"It's boring and immature like when someone says he wants to watch the world burn. You only get to watch if you have the privilege of not being on fire."
@@arlostein1000 If you're willing to start with yourself then you'd be dead before your fire spreads, so you wouldn't be able to watch it. Ironically you have to be selfless to burn the world.
this reminds me of the whole ‘gallows humor is only humor when it’s said by the people with the rope around their neck. if it’s said by someone in the crowd, it’s part of the execution.’
Someone once to,d my dad (a man who lost his leg in an explosion) that his prosthetic was really cool. He looked at them straight in the eye and said in a monotonous voice “thanks, it cost me a leg to get it.”
My friend had his leg amputated due to cancer. I was very close with him during the time he was going through that. Never before or after, have I heard that much dark humor about something so genuinely scary. I understand it better thanks to this video. He still likes to mess with people, though not as darkly. When asked what happened to his leg, he says things like "I didn't eat my veggies."
Remembers man a man I met at a beach that was playing soccer despite having one leg, I took that as a learning opportunity, we started talking and he just said: " I can do whatever anyone with two legs does.....except riding a scooter “ He then proceeded to laughing at my face for 10 minutes...and that was the actual learning opportunity.
My great grandmother was dying of complications from type one diabetes and I was going to do the Macarena for my elementary school’s talent show. She wanted to see me dance and I remember crying my eyes out while dancing the Macarena. I haven’t been able to come up with a joke about that yet but it’s in there somewhere.
*laugh* "Hyphenated" was my take on it. And there's a Lesbian comedian here in Germany who calls it "ver-stempelt", in English roughly "be-stamped" as in an official rubber stamp put on something. Very funny.
Most gay people I've been around are fine with a little self deprecating humour. It does bother some people in the community though so I try to keep it among friends who I know won't be offended or take it seriously.
@@MyKeyMoonShine It`s funny how some communities can be different from others. I live in Scotland and i found the gay scene a little difficult to navigate when i first went out to a gay community centre 20 years ago through a befriending service. I felt really scared and lonely at first and it took me a while to get used to the humour, some of which would probably make some folks toes curl! I developed a thick skin though and i met some of my best friends too. I really miss the old GLC (that was the bar we all used to drink in) god....i feel old now lol
Word! A massive chunk of my, er, "media consumption" is ContraPoints, Folding Ideas, Lindsay Ellis, Philosophy Tube, Thought Slime, and Jenny Nicholson. Which is a lot of superb content!
AS A DISABLED PERSON, this is so goddamn relatable. Balancing "I'm not saying this for you" with "Yes, yes, we're all aware that I'm in a wheelchair; can we just eat now?" is such a tightrope act. I've broken more ice than the hull of a Norwegian oil tanker.
As an ~~ autistic ~~ I can relate to the point Nanette raises about humiliation being a necessary evil just to be allowed to speak in public. I had a bad experience recently where I revealed my autism in discourse and was reminded of how painfully easy the mainstream will dismiss you if you approach them in an indigestible format. I had been trying to sort my feelings on the matter and it felt cathartic to be reminded by other marginalized people that the problem wasn't with me, nor even how I approached the conversation, but with how my syndrome is institutionally stigmatized.
Right with you on the disability shit. Just today I made a couple friends uncomfortable by simultaneously calling myself a cripple and wedging the conversation into a point where the only possible replies were problematic. Honestly it's kind of been my mood lately.
@@BlargleRagequit If you don't mind, I have serious question which you may be able to answer: Since when is the word "cripple" a slur? Because as far as I'm aware, throughout at least a thousand years of english language, that word was the normal and even formal way to designate someone who lost part of their bodily functions. "That man was crippled during the Vietnam war." is a sentence a doctor would say. The word can also be applied to concepts instead of humans, like for example, staying in a military context:"If this ambush is succesful, that will cripple their offense and ensure our victory". Cripple is the word that says: "the subject we're talking about is no longer at 100% of their capacity." Now, I get that the phrase "persons in need of assistance" fits better, because some people can be in need of assistance, not because their capabilities are reduced, but because they already have a lot on their plate (ex: pregnant women), I'm only questioning the idea that the word cripple is a slur. When did that happen? Who decided that?
@@Arkalidor not the person you asked but as a "super-ultra-mega-disabled+" person don't find the word "cripple" a slur or offensive. It is however potentially misleading or incorrect in the context brought up here. When you think of a cripple you often think of someone like me who is missing parts of their body (in my case i was born with my right arm ending just below the elbow) and not necessarily someone with a "metal disorder". While it might not be incorrect to say someone with Autism (hello again) is "crippled" you could probably see why some people might take offense to it here. Cripple, or handicapped, is (for me) the proper way to designate someone who lost part of their "outer" bodily functions but things related to the brain might not gall under here. Ultimately it comes down to semantics for me but i'd love to here what other people have to say. Hopefully i answered your question but should something still feel unclear please ask and i'll do my best to answer! And don't feel like a question is in ill taste or whatever - i rather you ask so you can be informed than carry on uninformed just because you didn't want to offend C:
@@Arkalidor Bruh, it's pretty simple. There's being crippled And there's being a cripple. There's being black And there's being a black. Basically anything can be a legitimate slur with intent and context. Calling someone a cripple is derogatory to their existence being different (possibly interpreted as 'inferior' from the person saying it's point of view). Saying someone is crippled is describing their situation, likely in a neutral and descriptive way.
I remember seeing a trans meme where someone made the classic "helicopter joke," and then a trans character said "Ya know, sometimes I wish I was an attack helicopter, because then at least I would be allowed in the military!"
I always answer, "You can have surgery to change your sex from one to another, but you can't have surgery to become military aircraft. Our medical science hasn't quite reached that level of cyberpunk, yet! You'd need full body cyborgization, like Robocop or Inspector Gadget+ Transforming Mecha technology, like the Transformers cast, lol! Now, that'd be awesome!! I'd be a post-op cyborg transwoman, who turns into a robot helicopter. I'd go from a Janet Jackson lookalike to Blue Thunder, in a a jiffy!
Music therapy student here! Fun fact: what you described happening in “hello darkness” is the basis for something called the “iso-principle”. It’s a technique used in music therapy where music is matched to the mood of the client and is then strategically altered by the music therapist to elicit a mood shift. As you said, it “reels you in” by meeting you where you’re at and then leads you where you want to go. It’s cool.
huh ive done something kinda like this to get me out of annoying moods-- like if im being irrationally angry at something ill put metal on for a bit until shuffle serves me up some lighter fare and i end up in a better mood at the end of it!
HEY this is very specific, could I hear any thoughts you have on Dave Malloy's Octet? It's about a support group for internet addiction and is very raw about presenting the patients as they are, expressing what's going on in their heads rather than where they "should be"
The best trans joke I’ve seen a cis person make was when my trans mom had bottom surgery right before Valentine’s Day and my aunt (her sister) brought her a congratulations card while she was super out of it post-op recovering that said “happy v-day!” and I love her for that
I might have seen a cis person make a good joke (because I assume it was a cis person, but they might have been trans…) and it was “mtf bottom surgery could be called ‘ding-dong ditch’”.
"Edginess is always adolescent. The Darkness is edginess aged with time and pain. It is only at the full maturity that comedy becomes art. That it becomes comparable to music."
That statement is like the workings of a master crafted Swiss watch. Every concept worked and polished to nanometre precision and then meticulously arranged into a form that is aesthetically pleasing, perfectly efficient and fullfills it’s function sublimely.
The conversation about The Darkness reminds me of conversations about gallows humor, author Alexandria Erin made the observation: "If the person on the gallows makes a grim joke, that's gallows humor. If someone in the crowd makes a joke, that's part of the execution." The worst part is that everyone has their own bit of darkness, something that could be channeled into something funny. But edgelords would rather take on persecution complexes rather than be vulnerable on stage, I guess.
This reminds me to a convo about r*pe jokes I had with my best friend. She’s a survivor and she enjoys jokes that came from other survivors. It’s a coping mechanism. Yet, it’s difficult to get it across people who aren’t survivors, either survivors come off as “normalising” r*pe or people think it’s ok to joke about r*pe without context or nuance. Natalie is right about how sometimes dark comedy is best spoken in safe spaces. Probably the reason why my best friend and I can go about r*pe jokes between the two of us, but it wouldn’t be proper if we were to do it in public. And sometimes another survivor may find it triggering because in the end, people cope differently.
Occasionally my kid and I will get into a public conversation about something potentially triggering, and they say "Let's stop, you can't TW a conversation."
@@Kraigon42 So basically there's something even less funny than deconstructing humor and the person to do it is someone other than our beloved Contrapoints. 🤔
@@tarumakela5075 Yes to the first, and... I'm not sure what my original second point was, but knowing me, it had something to do with the romantic implications of saying "you're The One." I, for one, find deconstructing humor to be extremely enjoyable, and there's been very few times when "explaining the joke" made something less funny for me.
Holy shit, The Darkness was early 2000's? That's like nearly 20 years ago! Thanks for making me feel old, Your Imperial Majesty (yes, I did have to google the correct way to address an Emperor. I'm old but I'm not *that* old school).
20:11 "....because it's MY darkness, not yours. Get your OWN darkness!" That is essentially the point of gallows humor for me. If you're not part of the community you're making a joke of, the nuance of the joke is lost bc you don't have that experience. It's not only punching down, it's just not funny bc that nuance is lost.
@@lux6058 Okaay, lol. Defensive much!?! Read her credits at the end of most, if not all of her vids. You're acting like I had a go at her, yet I was just stating facts.
I really love that point on trans jokes. There's an Irish comedian called Dara O'Briain who spoke about people calling him out for making jokes about Catholicism but not Islam. His response was that he doesn't do Islam jokes because A: he knows nothing about Islam and B: neither do you.
Stewart Lee: "Did you know that one in two spokespeople for the Islamic community in Britain is in fact the leader of a special interest community group given ideas above its station by misguided new Labour policies?" *silence* "[...] That's the best joke about Islam anyone's ever done. It was even-handed, it was well-researched, it's what you *say* you want. 'Not like that Stu. We meant, make fun of their hats.'"
While I loved the whole video, "Get your own darkness" was the one line that actually caused me to laugh outwardly. Which, I mean, laughter is for sharing, so to elicit an audible response when I'm the only awake person in the house...
omg lindsay i was also a bit S H O O K cause i had also literally taken a xanax minutes before that joke and straight up laughed to a near coughing fit ahahah. also natalie, if you see this - this video is EVERYTHING to me btw.
@NoLaJoe Everything that's happened thus far is going to lag over into 2021; the pandemic will still be at large, the economy will still likely be in recession, political tensions are not likely to cool down for a while, and of course, people will likely still be suffering from the collective trauma of 2020. But it'll hopefully bring a step in the right direction.
Those times were not to last unfortunately. Not necessarily accusing you of this, but a lot of people feel 2020 was some sort of aberration or result of serious misfortune and so dearly wish for things to return to "normal". But it is that "normal" which got us here. With the arrangement of our global society, our current zeitgeist under late-stage capitalism & neoliberal economics. We've been heading down this road for a long time.
@@MrOzzification Too true! It's just that after so much ickiness leading up to 2020, when shit really started to hit the fan we SAW and FELT everything that had been building up for a loooooong time. It wasn't just a theory, or something behind the scenes. It was more visceral. A shared group experience or trauma. In fact, as much as it sucked and still sucks... It could end up leading to some good. (Note: I am in NO way saying covid-19 is a good thing. I'm not happy about people suffering and dying.) Sometimes things have to get really bad to inspire people to change and get that pendulum swinging in the opposite direction. Maybe Donald Trump would have won again had we not all suffered so much and desperately wanted change. Maybe if 2019 was as bad, more people would have been ready for Grandaddy Bernie! Or maybe this is just what I tell myself in some deaperate Pollyanna-type of delusion that all this garbage better have happened for some kind of reason, some kind of change, something that will eventually be good and better than it was before. Here's hoping!
@@liftistswoletariat7184 quoting an author with a different perspective on the subject is the same as completely ignore the thesis of the video? even if that's true, i dont really see the irony in that.
Well she literally adressed how that definition is insufficient, it would reduce comedy to speaking truth to power, which are distinct things and in my opinion should not be reduced to each other
Sadly, the alt-right have oppression envy and conspiracy-theorist worldviews and imagine minority groups as evil overlords, so that distinction would be lost on them.
"This is my darkness, not yours." I think this is actually really profound. Sure it can come off as possessive and narcissistic, but the deep truth of the human experience is that we only fully experience our own point of view. That makes certain things extremely personal, and we should not be trivializing the internal experience of others. Not if we want to claim we have any respect for anybody but ourselves. The true narcissism is to ignore the individuality of others.
I don't really like throwing around "narcissism" the way it's being used. There are people who suffer from narcissistic personality disorder who are affected by the way "narcissist" is used.
That's really interesting to think about but I don't think that really resolves the questions in this video. The point that everyone has unique experiences that can never really he understood relates to the question of dark humor how? Saying that you shouldn't joke about things outside of your single individual experience doesn't resolve it
@@katatat2030 The original point still stands. You can understand and sympathise with the plight of others, through empathy. And that may mean you can make comedy (even dark comedy) that is not offensive. It's not the standard though. The standard is to make dark comedy about topics comics like Gervais do not understand, and portray the people he's making fun of as delusional and overly sensitive. It's not the same thing, and this brand of bad humour really stems from a total lack of understanding about the subject being joked about
"I transitioned on UA-cam making controversial political content all the while and I read the comments" How powerful is your aura cause i felt that one from here.
You can only watch the world burn when you have the privilege of not being on fire. I'm adopting this as my personal motto now. I'll make sure to give proper attribution.
kevin: Yea, but it's sad because I used to find him quite funny. He seems to have lost his, um, edge and is not just doing lazy, path of least resistance humor now.
