NYT "Cancel Culture" Parody Video
facepalm
First, the terms 'cancel' (used in the relevant way) and 'cancel culture' are stupid and annoying. I mean, the terminological annoyance is nothing compared to the lunacy of the relevant phenomenon. But still.
Anyway. This kind of nutty PC dogpiling, the "social media" version of the two minute hate, is psycho, of course. Like the rest of the PC package. But damn, that video just isn't funny. It's forced and artless, as if the NYT decided that it was obligated to do something to criticize the totalitarian left while that's still permissible...and it came up with this. The video equivalent of "Political correctness, amirite?"
Extremist crazies just aren't funny. I mean...they're funny in that they're large, slow targets of ridicule. But they aren't any good at producing their own intentional humor. The PCs are no better at it than the Moral Majority was. In the Great Chain of Humor, the PCs lie somewhere between the Khmer Rouge and the NRC. Which is probably why the left can't meme, incidentally. Which I used to think was just a funny insult...but it turns out to be actually true. There's no better illustration of all these points than Warren's cringetastick "meme team." Yeesh. Damn. Even if you loathe these guys, that's painful.
I actually think this is more than an incidental point. There's something weirdly important and instructive about humor. The humorlessness is itself humorous, and humor often tells us something--or points (and laughs) at something we can't quite articulate.
Anyway, I should give the NYT props for trying, and I do. 'A' for effort. I'm glad to see some indication that the facts are becoming less easy for them to ignore.
[Note: I couldn't actually finish watching the thing. Maybe it gets funny in the second half.]
First, the terms 'cancel' (used in the relevant way) and 'cancel culture' are stupid and annoying. I mean, the terminological annoyance is nothing compared to the lunacy of the relevant phenomenon. But still.
Anyway. This kind of nutty PC dogpiling, the "social media" version of the two minute hate, is psycho, of course. Like the rest of the PC package. But damn, that video just isn't funny. It's forced and artless, as if the NYT decided that it was obligated to do something to criticize the totalitarian left while that's still permissible...and it came up with this. The video equivalent of "Political correctness, amirite?"
Extremist crazies just aren't funny. I mean...they're funny in that they're large, slow targets of ridicule. But they aren't any good at producing their own intentional humor. The PCs are no better at it than the Moral Majority was. In the Great Chain of Humor, the PCs lie somewhere between the Khmer Rouge and the NRC. Which is probably why the left can't meme, incidentally. Which I used to think was just a funny insult...but it turns out to be actually true. There's no better illustration of all these points than Warren's cringetastick "meme team." Yeesh. Damn. Even if you loathe these guys, that's painful.
I actually think this is more than an incidental point. There's something weirdly important and instructive about humor. The humorlessness is itself humorous, and humor often tells us something--or points (and laughs) at something we can't quite articulate.
Anyway, I should give the NYT props for trying, and I do. 'A' for effort. I'm glad to see some indication that the facts are becoming less easy for them to ignore.
[Note: I couldn't actually finish watching the thing. Maybe it gets funny in the second half.]
posted by Winston Smith at
7:45 AM
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