1%ers [majorly updated 8/10 for our morning drivetime listeners]
Mithras and Atrios and so forth have been asking that musical question, “Where are all the funny conservatives?”
Conservativehumor.net: First Site to Destroy Liberals’ 99 Percent Control of Political Humor
Not a groaner in the bunch. But perhaps the key insight here is amber-trapped in the phrase, ‘It’s funny because it’s true.’ The tradition of teh funny as a way of yanking hidden truths into view (and vice versa) goes back at least to classical Greece (Lysistrata, for instance, is still hilarious), while the conservative equivalent of ‘funny’ is, and has nearly always been, dependent on blar-harring. Its distilled nectar is almost pure variants on, “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” and, “I boldly sneeze on thoughtfulness and amity.”
Am I joking? Voici:
L-R: Laugh-riot Glenn Reynolds, Mrs. Reynolds, the side-splitting Michelle Malkin, Drew Curtis (apolitical, genuinely funny), and Bill “The Joke Man” Whittle.
It’s not exactly the lowest form of humor: The school of “Hey, what’s up with those airline peanuts?” is several rungs lower. (The pun is in fact among humor’s higher forms, ranking near slapstick and people running around with huge comedy whangers boinging out of their pants. Again, the Greeks set the rules circa 400BC, and little has been discovered since.)
But it isn’t (if I may say) funny, because real liberals — rock-ribbed, joy-and-sadness-feeling liberals with convictions and huevos, with a CD collection with both soft and loud shit in it, and the adult human capacity both to comfort the afflicted and kick a fool’s ass — don’t think in terms of perceived PC sacred cattle, and aren’t gainfully offended by seeing them poked-at. It’s just like, “pff.” In Reynolds, as above, they see a veal-complected chump with a gun T-shirt, and wonder if he’s ever fired one; in Malkin, an immigrant-spawned Quisling who doesn’t (who can’t) know what ‘nuke’ really means, wearing a punk-ass shirt that might as well read, “Someone please hurl a tomato at me, because I have never felt enough humiliation in my over-rewarded life to become a whole person.”
THEY aren’t funny because they’re not the comedians in this classic, 2500-year-venerable mise en scene. They’re the objects, the straight men, the butts. They aren’t funny because IT is funny — this drama — and WE are the comedians. I didn’t make the rules, and neither did you; they simply are.
Is it necessary to add photos of John Podhoretz, of the orange-crested Brent Bozell, of Jonah Goldberg? Does one need to see John Hindrocket with his clean-lined, college-boy face molded by time and habit into a palpably arrogant Der? John Podhoretz (again): The man looks like the stink of an insole, yelling at you. He writes like one too.
Ha ha! Me big smash!
Unfortunately, there’s nothing much they can do about that either, besides studying Hitchens and his lineage (Mencken, these days, is ours) to at least learn cleverness — the art of the zinger and the rhetorical judo throw. ‘Bwaah-ha-haaa!’ isn’t a canny rebuttal.
The one foundational skill that they haven’t, and cannot learn (if I may say), is the one that liberals have natively: The ability to see the other side, to weigh its balances and navigate its estuaries. In short, we understand quite well what they believe and how they think, so we can easily whip their tablecloths off the table, leaving glasses and dishware spinning in place. We can yank their briefs over their heads with a gainful flick — it’s often so easy it’s not even sporting.
But when they try to do that to us, they don’t know any better than to whoop about Ward Churchill, about ‘treason’ or Barbra Streisand — to say ‘heh’ or ‘how about them apples,’ or to call liberals pussy pansies while they (to steal an excellent phrase from Firedoglake) are themselves, almost without exception, a bunch of ivory-cheeked swivel-chair hussars, afraid of strangers and their own shadows. They simply have no idea, and no thought-habits to gain it, how we really think, or what we feel, and why; or why we so often find it comical when they express themselves. It’s funny (to us) because it speaks to a larger truth — one about idiots, and their folk beliefs and bugaboos throughout history, their millennially-seasoned methods for fooling themselves, and hopefully others. History, both ancient and modern, is thick with idiots, and they are always the same. That’s funny!
