Get ready to surf the web, because the WiFi waters are getting crazy! Welcome to “Downward Trending”, the podcast and column where we break down the vast subcultures of the internet. Whether it’s influencers, edgelord shitposters or prank-stars and social experimenters, we’re here to analyze, cover, critique and riff on them. Have you noticed something odd about Netflix’s comedy specials? A lot of the trailers either promote them as “Jokes of Mass Destruction! #TriggerWarning Snowflake!” or “No Balls, No Patriarchy, No Problem: A Female Comics Journey.” Even the specials themselves have a certain duality to them. Picture this, if you will: On one side, you’ve got loud towering men with aggressive and energetic deliveries. A bombastic stock music track plays in the background as he struts across the stage “telling it how it is” while leaving no survivors; and on the other, you have short-haired women with thick frame glasses offering humorous jokes and stories, but oftentimes also giving what is more comparable to a TED talk, wherein they mostly tell you about their lives, their trauma and their truths. If you want a literal example of this, watch the trailer to Bill Burr’s latest special Paper Tiger, which makes an effort to include a jump-cut of Burr talking about … what else? SAFE SPACES! HIPSTERS! MALE FEMINISTS! #METOO! Just as well, the trailer for Hannah Ghadsby’s special Nanette shows her standing firmly on stage, talking about her life and struggles as a LGBT woman living in the Western world, with the few jokes that are sprinkled about relating to the socio-political issues that apply to her situation. Advertising is about generating attention and profit. By highlighting the most controversial parts of their specials, Netflix aims to generate controversy, but also court certain audiences. Their actual methods are rather simple. According to Business Insider, “to build its U.S. social team of about 15 people, Netflix hired TV and movie buffs who were passionate about sci-fi or comedy, two key target areas for Netflix.” Netflix isn’t just hiring any old PR agents. They’ve reached out to the people on the inside: the fans. These people are presumably very online, and know more than anyone about what resonates with viewers, and what people will react to–– both positively and negatively. Netflix seems to be making the most of the current political moment. Their marketing and contextual molding of their specials reflects a recognition of the temperature in the room. It’s all just another symptom of the culture wars, the ongoing battle between ideals and values, between older generations and younger generations, and so on. The cultural rift can even be noted in the striking difference in critic to audience reviews on sites such as Rotten Tomatoes, where Dave Chapelle’s Sticks & Stones currently has an abysmal, “rotten” 35% critics score and a whopping 99% audience rating. Ghadsby’s Nanette is practically the inverse with a 100% critics score and a 22% audience score. Lucky for Netflix, there certainly is not a shortage of things to market on. At least within the more underground, independent circuit of comedy there exists at least some division. In September, Saturday Night Live announced three new cast members. One of which was Shane Gillis, a comic from Pennsylvania who describes himself as “white trash”. Following the announcement, journalists quickly surfaced multiple clips of Gillis on various podcasts repeatedly using the word “chi*k” and doing an exaggerated Chinese accent. This quickly resulted in his firing. Meanwhile, podcasts in the New York comedy circuit include Legion of Skanks, the self-identifying “most offensive podcast in the world” hosted by Luis J. Gomez, Dave Smith and “Big Jay” Oakerson, and Cum Town, a similar podcast hosted by Nick Mullen, Adam Friedland and Stavros Halkias. Their comedic stylings feature everything from ethnic accent impressions to jokes aimed at those with disabilities. That aside, the thing they both have in common is that they have garnered polarizing online followings for their irreverent, politically incorrect humor and equal opportunity offender attitudes. Both have faced criticism and pushback from a number of writers and commentators, such as Sadie Doyle. Legion of Skanks has faced similar criticism, but despite it has continued to grow in popularity, even launching its own festival that, just this past year, welcomed disgraced comedian Louis C.K. to a standing ovation, with many fellow comics, including writer/comedian Kath Barbadoro, criticising it as not only tone-deaf, but also a workplace safety issue. The question remains, though. How did things get to this point, and why? Are there any answers to be found? In the aftermath of Trump’s presidency, we have seen an uptick in commentary regarding the responsibility and role of comedy in