Dudes, are you finding that your attempts at humor are falling flat? Are your clever quips getting you written up regularly by HR? Are they causing your friends to get fired when they drunkenly defend your “jokes” on live television?
It’s possible that what you think is humor is not actually humor. Consider the following list of things that are not humor:
- Embezzling
- Punching a random dude in the face for no reason
- Pushing elderly people off of train platforms
- Lighting an orphanage on fire
- Sexually harassing a woman on live television by yelling “F her right in the P,” except instead of “F” you say a certain word that starts with “f” and instead of “P” you say a word that starts with “p” and ends with “y.”
Seriously, dudes. Stop it with this whole “F her right in the P” shit. You’re making life crappy for women and giving all aspiring funny men a bad name.
If you, dear reader, don’t know what the “F her right in the P” thing is, it’s this: dudes yell “F her right in the P” at female TV reporters doing live shots on the street. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
As someone who doesn’t watch a lot of local news, I only became aware of this whole “F her right in the P” thing yesterday, when a helpful reader alerted me to the story of Shauna Hunt, a Toronto CityNews reporter who’s gotten so sick of the whole thing that she confronted a group of men on live television after one of their friends shouted the phrase at her while she was interviewing soccer fans. The men defended their friend’s actions as “hilarious.” One, obviously a bit drunk, told her she was “lucky” they didn’t have a vibrator. You can watch the whole thing above.
This “meme” originated more than a year ago in a fake news blooper reel that went viral online. Since then, female news reporters — covering everything from sports events to anti-austerity protests — have been dealing with dudes yelling the phrase at them on a daily basis, sometimes several times in a day. The dudes think what they’re doing is hilarious. They feel no shame. And they don’t expect there to be any consequences from sexually harassing a woman on live television.
Maybe that will change: several of the men defending the harassment in Hunt’s video — which itself has gone viral — have been identified. They’ve all been banned for a year from sports events featuring teams owned by Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, and one (the guy who made the vibrator joke) has been fired from his job. Good.
To any dudes who feel their sacred man-right to generate “humor” by making people deeply uncomfortable is being abridged, might I suggest you follow the lead of the three gentlemen in the video below?
These three manage to make pain quite funny indeed. What makes them genuinely hilarious, so unlike the guys harassing Hunt in the video above? Their originality, for one thing; they demonstrate an ingenuity that would make Rube Goldberg proud. And, just as importantly: the only people they’re actually hurting are themselves.
Another #FHRITP recrafting I saw: Fools Hadn’t Realised Insults Terminate Payslips.
The sight of those grinning jackasses just makes me furious. Hope they are all outed, and we all know their names. The reporter did a great job of standing up to them.
Next time Im gonna call every man asshole for no reason…because IIIII find it funny and thats all that matters!!!
@Linux
I’d find it funny if you call every man you meet asshole.
@Johanna Roberts, it was Vibrator Boy who lost his job.
@theladyzombie
Christopher Hitchens should just be forgotten. Even on those occasions when he was right, it was always easy to find someone who expressed the same opinion more eloquently and without the totally unwarranted condescending tone.
And when he was wrong, he was a useless ass-hat.
Like ej, I tend to regard this sort of thing as the worst sort of impoliteness. For crying out loud, you’re interrupting someone at WORK! If you wouldn’t appreciate someone interrupting your job to yell obscenities (or even if you would), don’t do it to other people.
(My own version of the height of physically humorous comedic performance: John Cleese performing the prelude to the original “Ministry of Silly Walks” sketch. The sheer surreal grace of this man moving around in such an unusual way, done in the standard UK “office job” uniform for the era of three-piece suit, bowler hat, and umbrella. It was just glorious, and the humour came from the combination of the sheer incongruousness of what he was doing, where he was doing it, and how he was dressed while he was doing it – all perfectly straight-faced).
So this happened to me last halloween. I go to school in a small collegetown and Halloween is really out of control. My boyfriend at the time was walking me home, and at least two different individuals drove past us (drunk, I might add) and shouted,”FUCK HER RIGHT IN THE PUSSY!”
As we were walking, we had other drunk individuals stop and congratulate him on his conquest (I don’t remember exactly what was said but it disgusted me). Really, he was just walking me home from the library because it was late and I wanted to avoid the harassment from drunk Halloween partygoers. It turns out his presence only made it worse.
I wonder how much of it was somewhat racially motivated as well. My ex is East Asian, and I’m not (I’m not white but I “pass”). While we were dating, a lot of his friends would speak to him in awe about how he could possibly get a girl like me (because girls are objects you “get”). I realize that maybe race had nothing to do with it, but I notice that racial dynamics and societal perceptions of certain races can make interracial dating more complicated.
@Olive O’ Sudden – I wish I knew how to do the block quotes – anyway:
“No need to resurrect him, I know precisely what he was saying: “Humour isn’t a necessary trait in a woman, and as a mostly-straight man, it’s not high on my list of desirable traits for a woman, so even if a woman is funny, I don’t register it, it’s not something I take any notice of, because I’ve already judged her attractiveness based on other criteria. Women don’t need to be funny to attract and maintain the attention of men the way that men need to be funny to attract and maintain the attention of women because men find women attractive because of the way they look, move, sound, and smell; humour and cleverness aren’t required.”