@@chrisstoltz3648 it works the other way around for me sometimes... after cumming during a depressive episode i feel really empty and after a good crying session lol i feel kinda fine like you can't physically cry for a really long time and there is some point where you stop and relax
Especially if you take certain meds. lol I was on meds since I was 15 until recently (around 25) and man, I never knew what it actually felt like all that time. Lol
For medical reasons I had to be surgically sterilized at 25. After the procedure they gave me a photograph of my ovaries. I showed it to my friends and said “I got a picture of all the kids I’ll never be able to have!” They didn’t think it was as funny as I did.
People who have experienced trauma "aren't supposed to" make black jokes about it. Normal people want to hear the sad story and see the sad face so they can 1) feel better that it didn't happen to them, and 2) feel inspired that you "rose above it". Once they've heard the story, they've acknowledged your pain, now be normal like them. Making jokes about it makes them uncomfortable, they get a glimpse of the absurdity of life and they don't have the ability to deal with it; and they are reminded about your trauma, which annoys them because they heard the story, they offered their condolences, now move on and stop letting it affect you
@@stevenborg102 you know what's not funny steven,jokes that are rooted in bigotry and oppresion coming from a mouth that was not oppressed for the subject matter(you can make joke with transgender people in it without bigotry but lets be honest thats not what cis people want to do and are hurt of being seen as offensive),if you want to joke about trans people so bad help us reach the same level of equality as cis people where we are on the same level,fighting!
The Darkness is why I can't hang with these young widow groups. I've got my husband sitting in a TSA-proof cake box on my shelf and if that's not the funniest thing to you, I have have no idea what to tell you. "Sometimes it's hard to believe my husband is really gone... But I figure if the hanging didn't kill him, the cremation probably did." Not even a chuckle.
I save the jokes about Mom's ashes for those boring clowns who are always bragging about how they fucked somebody's mom. If they want to brag about mine, I rather enjoy telling them exactly how dusty her old vajay really is, now :D
(Not a particularly hilarious joke, but) My dad died of a heart attack in my late teens. He collapsed while he was out for his nightly run which he did primarily to support his cardiovascular health. My dad died in the middle of doing a thing that was supposed to help keep him from dying. When I pointed this little curiosity out to my family, I got FLAMED. How dare I?? Eulogies ONLY from here on out!! I take a good deal of solace in knowing my dad would've chuckled. He and I were the family weirdos. Also, your joke *is* funny, and my mom agrees that widow support groups are basically the Pain Olympics and she stopped going after a few times. Keep up the Darkness!
RIcky Gervais blocked me on Twitter because I pointed out that he laughs at his own jokes. I didn't tag him either, so I can only conclude he spends inordinate amounts of time searching his own name. So whenever he criticises the offended, methinks the laddie doth protest too much.
My spouse came out about being trans and began her transition on New Years 2019. You know, “new year, new you.” Since I did not marry her for her boy parts, I do whatever it takes to help her because, to me, that’s what true love is. I will however make trans jokes with her because I’ve been there through the bean bag boobs (nylons filled with grains) and the boobeez (orbee filled balloon boobs) before we could afford breast forms. I would never however make jokes about trans people to other trans people because I don’t understand their struggle. Similar as to how my wife will joke about my disability (chronic migraines, generalized anxiety disorder and a shit ton of food allergies) because she’s lived through my pain and struggle too and we both cope by laughing, but she would never make jokes about another person’s disabilities because she recognizes that she doesn’t know their struggle. Aka we call this not being an asshole -unless we love them.
TheControlBlue I’m sorry that you feel that way. Carrying all that negativity must be a hard and sad way to live. Being that I’ve dated girls before this really isn’t that big of a deal, and it’s improved our relationship because my wife is a happier person as she’s not hiding anything from herself or otherwise. As people who’ve lived through someone dying in our home after 3 years struggling with cancer, or her best friend being killed by a drunk driver, or most painfully, our baby nephew dying from health complications at 7 weeks old, we learned that you love and cherish everyone while you have them. I’m truly sorry if you’ve never experienced that kind of love for another person, it must be a miserable existence.
@@XJunixAnnexKayxScarX I'd rather have Respect a thousand times over Love. You had a hard life, I can give you that much, but it seems that whatever you are doing right now is more like digging down into the darkness (to go back to the Contra-point) rather than going up to the light, it seems you are even ready to spit at the light if it dares come to you. "My spouse came about being trans and began her transition on New Years 2019" If he had an ounce of Respect towards you he would never have done that to you. I am sure he Loves you, but what he is doing there to both of you is very much bringing you two closer to the darkness. But hey, it's your life, you must think I am some kind of hateful monster, but if there is one thing I truly respect, it is your divine right to live your life as you see fit.
There is reason I don't like the "I identify as [Random thing]" jokes. It's not because they're insulting, since they rarely are. They're just very very unfunny. The fact they're not funny jokes bothers me more than any possible insult
To be fair, the Trans-Racial joke on Atlanta is actually really funny since the punchline is just the extreme dissonance of white stereotypes being carried out by a large black man and it has an additional payoff later in the episode where it plays off the absurd contradictory nature of social justice dynamics between other marginalized groups.
Honestly, they're in the same level of: "Nobody: Me: Whatever the fuck" Like if you want to joke about trans people, fine whatever, but don't act like you did something by saying the same 2 jokes that almost every edgy teenager has done.
This is so true! I recently got referred for bottom surgery. The joke I told everyone in my life I wanted to tell? "Guys! Guys! My vagina's on back order!"
Lol congratulations! I haven’t gotten nearly as far in my transition, but I did get a packer recently and told everyone that I was getting my dick in the mail
@@JoeyDragonWhisperer Yeah, here you have to do a lot of waiting to transition medically (the NHS has a massive shortage of gender specialists, apparently) here (it already took 18 months to see a gender specialist and another 7 or so months on top of that to start HRT). Hope yours stays on course!
Yeah, not one of the shining stars of the Atheist movement. He, like a few others really don't help secular humanism or those of us considered "evil" or "without morals" because we do not adhere to a specific belief system and do not believe in a god.
Came here from Matt Baume and I love it. I’m not a trans person, but I am a cripple. And yes, i call myself that. And no, you may not. Get your own darkness.
GOD ur so right about the dissonance in trans humor. im like... really excited for when im taking hormones and my voice deepens and i'll have a beard and and i can begin stories with "well, when i was in girl scout camp..." and watch the range of reactions afterwards
How effective are those hormones? I don't mean to be rude, but I know with a lot of trans people, you can still sort of tell they're trans based on their voice or their facial structure. Would the hormones be enough to make you grow a beard? That would be awesome.
Jerrod Shack hey just a word of advice for the future, replying to a trans person’s excitement for their future with “do you think you’ll ACTUALLY look like a man?” isn’t the best look. i know it wasn’t ill meaning or anything so ill cut you a break, but there aren’t a whole lot of trans people who will reply to that happily. you might not have meant it, but it kind of looks like “you will probably never pass and everyone can tell your birth gender forever, because i can tell a few other trans ppls birth genders.” again, not a good look, even if it’s not what you mean. also replying to the second part of your comment, i guess i meant more stubble than “beard”, i know i’m not going to get a viking beard or anything. however hormones can and do cause drastic changes, but usually slowly. there’s also facial feminization and masculinization surgery, etc. and basing your ideas on trans people off of “being able to tell” also isn’t... the best way to be a good friend to the trans ppl in your life. i hope that clears things up. don’t go running around on trans ppls comments with statements like that btw, even if your inentions are good, you’ll get a lot of (honestly rightfully) angry replies from trans people who are used to people having bad intentions. if you’re curious, i can reccommend some trans youtubers that talk about the process so you don’t have to come up to us and ask random questions. k? k.
@@jerrodshack7610 its a good idea to try to unlearn the process of assuming someone is trans because they don't match your preconceptions of what makes someone one gender or another. sklort's response to you was really merciful and really generous, and i suggest you take that advice to heart
Criminal Saint the topic of the video was dark humor at ones own expense, and had a section mentioning trans jokes by trans people. i made a comment responding to that part of the video. person replies in a way that wasn’t really called for, i reply to them respectfully and let them know others might not be lenient so they can avoid later conflict and leave the conversation with new info abt trans people. what exactly am i missing here? if you’re trying to assume the video is about Not Getting Offended, then the video r/wooshed over your head, and i wasn’t even offended in the first place. i gave the person the benefit of the doubt and gave my insight, and considering they were responding to something i said about my personal life and experience, i have the right to reply as i like. go play somewhere else.
There are so many things about being trans that would make for excellent jokes. For example, I a few days ago a girl I went to school with sat down next to me on a bus. I recognized her immediately, but she didn't recognize me, since last time we met was two years ago when I still had giant boobs and no facial hair. So for the whole one hour drive I sat there, trying not to look at her too much, thinking: "Does she know who I am? What if she tries to talk to me? Should I say anything?" She ended up not saying a word to me, we got off the bus eventually and when I was back home, I just couldn't stop laughing about how stressed I was for a whole hour, while she probably didn't even notice me. While I was on the bus, I was feeling like I could have a panic attack at any moment, but looking back, the situation seems so absurd, it's just hilarious. Another time I was at university, sitting in the cafeteria with my laptop out, which has a little trans flag sticker on it. A woman sitting on the opposite side of the table asked me what it was, I explained. She then got so furious, telling me I would never be a real woman. I listened, and when she was done I said: "Yeah, you're right. I'm never gonna be a woman, because I'm a trans man." She didn't even know such a thing exists.
@@gabrielfraser2109 Ehh, I don't know if I really buy that. To use an example that was in the video, that's kind of like saying "I don't really find that Richard Pryor joke funny because I've never run down the street in flames during a coke-fueled psychosis. But I'm sure it's funnier for people who _have_ run down the street in flames during a coke-fueled psychosis." Delivery plays a role. To be fair, I've never heard that Richard Pryor joke, so just hearing it explained, I can't really tell if it was funny or not. But I'm going to assume that if he delivered it in a funny way, then it was funny. It has nothing to do with whether I can relate on a one-to-one level.
It's such bullshit that trans guys are so ignored that most of the bigots don't even know they exist. Sure, y'all aren't getting as much hate, but you aren't even acknowledged in a lot of ways
"The darkness is finding a way to laugh about being on fire." - roughly around 26:43 . Attributed to St. Lawrence, Christian martyr cooked to death under the Roman Empire: ""I'm well done on this side. Turn me over!" Famous awesome last words that reminded me of.
Wheezywaiter's log, March 3rd, 2019 Today I watched a Contrapoints video for the first time. It was pretty cool. March 10th, 2019 So it turns out I'm a transgender vampire queen.
kentuckyisnotafriedstate sssshhhh, don’t tell him. It’ll make him really sad and then in two years he’ll have to do another Netflix special. That’s no good for anyone.
I'm 22 years old and recently became a sales lead at the mall, my first manager position ever. After two shifts where I was the boss, my manager said employees had complaints that I was "too bossy" and the cringe and embarrassment I felt sank deep into my core in a way I've never felt before. I don't even know how I managed to get back on the sales floor that day. The pain of being an incompetent leader sent me to the bathroom for 30 minutes while I cried with the lights off. That happened yesterday. 36 hours later, I began making little jokes to myself about it, and thus far it's the only time I can think about the incident where I don't feel like I'm drowning in ice water. Thank you, Natalie, for yet another amazing video
Hey, I'm going to assume the op of this comment has long moved on from this event, but for anyone who finds themself in the same boat: It is notoriously hard to rise in the ranks and become a manager for people you used to work for, because there is a period of adjustment and people are very reluctant to have a boss be someone who was in the same position as them yesterday. And simultaneously, it is very difficult to transition to start being in a management position and communicate and delegate with others efficiently and respectfully, while maintaining authority. Finally, middle management roles in retail (think supervisor/team leader) are also difficult because you've got very little autonomy but expected to do a lot. If you're reading this and you're ever in this new position, give yourself and your colleagues some grace and some time to adjust. And don't be an asshole to people obviously. Too many assholes in those kinds of positions and too many good people burn out. Sorry this comment is very random X)
"And this is edginess at its worst. Just a privileged person with a platform punching down at a politically besieged group he understands nothing about....it's boring and immature. Like when someone says he wants to watch the world burn. You only get to watch when you have the privilege of not being on fire. Its edgy but it's not the Darkness. The Darkness is finding a way to laugh about being on fire. Edginess is always adolescent; the Darkness is edginess aged by time and pain. And its only at that full maturity that comedy becomes art; that it becomes comparable to music." Amen
@@jansettler4828 many ordinary trans people who aren't famous get shamed or ridiculed in their communities and some families even disown them. The number of trans women who get murdered for trying to date straight guys is a huge problem too. Also I think there are certain states that still allow trans people to get turned down for jobs or housing but I still need to get more info on that one
@@jansettler4828 No you're right, that example wasn't related sorry. And I don't have stats right at the top of my head, I gave you the ways they are, I think you can find the rest.
Aside from the entertainment value, this was a genuinely thoughtful analysis of the ethics of comedy. Not that I expected anything less, but this is a topic that doesn’t get a lot of discussion other than simplistic arguments about “free speech” vs. moral outrage, etc. I think a lot of it comes down to the overall gestalt of your personality and corpus. In other words, if you seem like a sympathetic comrade, you can get away with a lot more than someone with no regard for the welfare of X group of people. People don’t just look at a given joke in isolation, or at least I don’t think we should. This is why the Greeks had tragedy *and* comedy-you have to sublimate that pain somehow. Many of the great works in the history of art accomplish this in one way or another, and comedy is no exception. Well done Ms. Natalie, well done.
