The Oy Vey Feh Foundation for Sensitivity to Jews or Whatever has decided to call for #CancelBPC. Trend it.
Not defending the post, but have you never encountered shock humor? It’s really really common. The idea is basically what leftfield6 said. See Tim Minchin, Jimmy Carr, George Carlin, Frankie Boyle, Bob Sagett … anyone who’s ever told the aristocrats joke, etc. It was a shitty joke, but I find it odd that you’ve never encountered something like this before.
**PSXer **got a warning for making the same joke, but in a much more mild fashion (“haha the Jews are to blame for everything” vs equating them with vermin).
BPC should be warned, and if he’s already been suspended they should just ban his pedo ass.
You have to understand that we posters on this MB are so very sensitive that we would never consider shock humor. We’re sooooooo far above that. And we wear that sensitivity on our computer monitors.
I’m still confused by the thread title. Doesn’t everyone already know that?
This just happened today: three dead in a shooting at a Jewish Community Center in Kansas City by someone yelling Heil Hitler. BPC’s joke was just not funny, especially from someone from Germany. Call me over sensitive, I don’t care, it’s just not funny. I’ve laughed at Jewish jokes before- Jews as a whole have a long history of laughing at themselves. But calling Jews vermin? Crosses a line, especially in a thread that has nothing to do with shock jokes.
Meh. The chances of a thread titled “What’s your most hated type of Vermin” not having someone making a bad joke and a bunch of people getting the vapours was about 0%.
It’s a very unfunny joke but in an attempt to kill the joke even further to prove that it’s not inherently anti-semitic, I will dissect it:
Jews, as everyone knows were metaphorically described as vermin by the Nazis.
Since Naziism is one of the shared third rails of our culture, it can be used as a cheap form of shock and awe. Thus, breeds a certain specie of not-particularly-subtle troll who like to use such things as a cheap train wreck. By pretending to be an actual neo-nazi that interprets the title of the thread literally but, using their unique definition of the word “vermin”, would attempt to answer the question straight with the answer, “Jews”. This is designed to shock the reader of the comment into believing they’ve had a transgressive encounter.
Of course, this being the internet, trolling attempts like these is nothing more than background noise. There’s no reason to presume that anyone would perform a straight interpretation of the title and produce the answer “Jews”. Even if the responder were a neo-nazi, they would be sufficiently aware that their definition of vermin is not shared and would thus, never respond that way. Since there is only a single way to interpret the response, there is no inversion or subversion and thus, no humor.
This is what BPC is attempting to explain with the /EdgierThanBismuth. /EdgierThanBismuth is a form of meta-textuality, a comment on the “jokiness” of the previous joke. In what has become a hallmark of modern humor, it’s the reflexivity of the statement that is the source of the humor. Part of the reason reflexivity has become so widespread is because it automatically provides a context for humor because it intrinsically contains two levels of narrative, the subject and the comment on the subject.
Indeed, if it were someone else who made the reply “Jews” and BPC replied with /EdgierThanBismuth, it would at least be mildly amusing because there is a subversion present between the two narratives. The previous replier would have thought their joke was funny, otherwise they would not have made it and BPC would have caused an subversion by cutting down their expectations. However, because both statements were made by BPC, no subversion can happen because we know BPC cannot simultaneously think he is both funny and unfunny.
As a result, no subversion, no humor. But I hope this proves to you that while, this was an unfunny joke, it’s not an anti-semitic one because the joke is not about Jews, it’s about meta-textuality. You could replace Jews with any other placeholder offensive term and the basic structure of the joke still stands.
So what could BPC have done to make this joke actually funny? That requires, alongside multiple narratives and an inversion or subversion, a third element that is surprise. BPC’s joke only attempts a single level of reflexivity as it’s sole source of humor but we’re all so used to single level reflexivity at this point that it alone is not sufficient to provoke surprise.
