Top 12 Lowest Forms of Humor

I've thought about writing this a bunch of times, but usually dismissed it as too pretentious and self-righteous.  Well, I don't have any other ideas today, so here goes.

12. Ethnic humor

One of the more obvious candidates as a low form of humor is the mocking of certain ethnicities, usually limited to condescending, unfunny accents or punchlines about the Polish, but sometimes into the realm of outright xenophobia and racism.  (There's a British comic whose material is actually largely about how much he hates the immigrants who work in various stores he frequents--if I could remember his name, I'd link him so you could be amazed that someone like that hasn't been ripped to shreds yet.)  Anyway, this one comes in at the end, because in circles of largely intelligent people, it's pretty-well stamped out, or at least the worst forms of it are.

NOTE: Humor about race or racism isn't necessarily "ethnic humor," and if it's funny, it probably isn't.  I wouldn't consider, say, anything in the British Office to be ethnic humor--it's not about people fulfilling stereotypes, it's about people having racist attitudes.  Which is smart, not low.

11. "That character is so gay" humor

Kind of goes along with the above, but a lot more people are still willing to laugh at a line like, "Gay Bobby, you sure ate all those hot dogs fast!" even though it's no more intelligent than, "Black Bobby, you sure ate all that watermelon fast!"  For that reason, it's higher on the list than ethnic humor.  But just as low.  Or lower.

10. Jokes comparing vaginas to roast beef

I theorize that anyone who has ever made one of these has either never seen a vagina or never seen roast beef.  The latter seems unlikely, but I've heard women make these jokes, and I assume most of them have seen their own vaginas.  In any case, whatever tiny bit of truth there was to it in the first place, it's been so completely washed under thousands of jokes with this at the core that it's really, really unfunny now.

9. Michael Jackson jokes

You'd think these don't exist anymore, wouldn't you?  It's been so long since Michael Jackson been in any way in the spotlight that "Michael Jackson jokes" would seem to be kind of in the realm of "Monica Lewinsky jokes," where people are more likely to make fun of people making them than actually make them in earnest.  So why was there one in the Christmas episode of 30 Rock, the smartest show on TV?  (Kenneth: "Those are going to be the happiest poor kids since me and my brothers went to Neverland Ranch.")  Oof.  I have no fucking clue.

8. Jokes about how much spouses hate each other

Weirdly enough, I see this stuff show up nowadays in poorly-written college-kid stuff probably more often than I see it show up anywhere else.  Which is doubly weird, because it's the demographic least likely to have any sort of real relationship with it.  If your reference point for the relevence of a joke is The Honeymooners, you're probably a little out of touch.

7. Fake book titles with an author named Ima

Is this one too specific?  If so, please pick up How to Write a Better List Entry Next Time by Ima Pologetic.  Ima Nidiot.  Ima Gonna Killa Myselfa.

6. Unnecessarily dated pop culture references

I'm looking at YOU, Family Guy!  And Diablo Cody!  These jokes are dumber than Raphael in that episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when he got hit by the stupid ray!  No?  Don't remember it?  That's because I just made it up!  It would be no less terrible of a joke if I didn't!

5. Straight dudes doing something that looks kinda gay

I'm not talking about stuff like the Seinfeld episode "The Outing," where George and Jerry farcically have an argument that is perceived as a couple's argument, then wrestle with their own insecurities.  I'm talking about stuff like the Seinfeld episode "The Doll," where Estelle Costanza walks in on her husband, Jerry, and the maestro playing pool without pants.  (Okay, so Seinfeld was around long enough to do a lot of bad things as well as basically every good thing.)  But seriously, what are we meant to think?  That they're embarrassed because, obviously, gay people play pool without pants all the time?  What the hell?  I think a lot of this humor is based on a mode of thinking that goes something like, "Well CLEARLY it would be extremely insulting to be thought of as gay, so let's laugh at them."  This crap idea also provided that atrocious "trying to get each other's hands untied" scene in Pineapple Express, an otherwise pretty good movie.

4. Jokes that vastly overestimate the power of drugs

"He smoked so much pot that he thought he was an airplane!  We managed to stop him before he took off on a nonstop flight for Denver!"  Pause for uproarious laughter from concerned parents, or someone else who believes that is in any way plausible.

3. "That's what she said."

You guys remember when The Office started doing this, but it was ironic, mocking Michael for being so stupid as to think that it was brilliant?  And then people who were fans of The Office started saying it a lot, but unironically?  Yeah, I don't get people.

2. "Come" puns

Similarly, I have no idea how anyone still laughs at something like, "Sorry you came late, but hey, at least you came, right?"  Bonus negative points and a warrant out on your head if you pair one of these with the above.