society, as well as a larger number of controversies surrounding comedians. In August, 2017, The Establishment, a blog focusing on feminism and social justice, published an essay titled “How ‘South Park’ Helped Empower The ‘Alt-Right’”, which argued that the animated series in some way lead to the creation of the far-right movement. In March of that same year, The Atlantic ran a cover-story on Alec Baldwin, with an accompanying caption that read “Can Satire Save The Republic?” Articles like these place figures such as Alec Baldwin and Samantha Bee on a pedestal, framing them as key figures in the #Resistance. The SNL-Shane Gillis situation has been propelled into a culturally relevant topic thanks to articles like The Hollywood Reporter’s “Comedy’s Civil War: How an ‘SNL’ Firing Exposed a Growing Rift in Stand-Up”, to the point where even presidential candidate Andrew Yang took to twitter to give his two cents. There are a couple of arguments used to justify this emphasized importance. One is simple: people should be careful about what they say, especially those with a larger platform. Raphael Bob-Waksberg is the creator of the Netflix animated series “Bojack Horseman”. In an interview with VICE, Bob-Waksberg was asked about the value of political correctness and mindfulness in comedy. He responded: “I think most people who argue for what you might call political correctness, are not actually arguing for censorship. They’re arguing for self-control and self-restraint. They’re arguing for people to be conscious of the power they have, right? And I believe that I have a lot of power, as someone making popular entertainment. I do think we have to be careful about the art we put out. We want to make the argument that our art has power so we can’t then also say that it has no effect over people, these people are adults who can make their own decisions. I think the art we make influences people, and I think with that power comes great responsibility, to quote Spiderman.” This argument is not invalid. Everything is about time and place, and humor is no exception. “I don’t necessarily think anything is off limits,” Bob-Waksberg continues in the interview, “but you have to know who your audience is and know who you’re talking to and what kind of jokes you’re making.” Aside from that, like anything else, the first Amendment can be abused. Just because you can say something does not mean you necessarily should. This extends well beyond jokes. This can be seen as represented through platforms like 4chan 8chan, where people are virtually unregulated and are given carte blanche to say whatever they want, no matter how inappropriate, offensive or even harmful what they say actually is. One of the more tragic and radical examples of this would be Connor Betts, the 24 year old white male who posted a racially charged manifesto on 8chan before murdering 10 people, including his sister, in the streets of Dayton, Ohio this past August. Tying this back to humor, Betts was the frontman for a band called Menstrual Munchies, a band that prided itself on “ironically” preaching violent, crude lyrics about raping and abusing women. “Whereas I saw it as a joke— like, ‘Let’s play this and we’ll shock some people,’ and then the people that we know laugh — he didn’t see it as a joke,” says Jesse Creekbaum, his friend and bandmate, in an interview with VICE. “He was like, ‘F**k, yeah. We’re gonna do this.’ It’s like, Jesus Christ, how much of this was like real life for him?” This sort of dissociation with reality is sometimes referred to as irony poisoning. While other factors obviously played larger roles in Betts’ actions–– such as mental health and lax gun laws–– the correlation is hard to ignore. We can sit back and just say that the things he posted were a joke, but when the relationship between art and violence becomes near-direct, then it is no longer just art or just a joke or just words. It becomes a weapon. This is also noticeable with The Proud Boys, a group started by Libertarian commentator and VICE co-founder Gavin McInnes. After a supposed “joke” gone haywire, McInnes eventually made a call for violence against people on the left end of politics. The result was the group being placed on an FBI watchlist, and McInnes conveniently distancing himself from the movement all together. The other argument is that there is a thin-line between irony-bro edgelord and genuine hate monger, and the line is so thin that audiences cannot tell the difference. Take, for example, Deadspin’s feature on Barstool Sports’ PFTCommenter. The piece accuses PFTCommenter, a character parodying a loud mouthed, obnoxious, sexist, and overzealous sports bro, of providing Barstool and its founder Dave Portnoy a shield from criticism that they un-ironically embody those very characteristics, claiming that: “…The real value of PFT Commenter