I think that context is really important. I make a lot of jokes that would be considered really offensive, but I only make them to people who know me and know that I don't actually believe the negative implications of the joke. When I make offensive jokes, it's generally in a satirical "I think it's funny that there are actually people who believe this" way.
My dad killed himself and “the sound of silence”, as well as “the boxer” by Simon and Garfunkel were the songs he passingly requested be played at his funeral. It took me years before I dared listen to either. When that meme came into popularity , i was made able to disconnect his memory and the horrific trauma from the first line of the song . I broke - burst into tears when you not just played the tonal switch But moreso when you described it. I’ve not cried in a long while.
A strange thing to share, but my best friend committed suicide too and we played „Sound of Silence“ at her memorial. The meme did the same for me, taking away the heavy grief and honestly being scared of hearing the song again. And then it showed up in this video again! And turned it into something beautiful and hopeful too! And then I read your comment and I had this realization that there‘s at least one other person who has that strange, specific relationship with that song.
i'm making a small clay chicken and drinking spiced rum with pineapple chunks on cocktail sticks whilst watching this. for this brief moment, i feel at peace with the universe and my place within it
"Gawrsh, Sora! It looks like Organization XIII is rejecting the use of tasteful comedy in favor of shock value!" "What?! We can't let that happen!" "I think there are some ingredients around here!"
I have been digesting this UA-camrs videos for about a week now. I can honestly say I have a different worldview. You have a beautiful way of forcing me to call myself into question without offending and causing a cognitive shutdown. Keep up the amazing work.
Scott Vanmeter yeah man she is pretty is awesome. It’s great seeing a woman getting a platform on UA-cam since it’s usually men who get a bigger platform. And I’m also glad that she is using her platform for good and opening people’s minds.
The beauty of contrapoints is accurately showing and acknowledging why the people she disagrees with think the way they do before presenting an argument.
@@nathanborders2113 Not always and not precisely, which isnt to say the second thing is necessarily practical, but I think she attempts to try to find a general group opinion without forcing stereotypes and strawmen that would instantaneously make people tune out.
The Darkness: Me trying out my voice after a few weeks of voice training and my sister going "Wow, you sound like early transition ContraPoints!" God damn sis, way to slay two trans with one stone.
@@randomasspirate3630 he is referring to his sister therefore sis Edit I know its a play on words (cis and sis). This only exist to prove that i know before someone Attempts to corrects me
That's hysterical. But genuinely, I loved her voice back then. There was a distinctive quality to it that's just missing now. And it's not my job to mourn the changes that she chose to make cause it's her life and her joy to seek but I sometimes go back to old videos just for the auditory stim. It's really enjoyable. I was recently talking to a friend abt how all trans women seem to go through a period of sounding the same as each other in a very specific way, and I could see someone finding that hurtful, but it's genuinely my favorite part of trans culture. It's so endearing, it's like how all baby owls go through the same awkward phase and you look at one and you're like damn, you might look like a pair of eyes on stilts right now but you're going to be Majestic in six months
My husband looked at the vegetables I diced last night and asked how I managed to so finely dice them. I told him that it wasn't hard - I listened to Contrapoints talk about the darkness inside and just kept cutting.
yeah, this is the kind of joke i would be fine if me or one of my friends or someone i know gas issues around sh made, but would be pretty hurt if some mentally stable edge lord made for a giggle.
Also I got to make a joke out of my (strict, conservative, religious) mother finding LOTS of bdsm gear in my room while I was gone, neatly folding/organizing it, and not being able to look me in the eye since. When I first got home and saw what happened I thought I was going to die, but within a few days I thought it was the funniest situation in the world and I still laugh about it to this day. The best part is probably that I had cat ears and a tail from halloween when I was like, 17, which I had never used in a sexual context, but she neatly put that in right between the police grade handcuffs and the spreader bar. A few weeks later there was a furry convention in a city near me and my mom deadpan asked me if I was going. Thanks, mom.
There is something very hilarious about how uncomfortable she must have been while at the same time very sweet about how hard she was trying to be cool about it.
Wow. I feel the same way about racial humor. I, as an African American person, am COMPLETELY hip to the fact that there are MANY hilarious things about AA people/culture that can and should be made fun of. However, most (though not all, there are some prominent exceptions - lookin at you Bill Burr 🖤) non black comedians don’t understand our culture enough to adequately poke fun at it in a way that is actually clever or funny. Most times, theyre told by people who have only ever encountered black people through rap music or at the DMV and are just looking for a clever way to have an excuse to say the N word out loud. I’m not offended by edgy jokes - just badly told ones. I have never been able to put this into words. Thank you for so eloquently putting my internal musings together.
You know this is a thing I recently realized, growing up I didn't have the vocabulary as a kid to explain why I felt something happening to me was wrong, or wrong with the things I saw in media. Even at 10 I knew when something was happening to me because of my race, but I didn't know how explain what it even was or why. It's this suffocating feeling that was easier to ignore and try to forget than aimlessly swim in confusion and hurt. It's kind of like seeing diversity in big hollywood these days; I didn't even realize that's something that I never had and could have seriously benefited from. It's a sudden realization and you can finally explain how something feels and why. Finally these internal musings can become actionable.
@@202cardline I was with your second comment until you started talking about Hollywood "diversity". That's a fucking sham, conceived to make my fellow white people believe that ALL Black (and other racialized) people(s) are better represented and better treated than they actually are in this white supremacist shithole of a world. Don't believe the hype!
I relate to this. Recently, a British politician referred to people of colour as people with a "funny tinge", and while I'm not happy with that, I am also tickled by the idea of referring to myself as a 'person of tinge', especially since I'm half English/Indian, so my experience of being a person of colour is very different to that of someone who doesn't pass.
"Like when someone says he wants to watch the world burn. You only get to watch when you have the privilege of not being on fire. It's edgy, but it's not the darkness. The darkness is finding a way to laugh about being on fire." Wow... This summed up so many of my thoughts about dark humour in such a precise and to-the-point way. You always articulate what points you want to get across insanely well. The singing was awesome, by the way!
mais oui, your delicate searching voice softly breaking, there was something of a femme Daniel Johnston, made me tear up, it was definitely an orgasm for this sad trans
Something about the way you want it to sound and the way she sounds being so different is so refreshing and soothing to hear and it actually made my headache go away for the whole song.
I share these words of wisdom from someone in a very dark place, purely for the perspective of laughing at one's own pain: "Life's a bitch and then we die, fuck it all let's get high!"
rosy5th that’s what I called it!! Also my dick slashing ritual and my chop off, as well as telling people what I had done over the summer as ‘chopping my nugs and slitting my sausage’
Could one of y’all explain why “sex change” is less accurate? I mean the surgery could take place regardless of one’s innate gender, and it literally involves rearranging the genitals (or “sex”) from one basic form and function into that of another. Also, since gender is confirmed by an agreement between oneself and society, how is it “confirmed” by altering the parts that society generally doesn’t see?
My Lords, Ladies and those who lieth betwixt it has been a long time since the last gathering. I admit to being overcome with ecstasy that the great goddess has once again uploaded. Onto the video
_"My Lords, Ladies and those who lieth betwixt"_ If only such tolerance and humanity had begun, say back in the 1500's. We might be living in a decent society by now.
"but then again, I am a hedonistic bourgeois decadent and should probably be sent to the guillotine at once!" I have literally never related to a sentence more
For some reason Natalie singing the sound of silence just slightly ironically but completely serious gives me the biggest shivers, it's actually so beautiful and tops the whole video off just perfectly
I really liked your comparison of "watching the world burn" and "being in the fire". It made it easier to understand what you were talking about, and I feel like it could explain why I don't enjoy certain forms of comedy.
As a newly out Trans Woman discovering your channel is possibly the greatest thing that could have happened for my mental health. I found you at exactly the time I needed it most, thank you for doing what you do Natalie x
It’s almost inconceivable be reading pages and pages of such enlightening, funny, heartfelt, and thoughtful comments underneath a UA-cam video. Thank you!
I find the whole "jokes don't care about your feelings" thing to be utter bullshit. Cuz like, if people don't find the joke funny, then you don't tell the joke anymore. You retool it, and make it better so that it's actually funny. Or you tell it to a different audience. Comedy HINGES on your feelings.
The best comedy is universal. And smart with meaning behind it, or you attract just the stupid and immature people. When i think of carlin i dont think of his edgyness but him being observant and bullshitting on everything that he critizises, without differences. His trans joke is unfortunate. His whole thing is that he is cynical but was once an idealist and who wants to show of whats wrong with the world. But i get he is very frustrated that many of his "fans" dont get that. That he is often misunderstood as edgy. Thats the darkness thats funny and tragic about his comedy. He is very self deprivating. Thats part of why he is funny. And that doesnt make his trans joke better but i think he wants to point out thhat everyone is equally terrible. See that edgy comedians, find a theme that has meaning for you and joke about it while you spread knowledge and awareness.
@@jonsnor4313 I'm not sure that I agree with the assertion that the best comedy is universal. Some incredibly insightful jokes rely on references or some prior shared knowledge, which will only be received by people who already get the reference or understand the setup of the joke. Topical comedy doesn't work with people who aren't caught up with the events being referenced. Older comedy can be difficult to follow if it predates your working history. I agree with most of your comment, though.
Ok i didnt take in account things like the trekkie references in futurama that are funny as hell. Or just nice.Good comedy moments that makes inside jokes about certain media are funny as well. Like konosuba and anime.Or whatever topic, evern controverse ones. You are right, inside comedy or what it is called can be extremly funny and hillarous.
Jon Snor I strongly disagree. The best Art is necessarily divisive. It is a thing that makes the observer pensive, contemplative, introspective. Those emotions tend to lead to states of discomfort. Many dislike discomfort, and thus become divided on the value, merit, strength, utility, etc. of the Art. If we can assume that Comedy is a form of Art, then by the transitive property, Comedy is divisive. And to be divisive inherently implies a polarity. So, then, Art or Comedy can and often is polarizing, which suggests it isn’t universal. The human experience isn’t universal. Why should Comedy be? I’ll just end on a platitude: When you try to please everyone you please no one.
@@saxa-uta 12 year olds are rarely genuine about these kinds of things. Not because they're dishonest, but because they usually don't have the cognitive and emotional maturity to really understand the full implications of what they're saying. (Exceptions notwithstanding.)
I've avoided watching contra for so long because as being trans myself I have an emotional block to discussing difficult trans issues/transphobes, but I'm glad I finally did. I relate so much. I would honestly be fine with the trans jokes if they were actually original and funny.
I feel like Bo Burnham’s comedy could kind of fit into this. Like sure there’s some edgier jokes that don’t always land in his specials but for the most part I feel like he’s pretty self aware of that and you can see his growth from his earliest edgy humor into more introspective pieces like We Think We Know You from “what.” Even some of the edgier jokes from that special are delivered in a more mature manner in his follow-up special Make Happy. When I’ve watched interviews he’s also talked about how his humor was kind of shaped on the humorlessness of his upbringing (his mom literally works in hospice care) and his approach to humor just has always seemed really genuine to me. His humor is imperfect but it’s honest in its imperfections.
The thing I noticed about Bo Burnham's comedy specials (which, notably, he's not doing for the foreseeable future), is that with each special, he became more self-aware, and especially critical of his earlier work and role as a comedian. In fact, in his last special, he's seemingly able to grasp The Darkness that kept looking into his works (such as art is dead, WTWKY, #sad, etc.) with Handle This. The epilogue to it is especially painful, as he urges younger, creative people in his audience not to follow in his footsteps, even though he knows some have already.
There is an intrinsic value of offensive comedy. It has a place in illustrating common accepted behavior that is actually prejudice. Good comedy using racist phrases to highlight the absurdity of racism is powerful. Sarah Silverman is the queen of this. The awful shit she says so innocently is hilarious because it shows how awful RACISM is and how we innocently we say racist shit. The entire character is the joke, not the race. Bo Burnham does the same thing. But it is really hard to do well, and I think he is just really fine tuning his skill at it. Intention is important. And I think he has good intentions. Mel Brooks movies would be problematic if you don’t understand the point of the context. It is stereotypes and tropes against minorities to illustrate that they are racist and sexist. Not to espouse racism, homophobia or sexism. But to destroy the tools used to justify it.
Once you listen to real dark and ironic comedy from the likes of Pryor, Bonnie McFarland and Cumtown the likes of Burnham just come off as what they are, UA-cam amateur outliers
The UA-camr Shonalika has a great video about this, how Bo Burnham's use of 'edgy' humour is different from the kinds of right wing shitposters who also use 'edginess' to describe their humour
The thing with making jokes about subjects you have barely no knowledge on is that they are hilarious to other people who know nothing about the subject.
And it gets old so quick cause there's only so many basic jokes you can make... But even if you've heard the joke a thousand times, there'll still be some people late to the party that just think you're "triggered"..
I've been watching your videos for the last few years and it looks like you've made a conscious choice to perform invulnerability in your videos. You joke about your sadness and pain, but we rarely see it. Your jokes always make me laugh, but every so often you demonstrate another part of yourself that I think is really special. When Tiffany breaks down in the "Tiffany Tumbles" video, when you described blocking 4chan from your computer in the "Incels" video, and when you sang "The Sound of Silence," even when you had disparaged your singing voice and proficiency. You don't owe your viewers any kind of vulnerability, but thank you. I just wanted to say I relate a lot to that chuckle right after you finish playing and say "Stay Gorgeous."
@@TheAgavi Yes, that's a great example too. I think there has been a directional shift between how openly vulnerable she has been, especially in the last year.
I love this and love your videos. You hit the nail on the head with edginess vs. darkness. Also, "I put myself down in order to speak, in order to seek permission to speak." That's a powerful clip from Hannah Gadsby and it really resonates with me, even though I'm just a gay who's not quite as on the margins. Thanks for sharing.