1. Dead baby jokes

This is probably the ultimate in fake-edgy humor.  Dead baby jokes are such an established humor trope that you are challenging absolutely nobody by telling one.  Haha, you can laugh at gross things, congratulations, you are so cool.  I will continue to laugh at funny things.

Top 6 People Whose Work I Greatly Respect but Do Not Love

I can be a pretty big dick about stuff I don't like, I'll be honest.  And I can be pretty quick to call hackery on something that is critically adored but I think is crap--Quentin Tarantino, for existence, or Sam Kinison, or the TV show Weeds would never be on here; I think critics are all just plain wrong about their quality.  It takes a rather interesting type for me to feel this way about, but on occasion, I do:

6. Charles Dickens

Formally, he's a great writer.  He's strong with word choice, and he has about as good of a conception of character as any writer I know.  He just doesn't tell stories that I'm interested in.  At all.  "A Christmas Carol" is probably the best example of what I simultaneously admire and don't like about his work: it's a smart, moral tale, but one that doesn't in any way hit me as interesting, neither in character, nor message, nor (and especially on this one) structure.  I find it boring.  Well-told, but mundane.

5. Lenny Bruce

Lenny Bruce is someone whom I'd firmly place in the category of "satirist," and perhaps the last person to really be truly satirical about how we use language.  I distantly respect his work as "smart," but I don't think I've ever laughed at his stuff, even though I've laughed pretty hard at contemporaries of his like Bob Newhart.  It's not that his comedy feels "old" to me, it's just that it doesn't really hit me.  Perhaps the taboos he's breaking, which would have been funny then, just aren't funny becuase they no longer exist (because he broke them?).  In any case, whenever I listen to Bruce, I don't feel like it's because he's that funny, but just because he's "important."  Which, no doubt, he is.

4. Steve Martin

Steve Martin is probably named as an influence by more comedians that I like than any other comedian.  I just don't think he's that funny.  I get that he's doing really "out-there," self-consciously performative, often non-sequitur stuff before anyone else does, but it just doesn't really make me laugh.  I also think that he's a mediocre writer, and that Shopgirl was truly atrocious.  But mostly: his stand-up.  Interesting, and I get that comedians I like liked it, but it just doesn't do anything for me.

3. Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin is a group that clearly made a certain type of arena rock music with more skill and proficiency than anyone else has ever done.  I don't think they're untalented, neither do I think that they're hacks without any sense of melody or structure.  They're just...not a band that I'm interested in at all.  I can listen to the riff of "Ocean" and respect it as bitchin', or to the chorus of "Whole Lotta Love" and think that it is both catchy and truly rawk.  It's just music that is too guitar-y, too tied to a certain ethos that I don't identify with, and too...not making me ever want to come back to it...for me to really love.

2. Andy Kaufman

Andy Kaufman was probably the last person in current history--and may go down as the last person ever--to have a genuinely new concept of comedy from what came before.  He had a really firm conviction that comedy was never "in your head," and he only wanted to get the gut, uncontrollable laughs that came from genuine surprise.  Which is a pretty cool concept: anyone who really sticks to their guns on what they seriously believe is funny and doesn't cave into "cheap laughs," whatever they think those are, is pretty respectable to me.  Problem: I don't find Kaufman that funny.  His stand-up mostly strikes me as reaching, and while I think he's funnier on Taxi, he supposedly thought that was the biggest sell-out move of his career.  Still, it's almost impossible for me not to have respect for someone who has this strong a commitment to their comedic art (to the point of living his life as a massive joke), even if that isn't one that really resonates with me.

1. James Joyce

I'm currently reading Ulysses for a class (just to brag a little), and it's not like I actively dislike it.  I think some of the stuff he's doing is pretty cool, and I have great respect for the massive amount of work that goes into something like this.  He obviously has a clear picture of almost everything minute about the lives of his characters, and he's doing extremely innovative stuff to examine them.  I just...am not really interested in intensely oblique storytelling.  Or rather: I'm not very interested in stories that don't exist at all on the surface level.  What I'm trying to say is that chapters of Ulysses are pretty cool--once you've read them three times and then had them explained to you.  Contrast this with Gravity's Rainbow, which is immensely entertaining even if you just understand the surface level, then gets better the more you look at and consider it.  Ulysses doesn't have a surface level.  It's not that it's not brilliant--from a formal perspective, it clearly is--but I wish it was a lot more basically accessible and enjoyable.

Oh, and also: supposedly Joyce used to always ask people if they thought his books were funny.  Ulysses isn't funny.  Sorry, but burying a dumb scatalogical joke in several layers of complexity doesn't make it any better than a dumb scatological joke.  Again, my comparison: Pynchon is hilarious.  Joyce is extremely well put-together, but really not funny.  Oh, another thing: man, I really did fucking love that bird girl passage from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.  I just can't bring myself to love Joyce as a whole.