One asks where all the funny conservatives are. Jeez almighty, they’re a calliope-soundtracked whoop-de show of self-seltzer-bottlings and banana peel skiing! They’re demonstrably wrong about something five times before breakfast, and huffingly arrogant about it by lunchtime. Who could ask for a better espadrille of stunt planes? (John Cole is both a conservative and laughing-with funny — an exception that ruins a near-alchemic purity of Yoink!) And having read this, they still won’t get it. Dense as a lead cantaloupe. Empathic as a stump. Oliver Hardy on the mic. Trying to play Kashmir on a bugle. Krumping in dive flippers. Soulful as a dialtone.
Should they stop trying? Absolutely yes! We wish so much that they would be more civil. Please, please, Bre’er Fox, don’t throw us into that ol’ prickly thorn bush anymore. Please, please!
By its severe lack of content (funny or otherwise), I take it to be satire.
That’s because you have a capacity for irony. See, you’re already way ahead of them.
PJ O’Rourke is pretty damn funny. I think libertarians generally have much better senses of humor than conservatives because they aren’t caught up in all the ridiculous jingoism of guys like Assrocket. The Christian Right, of course, are hopeless. Ever read “Faith Mouse?”
I think it is real, but it isn’t fabulous.
That site makes me laugh and laugh.
If the url you provided wasn’t hacked, I’m confused…Latin posts, a blank “New Humor” page…where’s the funny? I realize this is probably satire by us “liberals” but I was actually expecting commentary from the other side of the fence. Plus, you have a picture here. Either I’m slow or too literal, because I was actually expecting a real site.
People Political is the funniest site on the internets!
The conservative humor archetype is Nelson’s “Ha-Haw” from the Simpsons. The highest form of conservative humor has always been the wedgie. That’s what you’re conservative suspect parade are doing.
If the url you provided wasn’t hacked, I’m confused…Latin posts, a blank “New Humor” page…where’s the funny?
Voila! The page is real, btw.
hmmm…
“We are rated #1 in Google when ‘conservative humor’ is searched.”
Let’s see if I can figure out how to do this:
Conservative Humor
hee hee!
Looks like it’s Googlebomb time.
Conservative humor? I believe that would be “bile.” Or, just possibly, “phlegm.”
That has to be, hands down, the funniest lorem ipsum on the Internets. For serious. I was just about peeing myself. Those wacky conservatives!
The highest form of conservative humor has always been the wedgie.”
First, I would respectfully submit that many humoroligists consider the ‘noogie’, (a’ la Biff Tannen), to be the pinacle of conservative humor.
But second, and perhaps more importantly, there is a growing movement in the humor field supporting the ‘Bush malapropism’ (or ‘Bushism’ in some circles) as surpassing both the wedgie and the noogie as the new standard to strive for in conservative humor.Only time will tell.
Conservative Humor? Why don’t they make like a tree, and get out of here?
Seriously though, whatever it is on the events page, its not Latin. At least not comprehensible Latin anyways…
Fo’ shame! Referring tp Uncle Remus! This jus’ proves dat you is a racialist!
Excuse me, liberal assholes, but when one of you can come up with a retort half as snappy as “Heh – indeedy,” I’ll stop masturbating at FrontPage….and that’s a PROMISE!
For some reason that photo reminds me of the Sadly, Yes classic: It’s Family Picture time! (Just Saying Hi!)
99% of Democrats give the rest a bad name.
A bad name? Like Marie Jon’? That would be a terrible thing to name your daughter. (or son) Just look at how our MJ turned out!
This post is 100% wrong. That pic of Whittle in a Bruce Lee pose is goddamned hilarious.
Man, Gavin, that was so well done. They say that analyzing why humor is funny takes the funny out of it, but you’ve proved that analyzing why something’s NOT funny can be humorous. But most importantly, you’ve put your finger on every component of why this simply reactive, “in-your-face, weak-kneed liberal pussies! [that’s the first time I’ve ever used that word–congratulate me]–we’re funnier than you!” conservative “humor” is so dead in the water that it’s literally pathetic. It was majorly satisfying to read because I knew there was a good reason why these people will never be funny, but I didn’t think it through. Hey, you done mah thinkin for me!
