Jokes, explained
Gruesome Details
I am too online. I am terminally online. The minute I logged on via dial-up modem in 1999, you could not get me offline. My family can attest to how I overtook my grandfather’s old bedroom/the computer room and refused to log off. My veins are Ethernet cables.
As a denizen of Al Gore’s internet, it bothers me when people who are not online talk about it. In the wake of the election, a lot of offline people were talking about online.
It makes sense. Donald Trump ran a uniquely online campaign designed to turn out aspiring Timothy McVeighs. He was “interviewed” by a very famous streamer named Adin Ross. Ross cannot pronounce “fascism” and I must direct you to a clip of it. (For my relatives, a “streamer” is someone who sits online and watches things and responds to them while chatting with, I presume, children and shut ins.)
Pundits wondered: where is our liberal Joe Rogan? The question is stupid for 100 reasons I’ll enumerate another time. But the question bothers me because it overlooks the people who already occupy this space. Let’s talk about my favorite niche YouTuber.
Myles Anderson is a Professional Joke Explainer. His videos all follow the same format. He watches clips (or entire specials) of, as he says, “one of the top comedians working today.” He pauses every so often to credulously explain the joke.
The world’s most famous ventriloquist, Jeff Dunham, featured this joke on his 2015 Unhinged in Hollywood special:
Walter: Do you know what’s like to wake up and discover your wife of 45 years has left and isn’t coming back?
Dunham: No.
Walter: Neither do I, but I can dream, can’t I?
Myles, laughing, pauses to explain: “OK, so the joke is that he hates his puppet wife. Funny stuff.”
No matter who Myles explains, they are one of the “best comedians working today.” And, if by “best” he means “most well paid,” it is a true statement, by and large. He watches clips from the most popular standups in the country: Jeff Dunham (2009’s third highest-paid comedian in the nation), Chris D’Elia (nepo baby and alleged rapist), Russell Brand (alleged British rapist and sudden alleged Christian), Joe Rogan (midwife to our misfortune).
The lore is deep with these men. D’Elia, Rogan, and their lesser acolytes like Brendan Schaub (MMA fighter turned comedian) and Bryan Callen (alleged rapist who also is a comedian) love to talk about one another. (Anderson: “It’s important when you’re doing standup to let people know you have cool, famous friends because it will allow you to say more racial slurs.”) Their friendship forms much of the foundation for their galaxy of shows and their rise to fame. They are the internet Trump was searching out as he campaigned. They are wildly successful.
And, as Anderson shows us, they are successful for… well, not for jokes.
Anderson helpfully categorizes the types of jokes he sees performed. Jokes which rely on references are “name comedy.” Jim Bruer, former SNL cast member, performs a lot of “sound and body comedy” which amounts to pulling faces and doing bird calls. If a comedian laughs at their own joke or taps the mic, it “lets the audience know it’s time to laugh.” If a comedian says something astoundingly racist, but the audience laughs, you learn “if the audience laughs, it’s OK.” The idiocy of that sentiment made clearer by the dearth of jokes in these sets.
Myles loves to point out the laziness of crowd work, which makes up the bulk of standup online. He calls it “audience polling.” To paraphrase: it is a good way to get the audience to do your job for you.
Anderson’s Joke Explainer character is a babe in the woods. He loves standup and is happy to explain the historical roots of any joke. When Jo Koy performs an Asian stereotype, Anderson helpfully explains: “This is a classic comedy bit that was really big during the Pacific War in Japan and in World War II to increase the blood lust of American marines.”
I am a card-carrying standup. But, in my daily life, I’m unlikely to run into the wildly famous (and wildly racist) comedians Myles features on his channel. It is shocking, even to me, how much of these specials are slurs recited in joke cadence. But no one is better than Anderson at bursting the bubble of “cool” these men enjoy. Myles is so happy to be here. He wants you to win. It isn’t his fault that your jokes suck.
The Canadian comedian excels at revealing the shallowness of what you’re witnessing. Of Tony Hinchcliffe, one of America’s most famous racists, Anderson says, “He’s a master comedian. He sees someone who didn’t laugh and he is now going to berate them until they finally leave the room.”
These comedians are scared and untalented. The best way to show them for who they are is to explain what we’re all seeing.