On May 19, comedy died. Two passing vagrants found the emaciated corpse of comedy in a ditch in North Las Vegas. The body had a single self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. There was no note. At the family’s request, comedy will be buried next to journalistic integrity. On an unrelated note, May 19 was day one of Youtube’s “Comedy Week.”
Youtube is one of the greatest modern success stories. Which makes the cringe-inducing storm of bullshit that surrounded Comedy Week even more baffling. The immediate reaction to Comedy Week isn’t laughter. It’s irritation followed by rage. It all began with a simple promotional video.
This video serves as a healthy reminder that Arnold Schwarzenegger could never act. His most famous role is an emotionless robot that speaks in a monotone, and bad things happen when he leaves that territory. At this point, the event still appeared to have some potential. The ad might have been a reheated serving of stale pop-culture, but I was still optimistic. A healthy reminder to never believe in anything at any time for any reason.
In case it’s not clear, Comedy Week wasn’t funny. Comedy Week was to humor what smallpox was to world health. Comedy Week was to humor what fire-bombing Dresden was to pacifism. Comedy Week was to humor what the Challenger explosion was to space travel. An unmitigated disaster.
During Comedy Week, every Youtube Celebrity (two words I can’t type without going into a rage-induced coma) decided to try their hand at comedy. This worked about as well as opening a swinger’s club in Saudi Arabia. I’ve never seen so much effort accompanied by so little talent. The low point was this idiocy:
If you have a normal disposition, you probably just rolled your eyes and moved on. If you have my disposition, you’ve just made a fist-shaped dent in the wall. There are two ways to interpret this image:
- Someone hired by a Google affiliate honestly thought that the spit-take could be repackaged into pure web trend hilarity. Then, instead of being mocked and fired, they were embraced.
- Youtube is the main weapon in a conspiracy to reduce the populace to a mass of gibbering monkeys without the brainpower to throw their own shit at each other.
Either way, I demand that someone pay. As a member of the human community, I humbly request that Google put forward a scapegoat. To satisfy the dark gods of humor, this scapegoat will be beaten to death with a foam bat. I don’t care if it’s an executive, intern, or janitor. Someone must pay.
I also demand that Google pay for comedy’s funeral. It shouldn’t be too expensive, as long as every mental vegetable involved in the “Youtube Challenge Challenge” chips in. With a little effort, Google can redeem itself and put Margaret Thatcher’s state funeral to shame.
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