When I was 12 years old, there were a few truths I clung to in order to make my socially unsuccessful life bearable. I did not have many friends due to my erratic and frankly off-putting nature--which I am now grateful for--but back then, it served only to keep me on the outskirts of social life, and therefore, on the outskirts of reality itself. When you lack friendship, you learn that it’s not just comradery you are missing out on, but a fundamental tether and attachment to sanity. Friends, romantic partners, and close emotional connections of all sorts serve to mirror your experience back to you, giving you the building blocks with which you construct the world and make a barrier between “normal” and “abnormal” thoughts and behavior. When you lack those connections, you need to fashion your own anchor to society by less conventional means, unless you want to be set adrift in total isolation. Before I get into what I made my anchor out of, I want to reiterate that I was 12 years old, and unconfined by even the most basic social pressures that are put upon us by friends and colleagues. The thing I loved, cherished, and gleaned my world view from was the comedy stylings of Dane Cook. I want to say this in no uncertain terms (and frankly, I want credit for being brave enough to state this publicly)--Dane Cook was the most important thing in my life at this time. I had almost nothing in common with my classmates, I spoke with a lateral lisp that not only made me sound different, but would cause flecks of spit to rocket out of my mouth, especially when I was excited about something I was talking about. My spitting issue persists into adulthood, and even now, after years of speech therapy, when I’m performing standup and I’m on a roll, sometimes I will see a fleck of spit travel from my mouth in slow motion, and arc through a pure, translucent beam of light to settle, as perfectly as if my saliva had a laser-guided tracking system, on the face of someone in the front row. My speech, coupled with my inability to remain silent, left me out of many fundamental conversations which could lead me to have conventional taste. I didn’t like any of the popular movies, didn’t listen to popular music, and opted to dress like my dad rather than my classmates, which left me looking like a 12-year-old metrosexual, my faux hawk jutting upward like a radio tower sending off signals to ward off friendship. But my classmates liked Dane Cook, and I liked Dane Cook, and that meant the world to me. Dane Cook is a comedian who gained prominence in the late 90s and early 2000s. His mixture of storytelling with absurd, act-out heavy material, garnered him an enormous following back in the early days of the internet where going “viral” was not even a coined term yet. His material was incredibly quotable, and he had an enormous fan base of young people. I remember distinctly quoting his material to other kids who were fans of his, and the immediate recognition and connection were a rare glimmer of light in the starless night of my preteens. My admiration for Dane Cook was not based on a deep knowledge and understanding of standup comedy--rather, it was a purely visceral experience that had an added context of providing a social function which was, in those days, extremely valuable to me. Later that year, I made a friend: Evan. He was strange like me, and we shared a love of Adult Swim. There were wonderful years of childhood where a friendship could be built on pretenses that were totally insubstantial. As adults, we choose the people in our lives with the discernment of a jeweler trying to find flaws in a diamond. Back then, all we needed to establish was that we had the same favorite color as someone else before diving into a life-altering social connection with them. Evan had an older brother, Noah, who was the first snob I ever encountered. He was a strange kind of snob--a type that can be hard to identify at first glance. He loved punk rock, played the bass when everyone else his age was learning the guitar, and had long hair that he made sure was covering his eyes at all times. He would have his friends over, and they would listen to bands like Leftover Crack and Fugazi. I would often catch Noah in the hallway to ask him about music he liked, and I would try and remember as many names as I could so I could look them up on LimeWire later and listen to them after clicking several links that ended up leading to snuff films. I miss the early internet. One day, when I was hanging out with Evan, he told me Noah had started doing improv. I didn’t know what improv was, but it sounded like what all my favorite comedians did--go on stage and say funny things off the top of their heads. (I, like a surprising amount of comedy fans, didn’t know then that stand up is pre-written.) After learning this, I rushed into Noah’s room before Evan could stop me. Bursting through the door, I saw he was