Comedy and Personal Branding
Humor.
Comedy.
Things people find amusing.
Couple of examples of people getting super offended by different forms of comedy, especially comedy related to some pretty serious topics.
Truthfully, I flat lined. Hilarious.
I’m really trying to think of the last time I was offended by some creative conveyance of an abstract or concrete idea…basically whatever art is in whatever form it’s in. I think it’s actually been quite a while. I’m not even sure that I’ve interpreted something as being crass or tasteless recently when it comes to that.
I feel like generally I’m not offended by a lot and my humor is pretty dark day to day. Games like Cards Against Humanity pretty much display my brand of humor…so I mostly keep my mouth shut regarding unless I’m with my geek friends who are equally disturbed.
So came across an article about Mr. G. The author was saying how she agrees with the way he speaks of being Black and so and and so forth….and the comments…the comments were pretty negative about him.
Which was annoying.
It seems like a lot of people who are aware of him only know him from his bumbling idiot character in Communit.y, his blerd/geek/fratboy standup routines, or his earlier blerd/geek/fratboy themed work under Childis.h Gam.bino.
He’s evolved considerably since any of that was really popular, but to hear people tell it, all that stuff is current just because it’s being distributed more now. (Weirdo, his stand up special hit Nextflix last fall….several years after it was produced…and his name is in more people’s mouths because Grammy).
I’m thinking about people/celebs/institutions I know that I’m not a fan of for whatever reason..and am wondering if I can separate their work from their person/products…especially as the years go by and people/institutions have culture shifts.
You never really know if the persona they give to the public is the same one they are day to day, but even if it is…does it impact the way you feel about their work/products?
Like out of everyone I think maybe the only person I might change the channel on is like Chr.is Brow.n…unless it’s this song because it appeals to my video game sensibilities and he probably didn’t have anything to do with the production or arrangement of it anyway.
I’m not sure how much of that is because of the brat factor he has, the telltale “black women coddling” thing he draws (ie oh he made mistakes but he’s cute so he’s okay…my mom loves him because of This Christmas) or even the Rih Rih thing….but I feel kind of gross listening to his stuff.
For Mr. G, people have similar intense reactions for some reason. A lot of people either like him A LOT or hate him like violently. I don’t quite get why…he hasn’t really done anything personally over the years but be extremely transparent.
Or maybe that’s it…being transparent. Too honest. Too raw.
Same for comedy like like Ms Poehler and Ms Fey….too honest too raw too real. (Look at their Second city stuff not the stuff that’s sliced and diced for networks.)
When people STOP censoring themselves, others get upset. Is it because they’re truly offended by what’s being said, or is there some kind of subconscious envy that people can be so free with their expression?
Mr. G’s stuff makes sense. He’s a trained writer. Most writers are in their heads a lot + sketch = immediacy, agility, honest reactions.
Same for Ms. Fey, Ms. Poehler, even Cosby…
Even Chris…the brat thing is an honest response.
Hate it or love it…