That elephant is a rip-off of the Flying Hellfish tattoo from The Simpsons.
http://www.flyinghellfish.com/
Can’t these guys think up anything original?
What it boils down to is also a fundamental disrespect/lack of understanding of language. A lot of conservatives don’t even KNOW what humor is – they have this vague idea that it involves a smile, perhaps laughing, and mistake self-satisfaction for humor. Hence, the “libruls is pussies” as a central theme of their funny-making. Makes ’em feel good, so it’s “funny.”
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If you don’t find that funny, you have no sense of humor.
I don’t have a sense of humor. I also don’t understand Latin. Could the two things possibly be related?
One of the best things I’ve read at Sadly, No!
Oh, look – now I’m gushing.
What’s interesting is that people who do develop a sense of humour do in fact become more liberal (at the very least, more socially liberal.) I’ve seen it time and time again.
I tired to do an online translation of that latin, and half of the words didn’t translate, so I gave up.
BTW, Conservative Humor
OK, just a quick note about the latin on the conservativehumor.net page. That is Space Filler; been in use for ages for when you have a design template (this goes here, that goes there) but no content yet. Why one would need to use it in a web template boggles the mind, but that is what that stuff is; just latin-babble to fill space for their template.
In effect, they got nuthin.
What’s Drew Curtis doing with that gang of buttnuggets?
Regarding the *ahem* conservative joke shown above (the one with the Hellfish rip-off logo), it’s occured to me that you could replace “Democrats” with any group and it would make as much sense. To wit:
99% of Republicans give the rest of us a bad name.
99% of libertarians give the rest of us a bad name.
99% of Socialists give the rest of us a bad name.
Or, you could use single issue groups:
99% of pro-lifers give the rest of us a bad name.
99% of men’s rights activists give the rest of us a bad name.
99% of environmentalists give the rest of us a bad name.
How about religious groups?
99% of Protestants give the rest of us a bad name.
99% of Muslims give the rest of us a bad name.
99% of atheists give the rest of us a bad name.
It doesn’t even need to be a political group:
99% of women give the rest of us a bad name.
99% of senior citizens give the rest of us a bad name.
99% of caucasians give the rest of us a bad name.
99% of Americans give the rest of us a bad name.
99% of people named Jim give the rest of us a bad name.
You get the point. It’s not even a joke, it’s a joke template, which is absolutely the laziest form of humor there is. Pick your fall guy, drop him into the appropriate slots, and voila – instant funny with just a touch of controversy and no effort expended.
ivory-cheeked swivel-chair hussars
Oh my God. I’m in tears here. How do you find time between murdering blastocysts and plotting the downfall of Western Civilization to come up with something so sublime, so transcendently pithy and concise? Seriously, I’m going to start using that, and I’m NOT going to credit you, because you know how it is with us liberals and intellectual property rights. DEATH TO AMERICA!
Is it any wonder conservatives aren’t funny when they’re essentially the jocks of the high school of life? Were any of the jocks in *your* high school truly funny, or did people just laugh at their jokes because they didn’t want to get beaten up or left out?
99% of the people who think that consevatives can be funny or exhibit a sense of humor must have guffawed themselves to death over “Hee Haw”. There’s a class of humor the late Robert Heinlein used in his 1966 Nebula Winner “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”. Manny, a “computer tech” living on the moon, discovers a sentient computer named Mike. Trying to explain humor to Mike, Manny uses the term, “Funny Once” refering to jokes that were cute but that’s it, don’t repeat them. Conservatives don’t even come up to “Funny Once”! Just like Georgie trying to “milk a horse”, eh, Laura? Sadly, Sad!
I’m kind of sad that no trolls have come over insisting that conservatives are funny. Maybe the trolls are all busy at Pandagon.
Through Mithras, I’ve been discussing the finer points of humor over at IMAO
I tell you whut, ever since I learned how to embed a link in text, I’ve been loving life.
I see now why World’O’Crap pays you so much cred. I’m having one of those ‘Don’t you hate pants?’ moments!
