BOOBS. *grabs a boob*
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2006-02-23 10:37:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
You're a smart kid. You're going to do all right in this life.
Submitted by dove666 (user info) at 2006-02-23 10:16:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Good read. Well done.
Submitted by Pentameter (user info) at 2006-02-23 10:12:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
You're pretty sharp.
Submitted by ubetidid (user info) at 2006-02-23 10:03:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by BuckeyesTHEGAME (user info) at 2006-02-23 09:52:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Ok, I don't say this very often, but this is absolutely brilliant. I mean, this is like something you'd read in an e-mail forward that you actually liked enough to send on.
I'm very impressed. I'm even going to submit it to B@W. I like it that much.
Submitted by w_t_a_y_s_t_r_m (user info) at 2006-02-23 08:04:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Fair points
Submitted by Call911 (user info) at 2006-02-23 07:57:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Almost a plus 2... but could have been better.
Submitted by Spooner (user info) at 2006-02-23 07:35:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I already used that picture in an article before, didn't I?
Yeah well fuck you.