Yes that Hannag Gadsby clip spoke to me as well. It reminded me of reading Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery.. He wrote a passage about trying to secure funding from white people for a school, and how oftentimes he'd add in self-deprecating jokes or jokes made at the expense of blacks in order to make his white audiences more comfortable so that they might listen to him. He was very much looking for that permission to speak, and it's heartbreaking really, but i guess that puts me on the snowflake side for today's video lol
I make fun of myself and my disability all the time and it confuses people so much lol. I'll talk about being paralyzed with pain and screaming and make jokes out of it and laugh. I just have to you know? I feel like it'll kill me if I don't.
I agree. Also, I feel the most comfortable and alright with it when I'm around people who are cool with joking about it or with me making jokes about it. So many people get uncomfortable when I make a joke about it... like, it's MY diagnosis, I'm the one that actually lives with this, why are YOU getting uncomfortable??
@@ka-im5nd sure, but what about the other side? a person whose jokes end up becoming a sort of humiliation when joking about people suffering something that this specific person doesn't suffer?? others might feel uncomfortable because they DON'T UNDERSTAND and they are kind, imagine if they LAUGH AT YOU instead of WITH YOU (which many people can't because they don't understand the suffering that they themselves don't go through) I don't know if I am explaining myself well here...
@@amartyasensei1129 The ability to laugh with someone is a hugely important skill. But that skill coincides with the ability to laugh about yourself, something that might even be a bit systemic, because the modern world is hyper-competative so many people think that showung weakness is a sign of weakness, while it is one of the biggest signs of strength there is
My mom has some issues with her hands due to late stage serious diabetes. Sometimes her hands just get stuck and she literally cannot move them. She's a teacher, and one time when I visted her back home she told me this story. One morning her hand got stuck while she was eatin, and well, she was holding a giant kitchen knife at the time. And she didn't know what to do bc well, you can't exactly climb on a bus holding a huge kitchen knife. And even if she could somehow get to the school, if she enters the class holding a giant kitchen knife, the kids might be more silent and obedient but the principal might not like the idea. So she tried to pry the knife from her own hand but it didn't want to move up so she had to slowly slowly drag it out with the blade going down through her hand. She managed it without getting hurt but it was pretty nerve wrecking for her at the time. However of course later she told it as a funny thing that happened to her, and she told a couple of her colleagues about it too but a lot of them didn't know how to react and that's when she noticed something, and she told me this: "You can recognize the best people in life by looking at whether they laugh with you or not. The people that cannot laugh, are not worth your time." Its a rough translation, we're both Hungarians so the translation might be a bit rough but you should be able to get the point.
Same. I make fun of my mental illness all the time. And if someone else jokes about themselves I laugh and join in. That doesn't give me the right to make fun of them unpromptedly though, or them to make fun of me unpromptedly. I'd think that's obvious but some comedians don't seem to get that.
Best analysis of why much of current mainstream "edgy" comedy is bad, in a way that shows that it goes beyond "not being PC", nor even whether or not it's funny... you have to fundamentally understand that what you make fun of, if you don't - it's just empty "shock comedy". My respect for you grows even larger, Natalie. Stay awesome.
The thing is that it's actually funny. The fun is humilating and laughing at a group of people already frowned upon, marginalized and dehumanized by society. People enjoy themselves and have lots of fun doing that.
@@mikelmontoya2965 a distinction that is necessary to make. Lots of people (myself included, sadly) do laugh when they are presented with an oportunity to dehumanize some "other" to make it a target. It takes conscious effort to realize that's basically bullying with extra steps, and I don't think it goes away easily or entirely.
@@DankAudioStash24 as a lazy German myself I just assumed all of Natalie's German viewers spoke enough English to not need subtitles. That is however (as I now realize) a very simplistic view. If we start translating the videos we might be able to broaden her audience here :)
George Carlin was one of my comedy heroes, but yes, he did miss the mark sometimes when talking about so-called euphemistic language. Take the term “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder”, which he said was less direct than the simple, more straightforward “shell shock.” True, but “simpler” does not necessarily mean “more accurate”, since the former acknowledges that one needn’t experience the horror of war to have the condition.
"It's boring and immature like when someone says he wants to watch the world burn. You only get to watch if you have the privilege of not being on fire."
I have a close friend who only voted for Trump so he could "watch the world burn". He's an asshole.
Not if you're willing to start with yourself. Destroy the world but makes sure you go with it
@@arlostein1000 If you're willing to start with yourself then you'd be dead before your fire spreads, so you wouldn't be able to watch it. Ironically you have to be selfless to burn the world.
Ampz14 that's why it's dumb nihilism not the useful intriguing Ligotti sense of nihilistic philosophy
@@arlostein1000 Isn't Ligotti's point that life is pain and is therefore not worth existing?
this reminds me of the whole ‘gallows humor is only humor when it’s said by the people with the rope around their neck. if it’s said by someone in the crowd, it’s part of the execution.’
I hate to tell you this, but we _all_ have a rope around our necks, and Time is the one that pulls the lever.
That's it!
@@vaylonkenadell Congrats on AllLivesMatter'ing comedy.
I hadn't heard that one before. I like it.
@@vaylonkenadell Opression is not a competition. The horrors that native people faced does not erase the suffering of trans people.
Someone once to,d my dad (a man who lost his leg in an explosion) that his prosthetic was really cool. He looked at them straight in the eye and said in a monotonous voice “thanks, it cost me a leg to get it.”
My friend had his leg amputated due to cancer. I was very close with him during the time he was going through that. Never before or after, have I heard that much dark humor about something so genuinely scary. I understand it better thanks to this video. He still likes to mess with people, though not as darkly. When asked what happened to his leg, he says things like "I didn't eat my veggies."
That is the most dad thing to say
That is one of the most best dad jokes lmao
Remembers man a man I met at a beach that was playing soccer despite having one leg, I took that as a learning opportunity, we started talking and he just said:
" I can do whatever anyone with two legs does.....except riding a scooter “
He then proceeded to laughing at my face for 10 minutes...and that was the actual learning opportunity.
I love your dad.
As my grandfather was dying, he pointed to his own chest, where a new pacemaker was futilely installed, and whispered “eBay”.
Your grandpa is the exact type of man I hope I am remembered as
omg, total f’ing legend, i love it.
mad lad
My great grandmother was dying of complications from type one diabetes and I was going to do the Macarena for my elementary school’s talent show. She wanted to see me dance and I remember crying my eyes out while dancing the Macarena. I haven’t been able to come up with a joke about that yet but it’s in there somewhere.
@@elenas3571 im so sorry but thats so funny
“Crying is like an orgasm for sad people.”
-Contrapoints, 2019
This is a big mood.
*yes*
Both are pretty good at getting your feelings out
she’s RIGHT though
shirt plz
When I got gay married, I told all my gay friends that I got gay married. They didn't seem as amused by my darkness.
You're funny
*laugh*
"Hyphenated" was my take on it. And there's a Lesbian comedian here in Germany who calls it "ver-stempelt", in English roughly "be-stamped" as in an official rubber stamp put on something. Very funny.
Most gay people I've been around are fine with a little self deprecating humour. It does bother some people in the community though so I try to keep it among friends who I know won't be offended or take it seriously.
Where's the darkness? Getting gay married is amazing!
@@MyKeyMoonShine It`s funny how some communities can be different from others. I live in Scotland and i found the gay scene a little difficult to navigate when i first went out to a gay community centre 20 years ago through a befriending service. I felt really scared and lonely at first and it took me a while to get used to the humour, some of which would probably make some folks toes curl! I developed a thick skin though and i met some of my best friends too. I really miss the old GLC (that was the bar we all used to drink in) god....i feel old now lol
I will remember “you can only enjoy watching the world burn if you have the privilege of not being on fire” for the rest of my life
Still, I think Christopher Nolan's joker would be able to do both at the same time. The internet's edgy people, probably not.
My favorite part comes right after, "the darkness is being able to laugh about being on fire".
it's such a great quote
Amen
i have autism so every time i get a new vaccine i say my autism power level increases
Thank you for making me laugh! :D
@@cacamilis8477 happy too
Brilliant!! I shall equip myself with this. Thank you
That actually made me bust out laughing.
Fuck, that got me.
I ugly laughed at that, thank you
I don’t mean to sound dramatic but discovering ContraPoints is the best thing to happen to me in years.
+
Damn that's pretty sad
gundamcollector77 sadder than making bitchy replies to comments from 2 weeks ago?....yikes
Same.
Word! A massive chunk of my, er, "media consumption" is ContraPoints, Folding Ideas, Lindsay Ellis, Philosophy Tube, Thought Slime, and Jenny Nicholson. Which is a lot of superb content!
AS A DISABLED PERSON, this is so goddamn relatable. Balancing "I'm not saying this for you" with "Yes, yes, we're all aware that I'm in a wheelchair; can we just eat now?" is such a tightrope act. I've broken more ice than the hull of a Norwegian oil tanker.
As an ~~ autistic ~~ I can relate to the point Nanette raises about humiliation being a necessary evil just to be allowed to speak in public. I had a bad experience recently where I revealed my autism in discourse and was reminded of how painfully easy the mainstream will dismiss you if you approach them in an indigestible format. I had been trying to sort my feelings on the matter and it felt cathartic to be reminded by other marginalized people that the problem wasn't with me, nor even how I approached the conversation, but with how my syndrome is institutionally stigmatized.
Right with you on the disability shit. Just today I made a couple friends uncomfortable by simultaneously calling myself a cripple and wedging the conversation into a point where the only possible replies were problematic. Honestly it's kind of been my mood lately.
@@BlargleRagequit If you don't mind, I have serious question which you may be able to answer: Since when is the word "cripple" a slur? Because as far as I'm aware, throughout at least a thousand years of english language, that word was the normal and even formal way to designate someone who lost part of their bodily functions. "That man was crippled during the Vietnam war." is a sentence a doctor would say. The word can also be applied to concepts instead of humans, like for example, staying in a military context:"If this ambush is succesful, that will cripple their offense and ensure our victory". Cripple is the word that says: "the subject we're talking about is no longer at 100% of their capacity."
Now, I get that the phrase "persons in need of assistance" fits better, because some people can be in need of assistance, not because their capabilities are reduced, but because they already have a lot on their plate (ex: pregnant women), I'm only questioning the idea that the word cripple is a slur. When did that happen? Who decided that?
@@Arkalidor not the person you asked but as a "super-ultra-mega-disabled+" person don't find the word "cripple" a slur or offensive. It is however potentially misleading or incorrect in the context brought up here. When you think of a cripple you often think of someone like me who is missing parts of their body (in my case i was born with my right arm ending just below the elbow) and not necessarily someone with a "metal disorder".
While it might not be incorrect to say someone with Autism (hello again) is "crippled" you could probably see why some people might take offense to it here. Cripple, or handicapped, is (for me) the proper way to designate someone who lost part of their "outer" bodily functions but things related to the brain might not gall under here.
Ultimately it comes down to semantics for me but i'd love to here what other people have to say. Hopefully i answered your question but should something still feel unclear please ask and i'll do my best to answer! And don't feel like a question is in ill taste or whatever - i rather you ask so you can be informed than carry on uninformed just because you didn't want to offend C:
@@Arkalidor Bruh, it's pretty simple.
There's being crippled
And there's being a cripple.
There's being black
And there's being a black.
Basically anything can be a legitimate slur with intent and context. Calling someone a cripple is derogatory to their existence being different (possibly interpreted as 'inferior' from the person saying it's point of view). Saying someone is crippled is describing their situation, likely in a neutral and descriptive way.
I remember seeing a trans meme where someone made the classic "helicopter joke," and then a trans character said "Ya know, sometimes I wish I was an attack helicopter, because then at least I would be allowed in the military!"
This
God all I want is the right to achieve the same level of disappointment and misery as all the cis people in this society. :(
I always answer, "You can have surgery to change your sex from one to another, but you can't have surgery to become military aircraft. Our medical science hasn't quite reached that level of cyberpunk, yet! You'd need full body cyborgization, like Robocop or Inspector Gadget+ Transforming Mecha technology, like the Transformers cast, lol! Now, that'd be awesome!! I'd be a post-op cyborg transwoman, who turns into a robot helicopter. I'd go from a Janet Jackson lookalike to Blue Thunder, in a a jiffy!
@@darlalathan6143 this is fubking hilarious and is the only correct response lmao
@@imaginarypluto6719 thanks projector
Music therapy student here! Fun fact: what you described happening in “hello darkness” is the basis for something called the “iso-principle”. It’s a technique used in music therapy where music is matched to the mood of the client and is then strategically altered by the music therapist to elicit a mood shift. As you said, it “reels you in” by meeting you where you’re at and then leads you where you want to go. It’s cool.
Sometimes i think about a darker version of this where a song starts of cute and innocent and then takes a really dark turn
that's very friggin interesting 😲 I'll have to look that up
huh ive done something kinda like this to get me out of annoying moods-- like if im being irrationally angry at something ill put metal on for a bit until shuffle serves me up some lighter fare and i end up in a better mood at the end of it!
that's super cool! is it like, an already existing music or it's created for that purpose?
HEY this is very specific, could I hear any thoughts you have on Dave Malloy's Octet? It's about a support group for internet addiction and is very raw about presenting the patients as they are, expressing what's going on in their heads rather than where they "should be"
The best trans joke I’ve seen a cis person make was when my trans mom had bottom surgery right before Valentine’s Day and my aunt (her sister) brought her a congratulations card while she was super out of it post-op recovering that said “happy v-day!” and I love her for that
That’s funny
That's Genius
I might have seen a cis person make a good joke (because I assume it was a cis person, but they might have been trans…) and it was “mtf bottom surgery could be called ‘ding-dong ditch’”.