A common tactic is to layer on a second level of reflexivity, for example, by what I’m doing right now, using BPC’s joke through the lens of humor theory to, itself provide the basis for a joke. Is this funny? Maybe if you first attempted to read this article straight and are only now reading these words, this will force a re-interpretation which will, in turn, generate humor. But most people reading this are sufficiently familiar with meta humor that they had an inkling, from the start of the piece that a turn would occur somewhere and, thus, the direction this piece is heading in now is not so surprising.
Would another layer of reflexivity help? The process of reflexivity, applied to itself leads to an infinite regress of reflexivity, where you’re now aware that I’m trying to make this meta just by talking about how meta it is. Can this lead to humor? Probably not for me. The arena is recursively meta is sufficiently played out that I doubt I’m clever enough to find an appropriate ending for this. I’m like Lost in that I’ve piled layers and layers haphazardly upon each other with no real plan for an endgame and a recipe for almost certain disappointment.
Because for humor, the ending is all that matters. It’s the catharsis that justifies the buildup and this is an awfully long build up. And the problem is that any ending I can imagine is inevitably a let down. Including the ending which I talk about how much of a let down the ending is, which I’ve just used just there. Even the ending where the letdown is the ending, because I made a promise at the start that dissecting the joke would kill it, thus making this an attempt at anti-humor is a letdown because it’s not that great as anti-humor.
I’m seriously starting to panic now because I’m writing this largely as a stream of consciousness and I have no idea how to stop writing and I even know the whole “I’m starting to panic” gimmick is something that has been seen to the level where it’s not novel enough to provoke real surprise. The more I’m writing the more unfunny I can feel the entire piece being but I’m trapped in this meta-humor maze.
Lest you think “having the entire thing peter off into nothing” is a meta example of an anti-joke, it’s not, nor was it pointing that out. Nor was this an attempt at a shaggy dog story when I started writing it, nor was the joke the aggressive denial that there is a joke to be mined from this entire experience.
Maybe the joke was on the essential futility of the entire endeavor and an existentialist meandering on how all endings will be equally mediocre but the act of pointing that out now no longer makes that the point.
And in many ways, that is the ultimate point of pushing reflexivity to it’s ultimate limits, is to push the levels to such an extent that you’re not sure if you “get” the joke or if the joke is being played on you. Maybe this was my planned ending all along, maybe I just got here serendipitously but it’s an awful end but you can’t help but wonder, was this the planned awful end and am I just the butt of the joke? No.
Did you forget the footnotes, Professor Foster Wallace?
Pretty much where I come down. I knew he was trying to make a funny, but it was a dismal fail and one virtually guaranteed to offend someone, disclaimer or no. I dunno if he was trying to troll - he might just be fucking clueless.
I’m not to het up about him not getting a formal warning though, unless this was part of a pattern ( he’s not really on my radar ). Just so long as he was moderated in some way.
It makes it easier for you to get rid of him if nobody complains.
It would have occurred to me.
But I probably wouldn’t have said it in polite company.
Impolite company, sure.
[sub](Whatever happened to the Jew smiley?)[/sub]
That was just the first chapter of Vol I. Footnotes will be published at the end of Vol IV.
Yeah, I’m thinking that all the outraged posters in this thread got hugely whooshed by BPC.
Do you know who else dissected Jews? Maimonides.
No one got whooshed. He’s an asshole for making that joke in that context.
I had never heard of “Edgier than Bismuth”, but I know what “edgy” means and it was right there in his post. There is no question it was a joke. The only question is just how tasteless it is-- just eye-rollie or ban-worthy.
I do understand shock humor; the part I didn’t understand was “bismuth” and someone has finally explained that to me. However, I don’t think that a thing becomes a joke just because it’s edgy, or that any nasty piece of bigotry becomes funny by labeling it “edgier than bismuth.”
Is it plausible that BPC was mocking PSXer or those who make similar “edgy” jokes?
Way too meta for him.