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Psychopath
Affable misanthrope, common narcissist, incorruptibly amoral, aspiring arsonist, friendly neighborhood psychopath.

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PARODY IS DEAD

Posted by Psychopath - March 25th, 2015


In light of @Emrox's "enlightening" touch on why satire is utter shit, let's expand on his criticisms by touching on why parody has become shit. As you know, satire is to parody what mechanics are to engineers; the no-count younger brother with a bloated sense of self importance. I'm not going to preface my personal four laws of anti-comedy with a video summarizing the total sum of my blog post because you'd have no reason to continue reading my verbal holocost of failure.

1. Pointing out what's already obvious to everybody

When you think about it, parody authors have it pretty good when it comes to copyright law, our asses are protected by things like fair use laws which allows us to use other people's intellectual property to our financial gain. The common criticism among detractors of this type of comedy is that you're using the other person's intellectual property as a crutch in place of original comedy. This used to a bullshit way of handwaving away potential comedy gold, until shit like this came to light.

Can this shit be any more dull? Shit like this is the reason why parody is often thought of as a crux of lazy writing. You know you've fucked up when the uninitiated can't tell if what your watching is meant to humorize the show or it's an autistic person's character rundown meant for parents of the show's fans, because weebs. It's bad enough that your parody is spent purely in briefly highlighting the fact that the cast exists... apparently... but then you punctuate it by repeating jokes from the show itself lazily.

Of course I'm being ridiculous in expecting a parody to be a real parody. Why bother actually attempting to be clever when you can squeek by and gather a massive fan base by merely pointing out character traits that were better humorized in the show you're allegedly mocking? You'd have to be an idiot to actually try.

2. Telegraphing the joke ahead of time

Which is funnier, a joke that you weren't expecting or a joke that you knew was going to happen? Obviously it'd be the one with that trigger warning for funny time because I'm a Tumblrite with seven different fakey bullshit disorders. Make no mistake, building up to a joke is not the same as telegraphing it. Straight up telling the audience what the joke is going to be before making the joke is just the same as telling the joke, only without the parts that make it a joke.

TL;DR: Telegraphing that the joke is incoming is the same as never telling it at all; the more you discuss the joke, the weaker and weaker the punchline is. There is a reason why they call the end of a joke a punchline.

3. Clearly not giving a shit

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/586125

Self explanatory.

4. Knowingly being repetitive

What's even more funny than writing a parody? Writing a parody of other people's parodies of course!

Look, we all know that seeing the same thing again and again is fucking obnoxious but you know what doesnt fucking help? Being ironically obnoxious.

You, the author attempting to do this, are doing nothing more but watering down water. You've contributed to that which you hate by mimicking it in the attempt to mock it, except that your take has even less substance. Being obnoxious ironically is no better than being obnoxious sincerely; either option makes everyone want to plunge a power drill into your heart.

Be sure to check out @Keisok and his thoughts on the Flash portal sometime.


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