@@phastinemoonbwuahahaha omfg
I wish D-day wasn't taken by the awful historical date but I'm pretty sure someone much funnier can make that history context work 😂
"Edginess is always adolescent. The Darkness is edginess aged with time and pain. It is only at the full maturity that comedy becomes art. That it becomes comparable to music."
What a pile of word salad bull.
@@mooocowcowcowmooo maybe understandimg what the words meant would help
That statement is like the workings of a master crafted Swiss watch. Every concept worked and polished to nanometre precision and then meticulously arranged into a form that is aesthetically pleasing, perfectly efficient and fullfills it’s function sublimely.
@@mooocowcowcowmooo Maybe if you weren't subscribed to a bunch of fascists you would have some braincells left to comprehend the "word salad".
@@PSspecialist Why do you think I like Hitler? Please properly qualify the answer.
The conversation about The Darkness reminds me of conversations about gallows humor, author Alexandria Erin made the observation:
"If the person on the gallows makes a grim joke, that's gallows humor.
If someone in the crowd makes a joke, that's part of the execution."
The worst part is that everyone has their own bit of darkness, something that could be channeled into something funny. But edgelords would rather take on persecution complexes rather than be vulnerable on stage, I guess.
That's a great quote, I'll have to remember that.
+
+
Awesome comment, agree 100%.
This reminds me to a convo about r*pe jokes I had with my best friend. She’s a survivor and she enjoys jokes that came from other survivors. It’s a coping mechanism. Yet, it’s difficult to get it across people who aren’t survivors, either survivors come off as “normalising” r*pe or people think it’s ok to joke about r*pe without context or nuance.
Natalie is right about how sometimes dark comedy is best spoken in safe spaces. Probably the reason why my best friend and I can go about r*pe jokes between the two of us, but it wouldn’t be proper if we were to do it in public. And sometimes another survivor may find it triggering because in the end, people cope differently.
Raped and now he's gay
Occasionally my kid and I will get into a public conversation about something potentially triggering, and they say "Let's stop, you can't TW a conversation."
@@kidlitfanful they, thank mutant mother.
yes! i feel bad because i am a survivor and my r*pe jokes do not punch down, and that's why i think they're funny.
I think this is a very important message that everybody should keep in mind
There's nothing less funny than deconstructing humor. If you can be funny while doing it, you're The One.
You're The One, Natalie.
I actually disagree on both points, but I still really enjoyed the video and I'm dropping your comment a like anyway.
@@Kraigon42
So basically there's something even less funny than deconstructing humor and the person to do it is someone other than our beloved Contrapoints. 🤔
@@tarumakela5075
Yes to the first, and... I'm not sure what my original second point was, but knowing me, it had something to do with the romantic implications of saying "you're The One."
I, for one, find deconstructing humor to be extremely enjoyable, and there's been very few times when "explaining the joke" made something less funny for me.
Yeah go on Cumtown
her and john mulaney.... the only comedians I'll stan
And to think I thought this was going to be a documentary about early 2000s glam metal revival group The Darkness. But this is great too!
Ok but now I wanna watch that
Emperor Tigerstar??? What are you doing connecting the two disperate ends of my UA-cam feed?!?
Fuck me too!
Holy shit, The Darkness was early 2000's? That's like nearly 20 years ago! Thanks for making me feel old, Your Imperial Majesty (yes, I did have to google the correct way to address an Emperor. I'm old but I'm not *that* old school).
I, as well, still believe in a thing called love.
20:11 "....because it's MY darkness, not yours. Get your OWN darkness!" That is essentially the point of gallows humor for me. If you're not part of the community you're making a joke of, the nuance of the joke is lost bc you don't have that experience. It's not only punching down, it's just not funny bc that nuance is lost.
Yes! That's really succinct. Nuance in humor is important!!
Gallows humour isn't funny is you're not the one being hanged
nothing around it but I was the 666th like
This woman has a galaxy brain. She walks the tightrope so well, I could only dream of doing the same. Thanks for sparking joy.
O
You know it's all written (scripted) for her, right? 🍃
@@rabbits.plinketty-plink.1276 Yes, so what? She does it by herself.
@@lux6058 Okaay, lol. Defensive much!?! Read her credits at the end of most, if not all of her vids. You're acting like I had a go at her, yet I was just stating facts.
@@rabbits.plinketty-plink.1276 It's just a unnecessary comment.
I really love that point on trans jokes. There's an Irish comedian called Dara O'Briain who spoke about people calling him out for making jokes about Catholicism but not Islam. His response was that he doesn't do Islam jokes because A: he knows nothing about Islam and B: neither do you.
I love Stewart Lee's facetious anti-Islamic standup routine:
ua-cam.com/video/wOb2KQHr7V0/v-deo.html
Also a fan of Dara, so it's nice to see the overlap of audiences here.
„Neither do you.“ How would he know?
@@worraz9687 Maybe because he looket into the room, saw 99% pasty white people and just assumed that they still spell it Shakira Law?
Stewart Lee: "Did you know that one in two spokespeople for the Islamic community in Britain is in fact the leader of a special interest community group given ideas above its station by misguided new Labour policies?" *silence* "[...] That's the best joke about Islam anyone's ever done. It was even-handed, it was well-researched, it's what you *say* you want. 'Not like that Stu. We meant, make fun of their hats.'"
20:11 “it’s my darkness not yours.Get your own darkness“ that is a perfect line.
While I loved the whole video, "Get your own darkness" was the one line that actually caused me to laugh outwardly. Which, I mean, laughter is for sharing, so to elicit an audible response when I'm the only awake person in the house...
I literally took a xanax that had been on the floor about an hour before watching this
You mean it was on the floor for an hour are you took it an hour ago?
Lindsay Ellis hmmmm that Xanax must’ve not been very helpful because it couldn’t even get itself off of lying on the floor
omg lindsay i was also a bit S H O O K cause i had also literally taken a xanax minutes before that joke and straight up laughed to a near coughing fit ahahah.
also natalie, if you see this - this video is EVERYTHING to me btw.
Don't get do to binge on them benzos. Or was is not so bad? Can't remember...
@@thishandleistacken I tried antidepressant years ago. I hated numbness I felt from taking them so I stop taking them.
"So y'know how life is like, kinda bad?" Wow 2019 was a simpler time.
Because in the 2020s we know life is not just "kinda" bad.
@NoLaJoe Everything that's happened thus far is going to lag over into 2021; the pandemic will still be at large, the economy will still likely be in recession, political tensions are not likely to cool down for a while, and of course, people will likely still be suffering from the collective trauma of 2020. But it'll hopefully bring a step in the right direction.
Those times were not to last unfortunately.
Not necessarily accusing you of this, but a lot of people feel 2020 was some sort of aberration or result of serious misfortune and so dearly wish for things to return to "normal". But it is that "normal" which got us here.
With the arrangement of our global society, our current zeitgeist under late-stage capitalism & neoliberal economics. We've been heading down this road for a long time.
@@MrOzzification Too true! It's just that after so much ickiness leading up to 2020, when shit really started to hit the fan we SAW and FELT everything that had been building up for a loooooong time. It wasn't just a theory, or something behind the scenes. It was more visceral. A shared group experience or trauma.
In fact, as much as it sucked and still sucks... It could end up leading to some good. (Note: I am in NO way saying covid-19 is a good thing. I'm not happy about people suffering and dying.)
Sometimes things have to get really bad to inspire people to change and get that pendulum swinging in the opposite direction. Maybe Donald Trump would have won again had we not all suffered so much and desperately wanted change. Maybe if 2019 was as bad, more people would have been ready for Grandaddy Bernie!
Or maybe this is just what I tell myself in some deaperate Pollyanna-type of delusion that all this garbage better have happened for some kind of reason, some kind of change, something that will eventually be good and better than it was before. Here's hoping!
2019: life is "kinda bad."
2020/21 HELL IS EMPTY AND ALL THE DEMONS ARE HERE.
I like self deprecating humour, but........ *sigh*..... I"m not very good at it.
Ewww....oh, I initially read that as "self-defecating humor". (Because, you know, I'm American and we don't use that "u".)
Amen
@@scockery Encopresis is no laughing matter! Just ask Jordan Owen...
pretty good
I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure. X3
Me after watching a Contra vid: “This is not your average, everyday darkness. This is...ADVANCED darkness”
"You're not dealing with the average darkness anymore. I am super darkness!"
@@riley8385
And now to go even further beyond! I call this one... Super Darkness 3! *HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!* **Breaks down into tears**
Omg. Thank you for that.
If you want your fill of darkness, look up how many times “darkness” is said in the Kingdom Hearts series
“Satire is meant to ridicule power. If you are laughing at people who are hurting, it's not satire, it's bullying.” Terry Pratchett
Ironic that you completely ignored the thesis of the video
@@liftistswoletariat7184 quoting an author with a different perspective on the subject is the same as completely ignore the thesis of the video? even if that's true, i dont really see the irony in that.
Well she literally adressed how that definition is insufficient, it would reduce comedy to speaking truth to power, which are distinct things and in my opinion should not be reduced to each other
@@liftistswoletariat7184 The quote only deals with only satire, not the whole of comedy itself.
Sadly, the alt-right have oppression envy and conspiracy-theorist worldviews and imagine minority groups as evil overlords, so that distinction would be lost on them.
"This is my darkness, not yours." I think this is actually really profound. Sure it can come off as possessive and narcissistic, but the deep truth of the human experience is that we only fully experience our own point of view. That makes certain things extremely personal, and we should not be trivializing the internal experience of others. Not if we want to claim we have any respect for anybody but ourselves. The true narcissism is to ignore the individuality of others.
I don't really like throwing around "narcissism" the way it's being used. There are people who suffer from narcissistic personality disorder who are affected by the way "narcissist" is used.
That's really interesting to think about but I don't think that really resolves the questions in this video. The point that everyone has unique experiences that can never really he understood relates to the question of dark humor how? Saying that you shouldn't joke about things outside of your single individual experience doesn't resolve it
@@katatat2030 The original point still stands. You can understand and sympathise with the plight of others, through empathy. And that may mean you can make comedy (even dark comedy) that is not offensive. It's not the standard though. The standard is to make dark comedy about topics comics like Gervais do not understand, and portray the people he's making fun of as delusional and overly sensitive. It's not the same thing, and this brand of bad humour really stems from a total lack of understanding about the subject being joked about
Leaving a reply so I can find this again later.
"I transitioned on UA-cam making controversial political content all the while and I read the comments"
How powerful is your aura cause i felt that one from here.
Listen that is big girl dick energy right there.
It's over 9000
Ah, my daily dosage of post meta transgender neo art
Salokin there’s a place we can get this daily?! WHERE
I'd liken Contra to our timeline's Madame Psychosis.
"Daily"? What amazing universe are you living in?
postmodern neomarxist metanoic transgender art
Hyper Light Drifter out in the wild
You can only watch the world burn when you have the privilege of not being on fire.
I'm adopting this as my personal motto now. I'll make sure to give proper attribution.
I'm just gonna steal it.
kevin: Yea, but it's sad because I used to find him quite funny. He seems to have lost his, um, edge and is not just doing lazy, path of least resistance humor now.
for me as well
By Sunday morning this will be a hashtag. #YouCanOnlyWatchTheWorld BurnWheYouHaveThePrivilidgeOfNotBeingOnFire
Kameshwari Kate sunday already where i am. and let me tell you, it's hot as fuck there
"Crying is like an orgasm for sad people." Yeah, lemme tell you, actual orgasms don't come easy when you're depressed lmao ... I hate how right she is
@@chrisstoltz3648 it works the other way around for me sometimes... after cumming during a depressive episode i feel really empty and after a good crying session lol i feel kinda fine like you can't physically cry for a really long time and there is some point where you stop and relax
Especially if you take certain meds. lol I was on meds since I was 15 until recently (around 25) and man, I never knew what it actually felt like all that time. Lol
"Crying is like an orgasm"
Hard to get to, and easier alone
@@mothboy9137 Spot the fuck on
the same can't be said about his own gender definition
I'll never pass.....
up the chance to watch more ContraPoints
not that i would want to anyway 😉
@@e_N_n there's the reference i was expecting ^-^
ill just never pass period
So basically,
edgy = grape juice
the darkness = wine
I uh, I prefer grape juice honestly. It's sweet and tastes like purple
Mmm purple! One of my favourite flavours.
@@thebigpicture2032 Hell yeah! Purple flavor is probably what it tastes like when God bleeds
ok but which grape juice, kedem is ok but welches is much better
I think a better analogy is edgy=boonze farm
For medical reasons I had to be surgically sterilized at 25. After the procedure they gave me a photograph of my ovaries. I showed it to my friends and said “I got a picture of all the kids I’ll never be able to have!” They didn’t think it was as funny as I did.
I laughed Lol .
I laughed too
Can someone get offended on your behalf when you're making fun of yourself?
@@KelniusTV yes. Happens to me sometimes when I joke about being an orphan.
People who have experienced trauma "aren't supposed to" make black jokes about it. Normal people want to hear the sad story and see the sad face so they can 1) feel better that it didn't happen to them, and 2) feel inspired that you "rose above it". Once they've heard the story, they've acknowledged your pain, now be normal like them. Making jokes about it makes them uncomfortable, they get a glimpse of the absurdity of life and they don't have the ability to deal with it; and they are reminded about your trauma, which annoys them because they heard the story, they offered their condolences, now move on and stop letting it affect you
'Don't joke about other people's darkness' has got to be the best critique of bad/offensive comedy I have ever heard...
Nah you should be able to joke about any topic whatsoever in my opinion.