I have never, ever understood this whole “women aren’t funny”. Never mind Hitchens, I’ve heard this all my adult life. It’s always baffled me and now I think I’m closer to getting it because of this explanation. It’s a useful additional explanation to the one I’d always tried to give myself – that women aren’t always allowed space to be funny in mixed company. Really funny often requires set up, build up, hesitation then delivery. In the necessary gaps, men will talk in – ruining the joke. Even quick quips require the confidence to squeeze in or talk over. Plus I think there’s tacit disapproval of funny women.
I’ve tried to explain to men who’ve said this that this just isn’t the case, that some of the funniest people I known have been women. But they only really let rip in all female company.
Who doesn’t want to be circled by a pack of mangy half-grown hyenas when they’re just trying to do their job? C’mon, now.
If they really want to be funny, they could just turn into emus. Emus are funny.
Meanwhile, MRAs find jokes are deathly important when they take the form of ‘I bathe in male tears’ T-shirts.
Not been on here for a few days as I broke up with my partner of 5 years. He actually found the fhritp thing hilarious and never understood why it upset me.
Obviously that’s not why we broke up but it’s definitely part of who he is.
I thought the smirking bro in sunglasses looked like the douchiest douche that ever douched a douche, but then the camera panned over to the 1980s horny teen movie sidekick. Holy crap, Toronto, what is happening up there? Do you need assistance?
@NicolaLuna
Hope you’re alright and have better luck in future. You deserve better than that guy.
@Jo (5/14/15, 2:32 a.m.)
Funny how sexist blowhards don’t find the mockery of their sexism humorous. Shocking, right?
And the courage exhibited by the first harasser as he lobbed his insult then ran away bravely at the first sign of pushback … so alpha … so much.
[delurk]
[to give this post some context; I should introduce myself. Hi, I’m spinello, I’m an English guy, living in England with a wife and two daughters.]
It’s this kind of abusive crap at big sports events that stops me going to big sports events. I am seriously glad that these guys have been banned from future sports events.
As a question on Canadian employment law; can you be fired for saying something incredibally abusive whilst a) not on work time, b) not representing your employer?
I understand there’s normally a catch-all “don’t bring the company into disrepute” or similar in his employment contract, he’s not doing that. He’s brining himself, and his friends into “disrepute”, but not his company. Are Canadian jobs really that in the whim of the employer?
Do the guys who think this joke is okay, would you yell “fuck him right in the ass!” at a male and heterosexual presenting reporter?
And imagine if it was women doing it, and so regularly that it had become a thing on television.
“Tonight at 11: Why are modern women prone to vulgar and demeaning public outbursts? What has happened to good old-fashioned courtesy and compassion? Is society collapsing? HAS FEMINISM GONE TOO FAR? Our all-male panel discusses the issues!”
I kinda want a T-shirt that says, “I’m not a humorless feminist… you’re just breathtakingly unfunny.”
I’m slightly baffled that dudebros are still defending the joke as “humour” when that joke has not only caused social media outrage, but cost a man his job. If the negative backlash is that harsh, surely it’s proof that the joke is not fucking funny and the problem is with the chucklefucks in the video, not society at large?
Oh but “humour is subjective!” and “freeze peach!”
*flips a small table. Just a small one don’t worry*
What I bunch of total douche bags! And the usual bunch of morons ranting on in the comment section about sexual harassment and gendered slurs is protected by ‘freeze peach’ .*rolls eyes*. Guys, there is nothing funny about screaming vulgar gendered insults at women trying to do their jobs. It is immature and all you are achieving is making yourself look like a total douchenozzel. Also, are racial slurs tolerated? No? Then neither should sexism be tolerated. It is also especially idiotic to do this on camera. You could also end up being fired. Employers do not tolerate such behavior at work or in public because it reflects badly on the company. To the guys that got fired because of this-HA HA HA!!!! Serves you right! XD
fruitloopsie-I find it mind boggling, too. But at least they got what they deserved. And yes, men can be funny (extremely funny,acrually XD ) without making crass sexual insults and gendered ‘jokes’. In fact, they can be funny without saying much at all. 😀 For example, the Australian duo, the Umbilical Brothers. 😀
“It’s just a joke” really is the go-to-excuse. I’m reminded of a Facebook acquaintance who wrote about how she was at her boyfriend’s house and hugged him, and then the boyfriend’s dad walked in and started tickling her, going “why can’t I get a hug as well?” and so on. She got really uncomfortable, and then both the dad and the boyfriend in a later conversation when they were alone framed it as her being oversensitive and not being able to take a little good-natured joking. Now several of us told her that that’s creepy behaviour on part of her boyfriend’s dad, nothing else. But it’s so typical to try to frame everything as a joke, and “why are you offended/feel uncomfortable, it’s just a joke”.
Guys guys gusy, we all know what this is really about.
The author of this article just hates ethics in games journalism.
Isn’t that the go-to retort for high school bullies, when the victim defends themselves? “Jeez calm down, we slapped you and stole your lunch money as a JOKE! You’re so sensitive!”
I’ve heard it called Schrödinger’s Joke: it creates a safe retreat for the man to make the statement and then depending on its reception, to retreat into “it’s just a joke, lighten up” or advance into “I’m glad you agree, let’s adopt it as a serious policy suggestion.” Like a lot of typical heteronormative male behaviour, it stems from a deep insecurity and a need for the approval of others. Also like a lot of typical heteronormative male behaviour, it makes for a worse world.
(First post. My feminist friend Katie sent me to give you all scented fucking candles.)