Trying to explain humor to Mike, Manny uses the term, “Funny Once” refering to jokes that were cute but that’s it, don’t repeat them. Conservatives don’t even come up to “Funny Once”! Just like Georgie trying to “milk a horse”, eh, Laura?
I disagree. It actually was pretty funny the first time I heard it. But, I was ten or so. And I grew up in a suburb.
Reposting this from a different, incorrect thread.
The odd thing is that I saw pretty much this same, exact discussion going on, I believe, in comments on Kevin Drum’s blog. About a week-or-so ago. Except, it was mostly wingers claiming that they knew of plenty of funny right-wing blogs, but had despaired of finding any humor on the left. A few commenters suggested a few of the usual suspects, like norbizness (but not S, N!), but the right-wing types dismissed all of them as just shallow snark, not “real” humor, not funny. So, judging by this comments thread, and those right-wing comments, perhaps the two sides’ senses of humor are completely alien to one another. ‘Course, I still think we are correct in this matter….
Well, if someone can say that Norbizness is ‘not funny,’ that means their sense of humor is stunted or numbed.
It’s not subjective; Norbizness is funny. This is science.
That elephant is really starting to piss me off. Not only is it a blatant rip-off of the Flying Hellfish logo, but it’s also badly done.
The chin is in front of the shoulder, which is possible, but still looks awkward as hell, and the poor guy is missing his tusks. I realize tusks would have gotten in the way of the cigar, but to me, the cigar seems more expendable than the tusks would be. And look at the eye on the right, it looks like it’s sitting on top of the trunk, and the pupil just looks weird.
There’s no life in him, the whole picture just looks flat and boring. I know they’re looking for a cartoony look, and there’s nothing wrong with that if done well, but this artist did a lousy job.
Hey Conservativehumor.net guys, I’ll do another one for you free of charge. I’m not claiming to be any sort of great artist or anything, but I think I’m better than this guy (not that that’s saying much).
Alright, these suck, but they’re just sketches.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45544517@N00/?deleted=33243668
(I have no idea how to post links or images on this site.)
Actually, I doubt that elephant cartoon is a ripoff of the simpsons. I seem to recall a WW2 (?) -related poster from the US with a young woman wearing what appears to be some sort of flight-suit with a US flag patch on the sleeve in the exact same pose, with a circle around the image just as there. So the Simpsons was also a ripoff (no big surprise there).
This one?
http://www.flyingsamaritans.com/images/Contact%20Info%20Pg/We%20Can%20Do%20It.jpg
I’m still trying to figure out why you guys say conservatives aren’t funny, and use Instapundit as an example. Huh? You Lefties must be the only ones that even think he’s supposed to be funny. I can honestly say, I don’t know one person that would have ever referred to Reynolds as even approaching the realm of comedy, until I discovered this little meme of the Left. You guys really ARE stupid. That would be like some dolt saying, TV just ain’t got good sitcoms on anymore. That “Nightline” show never even gets a chuckle outta me. DUH! “Nightline” ain’t a sitcom, and Instapundit ain’t a humor writer. Damn you’re stupid!
Boy I’m just slappin’ my knee on that conservative humor link. Get it, cuz the page is blank, cuz conservatives aren’t funny, so the page is blank, and… Whew! I’m about spent after that. Guess I’m not gonna get around to bombing any abortion clinics today.
in Malkin, an immigrant-spawned Quisling
Wow, what economy of phrasing. You make a racist statement AND accuse her of being a traitor (race-traitor or national one?) in so few words! “Spawned”? That’s used for fish, not people.
Hey, Fitch, think you can come up with anything else besides “Damn, you’re stupid!”? I mean, you right-whingers have got to be more original than that. Push your brain, man!
“Spawned”? That’s used for fish, not people.
What? We can’t have fun with words anymore?
Wow, what economy of phrasing. You make a racist statement AND accuse her of being a traitor (race-traitor or national one?) in so few words! “Spawned”? That’s used for fish, not people.
Pardon me for musseling in, chum, but if you’re going to carp and bait people, such crappie reasoning only makes you flounder.
Good design!
http://ipbiofwv.com/hhpv/gbek.html | http://wjceidpm.com/stmb/tplc.html