Comedy, Children in mines, Internet friends, and NY pizza
another krappy newsletter #9
Hello peeps,
This one is coming from New York and it goes out to 37 people. Woot woot! Kind of cool visualizing talking to a room full of my friends and family. Y’all just sitting there like “what a fucking weirdo why does he care about this shit?”
For all you new comers, let me reiterate the mission statement of my newsletter: This is a newsletter about nothing. Everyone has a niche. My niche is that I have no niche. It will be a survey through a few different topics that I read up on that week.
Hopefully it helps expose you to interesting/ entertaining new things you have never seen or thought about before.
On to my weekly round up…
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Comedy and politics, part deux
I spoke a little bit in the last newsletter about the state of comedy right now.
I wanted to expand on my position with two more points:
Comedians are changing our minds
In a conversation with one of my readers on this list, we spoke about this recurring caricature: The coworker who watched John Oliver.
You run into him at the water cooler (when we had public water coolers) “Hey man did you see the John Oliver bit last night?” This guy recounts what happened and how insane it is that XYZ occurs and how it needs to be fixed immediately. The interesting piece is that as you dig deeper, you find that this person had never heard about that issue until last night. But here they are in front of you 100% convinced that something needs to change.
The time between not knowing something existed to becoming staunch supporter of banning XYZ is staggering. No one could do the due diligence on a complex issue and come up with an informed opinion on it in 24 hours.
In an ideal world, the first thing you should see is the actual story. Your first exposure to it shouldn’t be a comedian interpreting it in an exaggeratory fashion.
But in 2020 entertainers leverage their platforms to change our minds. By being first to tell you about a story in an entertaining funny way, they implant their beliefs in you before you ever get a chance to look at the primary source.
Comedians as the culture police
Comedians have always been seen as the people who tell the uncomfortable truth or can “go there”. But now we are in this place where mainstream comedians are all converging on the same jokes and the same positions. There is no diversity of thought in “mainstream” comedy.
Every comedy show is basically: “This is what is funny. This is what is not funny. Over the next 45 minutes I will bestow upon you the things that are and are not funny. Please return to me in one week’s time to find out what you are allowed to laugh at.”
No one is making any “edgy” jokes anymore. They only tell ones that they know will land in their echo chambers.
I miss the days of the big comedy shows doing some stupid bit without a political slant. Just a joke for jokes sake. Like the idea of Adam Sandler showing up on SNL to perform the Hanukkah song at this point sounds impossible.
We are in an age where you need to pause before you laugh to think if you are allowed to think it is funny. And when you are in that place, you ruined the joke.
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Pictures of Children working in a coal mine in 1911
It is crazy to think about how this used to be common place in the USA. When you were 11, you were seen as a capable factory worker in certain households. I am grateful to the people who laid the foundations for this country, but good lord did we do some shit to get here.
Here is another example from the Twitter thread: Kid doing maintenance on this machine bare foot…
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Conformity in tech joke
Steve Jobs: "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma… have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."
Tech Person: "OK. I'm going to try to do exactly everything Steve Jobs did."
The tech world likes to think of itself as very contrarian, but it is funny how when everyone is committed to being a contrarian, they are no longer a contrarian. You are now just following the crowd. Being a contrarian is relative to the people you surround yourself with…
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Shout out to my new internet friends
During the pandemic, I made a couple of friends on the Internet that are building cool things:
Robbie Crabtree launched Performative Speaking.
Robbie is a trial lawyer who has seen the power of persuasive speech in the court room. He argues that we live in the persuasion era and being a great speaker is a competitive advantage for everyone not just a trial lawyer. So he decided to build a course to teach people how to become better speakers. I will be taking the course with the goal of performing stand up comedy. I have always wanted to do it. Why not get better at the skill while I wait for the opportunity to do it?
Greg Frontiero launched Noowave coffee.
Greg was a professional wrestler and he now started a supplement company in the middle of a pandemic. He is such an interesting dude! He walked me through how to make this coffee and I have found it to be a great addition to my morning routine in California. I am looking forward to trying his Noowave coffee when I get it.
Two major takeaways from these two:
The Internet has really opened up massive career possibility. Everything from launching a speaking course to having people pay you to dress up like a kinky puppy. The Internet rewards niche obsession.
You can always choose the empowering narrative. The news is committed to converting you to bullshit nihilism. That doesn’t have to be you.
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You want a pizza me
When in New York, you gotta do pizza. Here is a slice of BBQ chicken and a slice of chicken marsala pizza. So good. Even though all you lame ass pizza purists out there about to be like “mehhh real pizza is blah blah blah”.
No one cares about your pizza purism. Except for some weird part of the Internet that would probably pay you $100k a year to make pizza in a onesie.
Pura vida,
Kevin