@@stevenborg102 nobody is saying you can't. Of course you can, but don't expect people to laugh or find it funny when you're just cringe
@@Hipsael Cringe is funny; hence the entire mockumentary genre, such as The Office
@@stevenborg102 you know what's not funny steven,jokes that are rooted in bigotry and oppresion coming from a mouth that was not oppressed for the subject matter(you can make joke with transgender people in it without bigotry but lets be honest thats not what cis people want to do and are hurt of being seen as offensive),if you want to joke about trans people so bad help us reach the same level of equality as cis people where we are on the same level,fighting!
@@letmein8075 You are projecting the bigotry. A joke is just a joke. You create things that aren't there.
The Darkness is why I can't hang with these young widow groups. I've got my husband sitting in a TSA-proof cake box on my shelf and if that's not the funniest thing to you, I have have no idea what to tell you.
"Sometimes it's hard to believe my husband is really gone... But I figure if the hanging didn't kill him, the cremation probably did."
Not even a chuckle.
I'm sorry to hear about your husband. (And I think your joke was pretty funny)
@@paradoxacres1063 It was Alan Tudyk's joke to be fair, but thanks!
As someone with a morbid sense of humor (bring an orphan will do that to you) I can relate. Also, I laughed.
I save the jokes about Mom's ashes for those boring clowns who are always bragging about how they fucked somebody's mom. If they want to brag about mine, I rather enjoy telling them exactly how dusty her old vajay really is, now :D
(Not a particularly hilarious joke, but) My dad died of a heart attack in my late teens. He collapsed while he was out for his nightly run which he did primarily to support his cardiovascular health. My dad died in the middle of doing a thing that was supposed to help keep him from dying. When I pointed this little curiosity out to my family, I got FLAMED. How dare I?? Eulogies ONLY from here on out!! I take a good deal of solace in knowing my dad would've chuckled. He and I were the family weirdos.
Also, your joke *is* funny, and my mom agrees that widow support groups are basically the Pain Olympics and she stopped going after a few times. Keep up the Darkness!
RIcky Gervais blocked me on Twitter because I pointed out that he laughs at his own jokes. I didn't tag him either, so I can only conclude he spends inordinate amounts of time searching his own name. So whenever he criticises the offended, methinks the laddie doth protest too much.
I feel like his whole career is based around telling everyone he's cool and counting how many people agree each and every day.
@@DoveAlexa He's a very needy individual.
edzeppelin1984 the only good stuff he has done is The Office and that series with Karl Pilkington imo
Its actually kinda sad
So, he dishes it out, but he can't take it, eh? That's the trouble with ethnic, "dead baby" and insult humor: nobody can take it!
My spouse came out about being trans and began her transition on New Years 2019. You know, “new year, new you.”
Since I did not marry her for her boy parts, I do whatever it takes to help her because, to me, that’s what true love is. I will however make trans jokes with her because I’ve been there through the bean bag boobs (nylons filled with grains) and the boobeez (orbee filled balloon boobs) before we could afford breast forms. I would never however make jokes about trans people to other trans people because I don’t understand their struggle. Similar as to how my wife will joke about my disability (chronic migraines, generalized anxiety disorder and a shit ton of food allergies) because she’s lived through my pain and struggle too and we both cope by laughing, but she would never make jokes about another person’s disabilities because she recognizes that she doesn’t know their struggle.
Aka we call this not being an asshole -unless we love them.
Just felt like sending some love to a beautiful human being. 💕
Thanks for being amazing
It will be miserable and you know it, as much as you delude yourself otherwise.
Danielle Spargo aw thank you!
TheControlBlue I’m sorry that you feel that way. Carrying all that negativity must be a hard and sad way to live. Being that I’ve dated girls before this really isn’t that big of a deal, and it’s improved our relationship because my wife is a happier person as she’s not hiding anything from herself or otherwise. As people who’ve lived through someone dying in our home after 3 years struggling with cancer, or her best friend being killed by a drunk driver, or most painfully, our baby nephew dying from health complications at 7 weeks old, we learned that you love and cherish everyone while you have them. I’m truly sorry if you’ve never experienced that kind of love for another person, it must be a miserable existence.
@@XJunixAnnexKayxScarX I'd rather have Respect a thousand times over Love.
You had a hard life, I can give you that much, but it seems that whatever you are doing right now is more like digging down into the darkness (to go back to the Contra-point) rather than going up to the light, it seems you are even ready to spit at the light if it dares come to you.
"My spouse came about being trans and began her transition on New Years 2019"
If he had an ounce of Respect towards you he would never have done that to you.
I am sure he Loves you, but what he is doing there to both of you is very much bringing you two closer to the darkness.
But hey, it's your life, you must think I am some kind of hateful monster, but if there is one thing I truly respect, it is your divine right to live your life as you see fit.
There is reason I don't like the "I identify as [Random thing]" jokes. It's not because they're insulting, since they rarely are. They're just very very unfunny.
The fact they're not funny jokes bothers me more than any possible insult
Plus, those jokes have been told sooo much times on the internet already and now they're just repetitive and annoying
You should tell South Park that
To be fair, the Trans-Racial joke on Atlanta is actually really funny since the punchline is just the extreme dissonance of white stereotypes being carried out by a large black man and it has an additional payoff later in the episode where it plays off the absurd contradictory nature of social justice dynamics between other marginalized groups.
yeah, alright jason you identify as an ikea chair why aren't you a comedian yet?
Honestly, they're in the same level of:
"Nobody:
Me: Whatever the fuck"
Like if you want to joke about trans people, fine whatever, but don't act like you did something by saying the same 2 jokes that almost every edgy teenager has done.
This is so true! I recently got referred for bottom surgery. The joke I told everyone in my life I wanted to tell? "Guys! Guys! My vagina's on back order!"
Better than lay away I suppose :)
Lol congratulations! I haven’t gotten nearly as far in my transition, but I did get a packer recently and told everyone that I was getting my dick in the mail
Welp, now I am imagining warehouses full of vaginas to be delivered ahahah
@@JoeyDragonWhisperer Yeah, here you have to do a lot of waiting to transition medically (the NHS has a massive shortage of gender specialists, apparently) here (it already took 18 months to see a gender specialist and another 7 or so months on top of that to start HRT). Hope yours stays on course!
Bisected Brioche is an oddly fitting name for bottom surgery
It’s weird that Ricky gervais identifies as chimp; I thought it was weirder that he identified as a stand up comedian, though.
That's why he transitioned.
Yeah, not one of the shining stars of the Atheist movement. He, like a few others really don't help secular humanism or those of us considered "evil" or "without morals" because we do not adhere to a specific belief system and do not believe in a god.
He's a shit comic. I hated The Office. But that's my opinion.
bu-dum-bump! That's a good one.
Pre-op
"but then again I am a hedonistic bourgeois decadant" I guess you could say....
Girls just wanna have fun?
"Girls just want to be hedonistic bourgeois decadants" I'd buy the merch for that.
Came here from Matt Baume and I love it. I’m not a trans person, but I am a cripple. And yes, i call myself that. And no, you may not. Get your own darkness.
GOD ur so right about the dissonance in trans humor. im like... really excited for when im taking hormones and my voice deepens and i'll have a beard and and i can begin stories with "well, when i was in girl scout camp..." and watch the range of reactions afterwards
How effective are those hormones? I don't mean to be rude, but I know with a lot of trans people, you can still sort of tell they're trans based on their voice or their facial structure. Would the hormones be enough to make you grow a beard? That would be awesome.
Jerrod Shack hey just a word of advice for the future, replying to a trans person’s excitement for their future with “do you think you’ll ACTUALLY look like a man?” isn’t the best look. i know it wasn’t ill meaning or anything so ill cut you a break, but there aren’t a whole lot of trans people who will reply to that happily. you might not have meant it, but it kind of looks like “you will probably never pass and everyone can tell your birth gender forever, because i can tell a few other trans ppls birth genders.” again, not a good look, even if it’s not what you mean.
also replying to the second part of your comment, i guess i meant more stubble than “beard”, i know i’m not going to get a viking beard or anything. however hormones can and do cause drastic changes, but usually slowly. there’s also facial feminization and masculinization surgery, etc. and basing your ideas on trans people off of “being able to tell” also isn’t... the best way to be a good friend to the trans ppl in your life. i hope that clears things up. don’t go running around on trans ppls comments with statements like that btw, even if your inentions are good, you’ll get a lot of (honestly rightfully) angry replies from trans people who are used to people having bad intentions. if you’re curious, i can reccommend some trans youtubers that talk about the process so you don’t have to come up to us and ask random questions. k? k.
@@jerrodshack7610 its a good idea to try to unlearn the process of assuming someone is trans because they don't match your preconceptions of what makes someone one gender or another. sklort's response to you was really merciful and really generous, and i suggest you take that advice to heart
I'm sad no one else liked this comment @Criminal Saint.
Criminal Saint the topic of the video was dark humor at ones own expense, and had a section mentioning trans jokes by trans people. i made a comment responding to that part of the video. person replies in a way that wasn’t really called for, i reply to them respectfully and let them know others might not be lenient so they can avoid later conflict and leave the conversation with new info abt trans people. what exactly am i missing here?
if you’re trying to assume the video is about Not Getting Offended, then the video r/wooshed over your head, and i wasn’t even offended in the first place. i gave the person the benefit of the doubt and gave my insight, and considering they were responding to something i said about my personal life and experience, i have the right to reply as i like.
go play somewhere else.
There's a serious "left it's seed while I was sleeping" joke just left on the table here.
You mean wall, not table.
Gigi already found it
There are so many things about being trans that would make for excellent jokes. For example, I a few days ago a girl I went to school with sat down next to me on a bus. I recognized her immediately, but she didn't recognize me, since last time we met was two years ago when I still had giant boobs and no facial hair. So for the whole one hour drive I sat there, trying not to look at her too much, thinking: "Does she know who I am? What if she tries to talk to me? Should I say anything?" She ended up not saying a word to me, we got off the bus eventually and when I was back home, I just couldn't stop laughing about how stressed I was for a whole hour, while she probably didn't even notice me. While I was on the bus, I was feeling like I could have a panic attack at any moment, but looking back, the situation seems so absurd, it's just hilarious. Another time I was at university, sitting in the cafeteria with my laptop out, which has a little trans flag sticker on it. A woman sitting on the opposite side of the table asked me what it was, I explained. She then got so furious, telling me I would never be a real woman. I listened, and when she was done I said: "Yeah, you're right. I'm never gonna be a woman, because I'm a trans man." She didn't even know such a thing exists.
@@gabrielfraser2109 Ehh, I don't know if I really buy that. To use an example that was in the video, that's kind of like saying "I don't really find that Richard Pryor joke funny because I've never run down the street in flames during a coke-fueled psychosis. But I'm sure it's funnier for people who _have_ run down the street in flames during a coke-fueled psychosis."
Delivery plays a role. To be fair, I've never heard that Richard Pryor joke, so just hearing it explained, I can't really tell if it was funny or not. But I'm going to assume that if he delivered it in a funny way, then it was funny. It has nothing to do with whether I can relate on a one-to-one level.
"you'll never be a real woman" ua-cam.com/video/6AYv6rV3NXE/v-deo.html
It's such bullshit that trans guys are so ignored that most of the bigots don't even know they exist. Sure, y'all aren't getting as much hate, but you aren't even acknowledged in a lot of ways
@@Elizabeth-rp8kz Hey, why bother transitioning if you're not gonna get some of that sweet male privilege? Women get scrutinised, men get ignored.
Elizabeth It's really weird because at least in my area, transmasc people are *way* more common than transfem
"The darkness is finding a way to laugh about being on fire." - roughly around 26:43 .
Attributed to St. Lawrence, Christian martyr cooked to death under the Roman Empire: ""I'm well done on this side. Turn me over!"
Famous awesome last words that reminded me of.
And similarly, “More weight.”
Badass af.
"Gallows humor is only such when done by the hanged; if done by the hanger or observer, it's apart of the execution."
@@lilacrain3283 The Crucible? Or is it a real quote?
@@Raquel_Incorporated I think the exact words of the quote are from The Crucible, but it's based off a real event.
First video of yours I've seen. This was a revelation. Thank you.
WheezyWaiter Craig! :’))
Have fun seeing the rest of them! I'm happy that you enjoyed this one, she's great :)
This is not a crossover I ever expected, but I'm here for it
Wheezywaiter's log, March 3rd, 2019
Today I watched a Contrapoints video for the first time. It was pretty cool.
March 10th, 2019
So it turns out I'm a transgender vampire queen.
Omg welcome ally Craig
Stellar work, Natalie
Folding Ideas legends supporting legends huh
I love that my favorite youtubers are friends!! This makes me so happy
Rick Gervais gets DESTROYED by transgender SJW
kentuckyisnotafriedstate sssshhhh, don’t tell him. It’ll make him really sad and then in two years he’ll have to do another Netflix special. That’s no good for anyone.
EXPOSED! (not clickbait)
Using FACTS and LOGIC!
With FACTS and KNOWLEDGE
Within 5 minutes
I'm 22 years old and recently became a sales lead at the mall, my first manager position ever. After two shifts where I was the boss, my manager said employees had complaints that I was "too bossy" and the cringe and embarrassment I felt sank deep into my core in a way I've never felt before. I don't even know how I managed to get back on the sales floor that day. The pain of being an incompetent leader sent me to the bathroom for 30 minutes while I cried with the lights off. That happened yesterday. 36 hours later, I began making little jokes to myself about it, and thus far it's the only time I can think about the incident where I don't feel like I'm drowning in ice water. Thank you, Natalie, for yet another amazing video
Hey, I'm going to assume the op of this comment has long moved on from this event, but for anyone who finds themself in the same boat:
It is notoriously hard to rise in the ranks and become a manager for people you used to work for, because there is a period of adjustment and people are very reluctant to have a boss be someone who was in the same position as them yesterday.
