So we’re really going to do this? I thought I was pretty clear last time: Sooner or later, and probably sooner, poor Bystander’s going to get the Back of the Invisible Hand. It’s just the way of the world. But you all went bonkers over issue #1, which suggests a couple of things:
1) None of you are any better at capitalism than we are; and
2) Lots of people look around at contemporary comedy and think, “Feh.”
Feh? How can that be? With 750 TV channels, plus Netflix, Hulu, Vudu (ooBoo, Gabog, Boogog…see page 104), plus the whole internet on top of that. And all so convenient, Jesus you could die from the convenience — five seconds after I think “Hugh Laurie,” I’m streaming a 27-year-old sketch from his BBC show. Comedywise, what more could anyone want?
Maybe... less?
• • •
If you ask me, and let’s pretend you did, our world began August 24, 1853, when a man named George Crum invented the potato chip. Potato chips are the ultimate modern food: cheap, omnipresent, vaguely pleasant, and almost nutrient-free. We all eat them by the bucket, because they’re designed not to deliver nourishment but entertainment. We should write this nuance down, so future archaeologists aren’t confused.
Obesity, poor nutrition and food deserts be damned, the corporations running our food supply spend billions conjuring new ways to tempt our potato-fugged palates. My favorite was Frito-Lay’s olestra, a chemical engineered to enable chips to pass undigested, giving the eater the fun of eating without those pesky side-effects. (Except, famously, a bit of “anal leakage.”)
Over the last twenty years, we’ve seen the potato-chipping of media in general and comedy in particular. Comedy is now cheap, omnipresent, vaguely pleasant, and almost nutrient-free. From cheesy to spicy, there’s a flavor for every taste, delivered in an instant, designed to pass undigested just in time for the next joke. We even use the same word: “binging.” And after the binge, the purge — that’s what social media is for. Every comments section ever? Anal leakage.
• • •
The Bystander is the comedy equivalent of “slow food,” the anti-potato chip. Expensive, hard-to-find, difficult to consume, these issues are practically bespoke; I know some of you are still digesting #1. I worked on this one for five solid months, and it’s full of rich, good stuff. Take your time with it.
When I tell people our magazine isn’t aimed at college kids — by the way, the only people who can live on potato chips and not feel like shit — they actually look a little concerned for us. Don’t you guys know how this game works? Sure we do, but we also know what it does to people. We don’t want you checking our website or Facebook or Twitter a zillion times a day. We don’t want you to substitute consuming our comedy for living your life. We actually like you.
We want you to read The Bystander, laugh — then go back into the real world, the setup upon which all great punchlines depend. If George Crum were here, I think he’d agree with me: our current oversupply of comedy aids and abets the informational equivalent of obesity, poor nutrition and food deserts.
In other words, The Donald.
• • •
In 1948, satirists scuttled the GOP candidate by calling him “the little man on the wedding cake.” Now, our poor confused country is actually considering a guy with no political experience, who openly brags about the size of his wang. Something is very off here. We’re generating more satire than ever, some of it quite exquisite. But it’s seeming to have no — or even the opposite — effect.
In general, satirists are painfully self-conscious people with an overactive sense of shame. That’s why, God love us, we think jokes are the way to change the world. Trump is the opposite kind of animal; he’s so unself-conscious, he’s practically unconscious. A person without shame is immune to ridicule; there’s a level of narcissism against which mere satire is powerless. We joke because we must; but we all have to acknowledge that thirty years of razor-sharp satire has had roughly the same effect on Mr. Trump as the atomic bomb had on Godzilla. Oh, for the days when he was just a New York real estate asshole.
Food or comedy, corporations want to feed us to bursting with fake stuff; it’s up to us to find what’s meaningful and nourishing, and leave the rest. Too much comedy makes satire mere entertainment — or worse, publicity. Come November, I hope the joke’s not on us. ◊
MICHAEL GERBER is the Editor and Publisher of The American Bystander.
