Thursday, August 10, 2017

Fuck Yeah I'm Awesome

I got another piece published on The Establishment, and this one might be my favorite yet.

How ‘South Park’ Helped Empower The ‘Alt-Right’

The original title was "The History of Celebrated Assholes" but that ended up taking me down into the entire history of comedy and what it's supposed to be for. I also found out that the first "shock jock" was a black man named Petey Greene who got the job almost straight out of prison and was almost fired on his first day, but then he invited people to call in and the switchboard lit up like it never had before.

But a history of comedy leading into how and why being an asshole came to be profitable and how that morphed from "attack the establishment and conservative prudes" to "attack anyone who is made upset by anyone for any reason because upsetting people is funny" could be the subject for a dissertation. And college here isn't free. But maybe if by some miracle we become a socialist paradise I'll pursue a PhD just so I can write that out.

For now, this is a pretty good article.

The most disenfranchised of our society have effectively become the establishment to the mostly white, male, and cishet individuals who adore South Park, and comprise both the “asshole” comedy scene it is part of and the “alt-right” movement it helped inspire. The enemy is no longer conservative prudes demanding one never says “fuck,” but liberals decrying oppressive slurs. As progressives tell people to take a hard look at their subconscious prejudices, professional assholes make bank (or get elected president) on base, reactionary impulses to go full “don’t tell me what to do!”

Now to sit back and wait for the irony of South Park fans coming in droves to tell me how upset they are.

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