And simultaneously, it is very difficult to transition to start being in a management position and communicate and delegate with others efficiently and respectfully, while maintaining authority.
Finally, middle management roles in retail (think supervisor/team leader) are also difficult because you've got very little autonomy but expected to do a lot.
If you're reading this and you're ever in this new position, give yourself and your colleagues some grace and some time to adjust.
And don't be an asshole to people obviously. Too many assholes in those kinds of positions and too many good people burn out.
Sorry this comment is very random X)
Natalie singing *_The Sound of Silence_* while in full goth getup is my aesthetic.
And your Conan avatar is mine.
It was a beautiful finish on the piano with voice.
was pretty nice honestly
Natalie in goth get up is the only worthwhile aesthetic
I've been waiting for something to quote when trying to explain "punching down" to my friends.
"And this is edginess at its worst. Just a privileged person with a platform punching down at a politically besieged group he understands nothing about....it's boring and immature. Like when someone says he wants to watch the world burn. You only get to watch when you have the privilege of not being on fire. Its edgy but it's not the Darkness. The Darkness is finding a way to laugh about being on fire. Edginess is always adolescent; the Darkness is edginess aged by time and pain. And its only at that full maturity that comedy becomes art; that it becomes comparable to music."
Amen
"You only get to watch when you have the privilege of not being on fire"
That part hit hard
How are trans politically besieged in the west?
@@jansettler4828 many ordinary trans people who aren't famous get shamed or ridiculed in their communities and some families even disown them. The number of trans women who get murdered for trying to date straight guys is a huge problem too. Also I think there are certain states that still allow trans people to get turned down for jobs or housing but I still need to get more info on that one
@@alexarias5717 You got any stats on that?
Btw, parents disowning their children is not "politics"
@@jansettler4828 No you're right, that example wasn't related sorry. And I don't have stats right at the top of my head, I gave you the ways they are, I think you can find the rest.
Aside from the entertainment value, this was a genuinely thoughtful analysis of the ethics of comedy. Not that I expected anything less, but this is a topic that doesn’t get a lot of discussion other than simplistic arguments about “free speech” vs. moral outrage, etc. I think a lot of it comes down to the overall gestalt of your personality and corpus. In other words, if you seem like a sympathetic comrade, you can get away with a lot more than someone with no regard for the welfare of X group of people. People don’t just look at a given joke in isolation, or at least I don’t think we should. This is why the Greeks had tragedy *and* comedy-you have to sublimate that pain somehow. Many of the great works in the history of art accomplish this in one way or another, and comedy is no exception. Well done Ms. Natalie, well done.
I think that context is really important. I make a lot of jokes that would be considered really offensive, but I only make them to people who know me and know that I don't actually believe the negative implications of the joke. When I make offensive jokes, it's generally in a satirical "I think it's funny that there are actually people who believe this" way.
My dad killed himself and “the sound of silence”, as well as “the boxer” by Simon and Garfunkel were the songs he passingly requested be played at his funeral. It took me years before I dared listen to either. When that meme came into popularity , i was made able to disconnect his memory and the horrific trauma from the first line of the song . I broke - burst into tears when you not just played the tonal switch But moreso when you described it. I’ve not cried in a long while.
I know this is weird but thank you for sharing this. You are very strong, and I wish you the best for your future.
A strange thing to share, but my best friend committed suicide too and we played „Sound of Silence“ at her memorial. The meme did the same for me, taking away the heavy grief and honestly being scared of hearing the song again. And then it showed up in this video again! And turned it into something beautiful and hopeful too! And then I read your comment and I had this realization that there‘s at least one other person who has that strange, specific relationship with that song.
i'm making a small clay chicken and drinking spiced rum with pineapple chunks on cocktail sticks whilst watching this. for this brief moment, i feel at peace with the universe and my place within it
Finally, Contra tackles Kingdom Hearts.
I mean, that’s what *I* got from the title.
"Gawrsh, Sora! It looks like Organization XIII is rejecting the use of tasteful comedy in favor of shock value!"
"What?! We can't let that happen!"
"I think there are some ingredients around here!"
The darkness and light and the darkness and light. Xenahort. The darkness and light and the darkness and light.
I mean I'd be fine being norted by Contra
darkness within darkness awaits all
Okay I believe you
I have been digesting this UA-camrs videos for about a week now. I can honestly say I have a different worldview. You have a beautiful way of forcing me to call myself into question without offending and causing a cognitive shutdown. Keep up the amazing work.
Scott Vanmeter yeah man she is pretty is awesome. It’s great seeing a woman getting a platform on UA-cam since it’s usually men who get a bigger platform. And I’m also glad that she is using her platform for good and opening people’s minds.
The beauty of contrapoints is accurately showing and acknowledging why the people she disagrees with think the way they do before presenting an argument.
Impressed with your...
your...willing nature. Yes I think that right.....
@@nathanborders2113 Not always and not precisely, which isnt to say the second thing is necessarily practical, but I think she attempts to try to find a general group opinion without forcing stereotypes and strawmen that would instantaneously make people tune out.
And that there is a gracious and mature way to express respect across varied opinions - let history see these UA-cam comments!
The Darkness:
Me trying out my voice after a few weeks of voice training and my sister going "Wow, you sound like early transition ContraPoints!"
God damn sis, way to slay two trans with one stone.
God damn, cis?
@@randomasspirate3630 he is referring to his sister therefore sis
Edit I know its a play on words (cis and sis).
This only exist to prove that i know before someone Attempts to corrects me
@@slalehc5194 what was the point of this whole ass comment then?
That's hysterical. But genuinely, I loved her voice back then. There was a distinctive quality to it that's just missing now. And it's not my job to mourn the changes that she chose to make cause it's her life and her joy to seek but I sometimes go back to old videos just for the auditory stim. It's really enjoyable.
I was recently talking to a friend abt how all trans women seem to go through a period of sounding the same as each other in a very specific way, and I could see someone finding that hurtful, but it's genuinely my favorite part of trans culture. It's so endearing, it's like how all baby owls go through the same awkward phase and you look at one and you're like damn, you might look like a pair of eyes on stilts right now but you're going to be Majestic in six months
When you can't remember where you left all that xanax, and then come to the realization that it was inside you all along
The real friends are the xanax we ate along the way.
Holy shit
@@amberle1203
Ate my solemate
thanks for that comment, i almost forget my anti depressiva xD
Deep.
My husband looked at the vegetables I diced last night and asked how I managed to so finely dice them. I told him that it wasn't hard - I listened to Contrapoints talk about the darkness inside and just kept cutting.
(I typically find casual self-harm jokes distasteful, but I figured that within the context of this video, it wouldn't be too... shocking, I guess.)
i'm laughing my ass off this is brilliant
Ahahahaha, brilliant! 😁
yeah, this is the kind of joke i would be fine if me or one of my friends or someone i know gas issues around sh made, but would be pretty hurt if some mentally stable edge lord made for a giggle.
@@fankid1018 You don’t have to be an edgelord to make that sort of joke, it’s just normal dark humour.🤷🏽♀️
As a cis male, thank you for spoon feeding us those witty pearls of wisdom. I wish I had more friends like you.
Everyone wants a friend like her.
Its not your friends responsibility to spoon feed you information
@@feihtyt2063 Friend like HIM
FTFY
@@mooocowcowcowmooo nice rebuttal, Merlin -
Very edgy
Very controversial
Very politically incorrect
I have been triggered
Well done
@@mooocowcowcowmooo Shut up, you baseborn bitch.
This is all exactly how I feel about my cancer. My darkness, my jokes, not yours.
I wasn’t expecting to see you here
Oh, hey! I'd like to think I have good taste in youtubers, haha
Also I got to make a joke out of my (strict, conservative, religious) mother finding LOTS of bdsm gear in my room while I was gone, neatly folding/organizing it, and not being able to look me in the eye since. When I first got home and saw what happened I thought I was going to die, but within a few days I thought it was the funniest situation in the world and I still laugh about it to this day. The best part is probably that I had cat ears and a tail from halloween when I was like, 17, which I had never used in a sexual context, but she neatly put that in right between the police grade handcuffs and the spreader bar. A few weeks later there was a furry convention in a city near me and my mom deadpan asked me if I was going. Thanks, mom.
LOL
OMG that might be the funniest thing I've heard all day cus I can so relate!!!
Way to go, Mom, with the perfect punchline.
I'd love to know what system of organisation she settled on.
There is something very hilarious about how uncomfortable she must have been while at the same time very sweet about how hard she was trying to be cool about it.
Wow. I feel the same way about racial humor.
I, as an African American person, am COMPLETELY hip to the fact that there are MANY hilarious things about AA people/culture that can and should be made fun of. However, most (though not all, there are some prominent exceptions - lookin at you Bill Burr 🖤) non black comedians don’t understand our culture enough to adequately poke fun at it in a way that is actually clever or funny. Most times, theyre told by people who have only ever encountered black people through rap music or at the DMV and are just looking for a clever way to have an excuse to say the N word out loud.
I’m not offended by edgy jokes - just badly told ones. I have never been able to put this into words. Thank you for so eloquently putting my internal musings together.
You’re not African American if you have to make it such a big deal...
@@visioday1814 He is cured, no longer black. Thank you for your services.
You know this is a thing I recently realized, growing up I didn't have the vocabulary as a kid to explain why I felt something happening to me was wrong, or wrong with the things I saw in media. Even at 10 I knew when something was happening to me because of my race, but I didn't know how explain what it even was or why. It's this suffocating feeling that was easier to ignore and try to forget than aimlessly swim in confusion and hurt.
It's kind of like seeing diversity in big hollywood these days; I didn't even realize that's something that I never had and could have seriously benefited from. It's a sudden realization and you can finally explain how something feels and why. Finally these internal musings can become actionable.
@@202cardline I was with your second comment until you started talking about Hollywood "diversity". That's a fucking sham, conceived to make my fellow white people believe that ALL Black (and other racialized) people(s) are better represented and better treated than they actually are in this white supremacist shithole of a world. Don't believe the hype!
I relate to this. Recently, a British politician referred to people of colour as people with a "funny tinge", and while I'm not happy with that, I am also tickled by the idea of referring to myself as a 'person of tinge', especially since I'm half English/Indian, so my experience of being a person of colour is very different to that of someone who doesn't pass.
"Like when someone says he wants to watch the world burn. You only get to watch when you have the privilege of not being on fire. It's edgy, but it's not the darkness. The darkness is finding a way to laugh about being on fire."
Wow... This summed up so many of my thoughts about dark humour in such a precise and to-the-point way. You always articulate what points you want to get across insanely well.
The singing was awesome, by the way!
I like calling bottom surgery "pp bye bye", one of my friends referred to it that way and it makes it funnier.
god we all have the brain cell don't we...top surgery is teetus deletus
@@sketchreemead6353 lets call abortion fetus deletus plz
trans masc ver = pp hello
@@nadineehab8834 a hysterectomy is a uterus deletus
@@jadeblades baby room deletus
It's great to hear you singing again, Natalie!! Please, more
mais oui, your delicate searching voice softly breaking, there was something of a femme Daniel Johnston, made me tear up, it was definitely an orgasm for this sad trans
agreed.
Something about the way you want it to sound and the way she sounds being so different is so refreshing and soothing to hear and it actually made my headache go away for the whole song.
Yeah I never liked titty skittles, it's a bad pun, why not go with something a million times more clever like fem&ms, or anticistamines
😂😂😂
I like anticistamines, it includes all flavors of trans people and makes me do a doubletake everytime I read it.
This made me belly laugh
to be fair titty skittles is really fun to say
@@MushiePuppet17 Fem&m’s 💀💀
"Get your own darkness!"
I'm way, way ahead of you there.
I share these words of wisdom from someone in a very dark place, purely for the perspective of laughing at one's own pain:
"Life's a bitch and then we die, fuck it all let's get high!"
“According to the Geneva Convention, it’s hilarious,” killed me
YES AND THE SOUND EFFECT OMG
The Geneva Convention was a bunch of PC cucks who just couldn't take a joke! Those SJWs!
Rip
"sex change" isnt quite archaic enough. you should have gone with "inversion procedure" which is basically what they called it in pre WWII germany
rosy5th that’s what I called it!! Also my dick slashing ritual and my chop off, as well as telling people what I had done over the summer as ‘chopping my nugs and slitting my sausage’
Call it THE SNIP
Could one of y’all explain why “sex change” is less accurate? I mean the surgery could take place regardless of one’s innate gender, and it literally involves rearranging the genitals (or “sex”) from one basic form and function into that of another. Also, since gender is confirmed by an agreement between oneself and society, how is it “confirmed” by altering the parts that society generally doesn’t see?
AnkhAnanku because you rather make something the way it’s supposed to be and more often to fit the exterior and interior.
We all know the most accurate term is penis origami
My Lords, Ladies and those who lieth betwixt it has been a long time since the last gathering. I admit to being overcome with ecstasy that the great goddess has once again uploaded. Onto the video
_"My Lords, Ladies and those who lieth betwixt"_
If only such tolerance and humanity had begun, say back in the 1500's. We might be living in a decent society by now.
"but then again, I am a hedonistic bourgeois decadent and should probably be sent to the guillotine at once!" I have literally never related to a sentence more
In desperate need for you to do a 17th-century execution beat btw....
For some reason Natalie singing the sound of silence just slightly ironically but completely serious gives me the biggest shivers, it's actually so beautiful and tops the whole video off just perfectly
I was about to say the same thing❤ love her
I really liked your comparison of "watching the world burn" and "being in the fire". It made it easier to understand what you were talking about, and I feel like it could explain why I don't enjoy certain forms of comedy.