on a swivel chair while his friend Alex was in the bed. They both had guitars in their hands and looked so, so cool. I was nervous, especially considering the unwelcoming way they were both looking at me, but I wanted to connect with them. And now that I’d learned Noah was involved with comedy, I blurted out, “Do you like Dane Cook?” Noah’s friend, Alex, 17 with muscle development so advanced for his age it seemed that he was destined to either play pro sports or go to prison, burst out laughing at my question. But Noah’s reaction was much more grave and unsettling. He lowered his head so his hair hung like tattered curtains over his eyes, and he said in a low and ominous half-whisper, “Dane Cook sucks.” Alex released another torrent of laughter while I stood, awestruck, unable to comprehend the words that had just been spoken. How could Dane Cook suck? He’d made me laugh like a billion times. Had Noah even seen the bit where he pretends to be a snake? Had he heard him impersonate the voice of a Burger King drive-through employee where he gets the distortion perfect? It simply couldn’t be. “Dane Cook is so funny,” I said, a tremble building in my voice. “He f*****g blows, man,” Alex said, finally getting ahold of himself. I felt a rage boil inside me. I left and slammed the door behind me, and I stewed about the interaction for months afterward. What I didn’t realize then is that I had just had my first experience with a snob, and years later I would not only forgive Noah, but thank him. Because even though I don’t completely agree with his assessments on comedy, I did learn a lot from him and his people about developing taste--and in turn, identity. I want to be clear about my definition of snob here. I’m not referring to someone who prefers the most expensive version of things and disregards affordable alternatives. This is the cartoon image of a snob, monocle in hand, saying a Patek Philippe Nautilus should be in rose gold rather than steel. The kind of snobs I’m referring to would tell you that a $30 Casio is a much better choice than a $12,000 Hublot. These kinds of snobs are people who are dedicated to doing research and deep dives into a specific topic, and through their devotion, they develop strong opinions that someone who is not well-versed in the topic would never have. Indulge me while I continue to use the wristwatch comparison for a moment (something I am a snob about.) You see, Hublot is a widely-known watch brand, and with its luxury price tag it would be easy for an average person to think it’s a brand that rivals Rolex in design and function. But when you start learning about the luxury segment of wristwatches, one of the first things you learn is that Hublot is a vacuum of design, has poor resale quality, and benefits much more from successful marketing than from the quality of its product. Long story short, it wouldn’t be a bad watch if it wasn’t five figures and looked like something...well, looked like something Dane Cook would wear, honestly. With that brief summary, you can understand where I’m coming from when it comes to critiquing Hublot. Now imagine we’re at a store. You see a Hublot, point at it, and say, “that watch looks cool,” only to be greeted with my squinty, incredulous stare, before I ear-beat you about how that’s actually a bad watch, an awful watch. If you wore that watch around watch nerds, we would laugh at you before reaching for our inhalers and pushing up our glasses with tape around the frame. Those kinds of reactions from snobs have given them a bad reputation. They are thought of as existing in a world so esoteric that they’re disconnected from society as a whole. The battle cries of “let people enjoy things,” and “ease up a little,” and “stop foaming at the mouth and barking every time you see a MVMT watch” are used to discredit and undermine snob opinions. Well, let me say this: as offputting as snobs can be, there is something much more insidious and harmful sitting in wait behind them. And if you remove snobs from society, there will be nothing stopping it--SLOP. Here is my theory: I propose that anti-snob propaganda is fueled by the increasing desire to get us all to consume slop products, slop food, and slop entertainment. If studios had it their way, we would all be watching When Harry Met Sally 12, an entirely AI remake where Sally fakes an orgasm, then looks directly into camera and says, “that’s how betting with DraftKings makes me feel.” Slop content, whether it be on TikTok or television, is always the most readily-available, highly-marketed choice out there. Marvel movies, remakes, and general AI and CGI garbage gets pushed on us incessantly--not because it’s the highest-quality material, but because it is the most profitable for the corporations producing it. No compelling actors, no original content, and no concise storyline are all money-saving features, and there is only one thing stopping us