Paige Spears I agree 100%
Contrapoint only uses 1% of her power to make these videos
She probably has Shaggy tied up off-screen
yes
@@TheJadedJames To be fair, that's probably their typical Sunday.
@@TheJadedJames
Someone write fan fiction about this and have Matthew Lillard act it out with Contra in a video. Now.
You mean His!
As a newly out Trans Woman discovering your channel is possibly the greatest thing that could have happened for my mental health. I found you at exactly the time I needed it most, thank you for doing what you do Natalie x
Hope you're doing okay!
I know it's been a year, but I hope you're doing well and if you're medically transitioning, that it is going alright.
Hope you are doing well! Your Eye makeup is killeeerrrr
❤
I hope you’re doing well Tamajyn :)
“Offence makes you think”, said the cis man who only thinks about it when ranting on Twitter to the trans people who have lived through it for years.
He didn't know what offense really does: Internet trolls cause suicidal depression in 12-year-old girls.
It’s almost inconceivable be reading pages and pages of such enlightening, funny, heartfelt, and thoughtful comments underneath a UA-cam video. Thank you!
awhh u may want to check out a little channel calleed black pigeon speaks the people on that channel are very up lifting in a similar way （；￣︶￣）
Stephen Abbott
Sarcasm ? That guys comments are disgusting
@@mohammedjalloh7658 yeah
@@zolo2036 haha, thanks, nice one - better than being rickrolled.
Stephen Abbott
Ah okay lol, was confused for a good 0.2 seconds haha
Have to say, your dark humour and light tone were what instantly drew me into your channel.
It has a potent *drag*
I find the whole "jokes don't care about your feelings" thing to be utter bullshit. Cuz like, if people don't find the joke funny, then you don't tell the joke anymore. You retool it, and make it better so that it's actually funny. Or you tell it to a different audience.
Comedy HINGES on your feelings.
"I don't care about *YOUR* feelings, only the feelings of my audience and those who make me money."
The best comedy is universal. And smart with meaning behind it, or you attract just the stupid and immature people. When i think of carlin i dont think of his edgyness but him being observant and bullshitting on everything that he critizises, without differences. His trans joke is unfortunate. His whole thing is that he is cynical but was once an idealist and who wants to show of whats wrong with the world. But i get he is very frustrated that many of his "fans" dont get that. That he is often misunderstood as edgy. Thats the darkness thats funny and tragic about his comedy. He is very self deprivating. Thats part of why he is funny. And that doesnt make his trans joke better but i think he wants to point out thhat everyone is equally terrible.
See that edgy comedians, find a theme that has meaning for you and joke about it while you spread knowledge and awareness.
@@jonsnor4313 I'm not sure that I agree with the assertion that the best comedy is universal. Some incredibly insightful jokes rely on references or some prior shared knowledge, which will only be received by people who already get the reference or understand the setup of the joke. Topical comedy doesn't work with people who aren't caught up with the events being referenced. Older comedy can be difficult to follow if it predates your working history. I agree with most of your comment, though.
Ok i didnt take in account things like the trekkie references in futurama that are funny as hell. Or just nice.Good comedy moments that makes inside jokes about certain media are funny as well. Like konosuba and anime.Or whatever topic, evern controverse ones.
You are right, inside comedy or what it is called can be extremly funny and hillarous.
Jon Snor I strongly disagree. The best Art is necessarily divisive. It is a thing that makes the observer pensive, contemplative, introspective. Those emotions tend to lead to states of discomfort. Many dislike discomfort, and thus become divided on the value, merit, strength, utility, etc. of the Art. If we can assume that Comedy is a form of Art, then by the transitive property, Comedy is divisive. And to be divisive inherently implies a polarity. So, then, Art or Comedy can and often is polarizing, which suggests it isn’t universal. The human experience isn’t universal. Why should Comedy be? I’ll just end on a platitude: When you try to please everyone you please no one.
Mum said it’s my turn on the darkness
“You only get to watch the world burn if you have the privilege of not being on fire.” Just keeping that here lol
The Joker has no problems with being on fire though, and he does do something like self-deprecating humor.
@@tarvoc746 Anyone who upholds The Joker as a personal inspiration is, by my experience, extremely obnoxious.
@@saxa-uta Anyone who genuinely upholds the Joker as personal inspiration is probably criminally insane.
@@tarvoc746 Or 12.
@@saxa-uta 12 year olds are rarely genuine about these kinds of things. Not because they're dishonest, but because they usually don't have the cognitive and emotional maturity to really understand the full implications of what they're saying. (Exceptions notwithstanding.)
the darkness is finding out your favorite uncle's new girlfriend is nineteen and a furry artist you used to follow on deviantart.
I have so many questions but am not sure if I want the answers
I need all this context
holy shit that's a lot
Shit the bed.
This feels like a confession of someone else's sin
Thanks for singing again, I totally sad came.
Visit my channel. I have a couple of singing recordings that might be what you're into.
I've avoided watching contra for so long because as being trans myself I have an emotional block to discussing difficult trans issues/transphobes, but I'm glad I finally did. I relate so much. I would honestly be fine with the trans jokes if they were actually original and funny.
I feel like Bo Burnham’s comedy could kind of fit into this. Like sure there’s some edgier jokes that don’t always land in his specials but for the most part I feel like he’s pretty self aware of that and you can see his growth from his earliest edgy humor into more introspective pieces like We Think We Know You from “what.” Even some of the edgier jokes from that special are delivered in a more mature manner in his follow-up special Make Happy. When I’ve watched interviews he’s also talked about how his humor was kind of shaped on the humorlessness of his upbringing (his mom literally works in hospice care) and his approach to humor just has always seemed really genuine to me. His humor is imperfect but it’s honest in its imperfections.
The thing I noticed about Bo Burnham's comedy specials (which, notably, he's not doing for the foreseeable future), is that with each special, he became more self-aware, and especially critical of his earlier work and role as a comedian. In fact, in his last special, he's seemingly able to grasp The Darkness that kept looking into his works (such as art is dead, WTWKY, #sad, etc.) with Handle This. The epilogue to it is especially painful, as he urges younger, creative people in his audience not to follow in his footsteps, even though he knows some have already.
There is an intrinsic value of offensive comedy. It has a place in illustrating common accepted behavior that is actually prejudice. Good comedy using racist phrases to highlight the absurdity of racism is powerful. Sarah Silverman is the queen of this. The awful shit she says so innocently is hilarious because it shows how awful RACISM is and how we innocently we say racist shit. The entire character is the joke, not the race. Bo Burnham does the same thing. But it is really hard to do well, and I think he is just really fine tuning his skill at it. Intention is important. And I think he has good intentions. Mel Brooks movies would be problematic if you don’t understand the point of the context. It is stereotypes and tropes against minorities to illustrate that they are racist and sexist. Not to espouse racism, homophobia or sexism. But to destroy the tools used to justify it.
I thought about it too
Once you listen to real dark and ironic comedy from the likes of Pryor, Bonnie McFarland and Cumtown the likes of Burnham just come off as what they are, UA-cam amateur outliers
The UA-camr Shonalika has a great video about this, how Bo Burnham's use of 'edgy' humour is different from the kinds of right wing shitposters who also use 'edginess' to describe their humour
The thing with making jokes about subjects you have barely no knowledge on is that they are hilarious to other people who know nothing about the subject.
THIS
And it gets old so quick cause there's only so many basic jokes you can make... But even if you've heard the joke a thousand times, there'll still be some people late to the party that just think you're "triggered"..
Yeah, Gervais proved himself a chimp, but not in the way he intended. It's true that he's an undereducated howling shit-flinger.
My feelings on Big Bang Theory
@@maggiescarlet the fact that the majority of these people laugh at simply seeing the word "triggered" is a perfect example of this too tbh 🙄
I've been watching your videos for the last few years and it looks like you've made a conscious choice to perform invulnerability in your videos. You joke about your sadness and pain, but we rarely see it. Your jokes always make me laugh, but every so often you demonstrate another part of yourself that I think is really special. When Tiffany breaks down in the "Tiffany Tumbles" video, when you described blocking 4chan from your computer in the "Incels" video, and when you sang "The Sound of Silence," even when you had disparaged your singing voice and proficiency. You don't owe your viewers any kind of vulnerability, but thank you.
I just wanted to say I relate a lot to that chuckle right after you finish playing and say "Stay Gorgeous."
You must have missed her video "Gender Dysphoria". There's some serious hurt there.
@@TheAgavi Yes, that's a great example too. I think there has been a directional shift between how openly vulnerable she has been, especially in the last year.
_"The Darkness is finding a way to laugh about being on fire."_
I love this so much.
I love this and love your videos. You hit the nail on the head with edginess vs. darkness. Also, "I put myself down in order to speak, in order to seek permission to speak." That's a powerful clip from Hannah Gadsby and it really resonates with me, even though I'm just a gay who's not quite as on the margins. Thanks for sharing.
Great comment
Yes that Hannag Gadsby clip spoke to me as well. It reminded me of reading Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery.. He wrote a passage about trying to secure funding from white people for a school, and how oftentimes he'd add in self-deprecating jokes or jokes made at the expense of blacks in order to make his white audiences more comfortable so that they might listen to him. He was very much looking for that permission to speak, and it's heartbreaking really, but i guess that puts me on the snowflake side for today's video lol
I make fun of myself and my disability all the time and it confuses people so much lol. I'll talk about being paralyzed with pain and screaming and make jokes out of it and laugh. I just have to you know? I feel like it'll kill me if I don't.
I agree. Also, I feel the most comfortable and alright with it when I'm around people who are cool with joking about it or with me making jokes about it. So many people get uncomfortable when I make a joke about it... like, it's MY diagnosis, I'm the one that actually lives with this, why are YOU getting uncomfortable??
@@ka-im5nd sure, but what about the other side? a person whose jokes end up becoming a sort of humiliation when joking about people suffering something that this specific person doesn't suffer?? others might feel uncomfortable because they DON'T UNDERSTAND and they are kind, imagine if they LAUGH AT YOU instead of WITH YOU (which many people can't because they don't understand the suffering that they themselves don't go through) I don't know if I am explaining myself well here...
@@amartyasensei1129
The ability to laugh with someone is a hugely important skill.
But that skill coincides with the ability to laugh about yourself, something that might even be a bit systemic, because the modern world is hyper-competative so many people think that showung weakness is a sign of weakness, while it is one of the biggest signs of strength there is
My mom has some issues with her hands due to late stage serious diabetes. Sometimes her hands just get stuck and she literally cannot move them. She's a teacher, and one time when I visted her back home she told me this story.
One morning her hand got stuck while she was eatin, and well, she was holding a giant kitchen knife at the time. And she didn't know what to do bc well, you can't exactly climb on a bus holding a huge kitchen knife. And even if she could somehow get to the school, if she enters the class holding a giant kitchen knife, the kids might be more silent and obedient but the principal might not like the idea. So she tried to pry the knife from her own hand but it didn't want to move up so she had to slowly slowly drag it out with the blade going down through her hand. She managed it without getting hurt but it was pretty nerve wrecking for her at the time. However of course later she told it as a funny thing that happened to her, and she told a couple of her colleagues about it too but a lot of them didn't know how to react and that's when she noticed something, and she told me this: "You can recognize the best people in life by looking at whether they laugh with you or not. The people that cannot laugh, are not worth your time."
Its a rough translation, we're both Hungarians so the translation might be a bit rough but you should be able to get the point.
Same. I make fun of my mental illness all the time. And if someone else jokes about themselves I laugh and join in. That doesn't give me the right to make fun of them unpromptedly though, or them to make fun of me unpromptedly. I'd think that's obvious but some comedians don't seem to get that.
18:33 "this one sparks joy"
18:37 "this one does not spark joy"
I knew I wasn't the only person who thought of Marie Kondo
We need reactions for youtube comments like we have on facebook. This one would be a smiling emoji.
I'M CRYING at the comparison of gigi gorgeous to the virgin mary
Best analysis of why much of current mainstream "edgy" comedy is bad, in a way that shows that it goes beyond "not being PC", nor even whether or not it's funny... you have to fundamentally understand that what you make fun of, if you don't - it's just empty "shock comedy". My respect for you grows even larger, Natalie. Stay awesome.
The thing is that it's actually funny. The fun is humilating and laughing at a group of people already frowned upon, marginalized and dehumanized by society. People enjoy themselves and have lots of fun doing that.
@@mikelmontoya2965 a distinction that is necessary to make. Lots of people (myself included, sadly) do laugh when they are presented with an oportunity to dehumanize some "other" to make it a target. It takes conscious effort to realize that's basically bullying with extra steps, and I don't think it goes away easily or entirely.
You said "crying is like an orgasm for sad people" like it was supposed to be joke, but that really is what it's like.
Okay, well, that thought is going to fuck me up for a while.
Crying feels good. And with estrogen Im finally able to
So is laughing an orgasm for people happy people?
I haven't cried in a year please send help
@@emmettchan5545 ua-cam.com/video/AZS5cgybKcI/v-deo.html
I think we really need to start appreciating how many languages Natalie puts in the captions
I appreciate them and I don't even need them!
Сэл Вундерлин they are. People volunteer translating captions.
its the fans who do it
@@DankAudioStash24 as a lazy German myself I just assumed all of Natalie's German viewers spoke enough English to not need subtitles. That is however (as I now realize) a very simplistic view. If we start translating the videos we might be able to broaden her audience here :)
Holy shit, I never knew. It is honestly beautiful
George Carlin was one of my comedy heroes, but yes, he did miss the mark sometimes when talking about so-called euphemistic language. Take the term “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder”, which he said was less direct than the simple, more straightforward “shell shock.” True, but “simpler” does not necessarily mean “more accurate”, since the former acknowledges that one needn’t experience the horror of war to have the condition.