By David Futrelle
At this very moment — as you read this very sentence — some dude somewhere who completely lacks a sense of humor is explaining to a woman who does not that women just aren’t funny like men.
I have no evidence to back up that assertion but I feel pretty confident it’s true, and as a dude myself I regularly assume that things that pop into my head are definitely true. And come on, this one probably is.
Yesterday one of these humorless dudes — who happens to share the same first name with me, to the shame of all Davids — decided to inform Twitter that women aren’t funny. Responding to a quote from Tina Fey complaining that in TV comedy “women are treated like expensive cappuccino machines. … Where it’s like, ‘We have one. Why would we have two?!’,” this shitty excuse for a David declared that “as a general rule…women arent as funny….smarter not funnier.”
His comment drew some snarky responses from women funnier than him, including one from Ariel Dumas, a writer for the Colbert Show, who asked him “what show do YOU write for, david?” It also inspired this Tweet from writer Jennifer Wright, whose own personal wit was once described by People Magazine as being “as sharp as a guillotine’s blade,” but you don’t have to take their word for it; just read her Twitter timeline.
If a woman tells a joke and you do not laugh, she'll look away, embarrassed.
If a man tells a joke and you do not laugh, he'll repeat it, louder. If you still do not laugh, he will explain "that was a joke"
Somehow this has lead to men concluding that they're the funny gender
— Jennifer Wright (@JenAshleyWright) April 12, 2018
This tweet served as a sort of batsignal for some of Twitter’s unfunniest men, who began arriving in droves to explain to Wright and all other funny women that, no, they really aren’t funny; it’s biologically impossible. Seriously, I have no idea how all these dudes found out about Wright’s tweet, but they turned the thread that followed into one of the most inadvertently hilarious things I’ve ever read.
Some were outright indignant that a woman would make such gross generalizations about gender and humor.
Wright gently pointed out to Max (as she did to others in the thread) that she was responding to a dude who had done exactly what Max and so many other dudes say that dudes don’t do.
Other dudes in the thread offered accidental rebuttals to Max by making their own truly gross generalizations about gender and humor.
ANDREW DICE CLAY is one of your two examples of funny men? ANDREW DICE CLAY?
One guy appealed to the DIVINE RATIONALITY OF THE MARKET as proof that men were just much funnier.
As one Tweeterer pointed out, this dude made a whole new Twitter account just to Tweet this ONE TWEET.
This guy, meanwhile, took a moment out from what I’m going to assume was a three-day meth binge to post this somewhat puzzling assessment of the issue:
One fellow attempted to prove that men are funnier by repeating what is possibly the laziest and most tiresome joke I’ve heard in years, one that has become something of an alt-right catchphrase.
Unfunny and unoriginal is no way to go through life, son.
(Ok, that response wasn’t original either, so sue me.)
But the most amazing response of the bunch was this one, which somehow worked in Tide Pods and “disposable males” while not actually addressing the question at hand at all.
That final “eminent” kills me every time I reread this one. Angry men, you never disappoint. (I mean, you always disappoint, which is why you never disappoint those like me who enjoy inadvertent humor.)
One woman asked the question I’m sure many were wondering:
![Amanda Jenkins @EaglesExMachina Follow Follow @EaglesExMachina More Replying to @JenAshleyWright Is there a name for the thing where a woman tweets about men being [not funny, stupid, bad, etc] and men show up to prove her right?](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/tg86790u9po.png?resize=580%2C322&ssl=1)
Go read the whole thread. There’s more of this, as well as countless genuinely funny retorts from the “women actually are funny, you nimrods” side.
Here, just for the hell of it, is Andrew Dice Clay angrily storming off of CNN; it’s the one funny moment in his entire career, and its humor is entirely unintentional.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlLslb-Royo
I just left Jennifer Wright’s thread, and I have to say, I stopped because I could feel my blood pressure rising at the stupidity of it all.
Yes. Boys are usually the class clowns. This is because obnoxious behavior in boys is encouraged. Girls on the other hand, are encouraged to be quiet and respectful.
Class clown does not necessarily mean funniest. It means the person whose jokes are the loudest and most public. That’s not the same as wit.
I crack my friends up all the time and have been called witty and funny by lots of different people. People are often surprised by this and when they first start getting to know be will express this surprise. Because I’m usually quiet and reserved and shy around people I don’t know. I’ve known so many women are hilarious. Almost none of them are the types of people to hold court in every room they walk in though. Women are just simply not socialized to be in your face all the time.
When men say women aren’t as funny, that tells me these particular men are just in the habit of not actually listening to women. In my experience, humor isn’t gendered. But I recognize that people of all genders are full human. Sexist dudebros don’t.
I’ve walked out of one show in my entire life where I’ve attended countless kinds of comedy, musicals, concerts… ONE show was so bad I couldn’t stay.
It was Andrew Dice Clay circa 2000. He started in the show by talking about some woman giving him a blow job in the back before the show. I think it was supposed to be funny material, but I didn’t get it, my hetero-man companion didn’t get it, and it was actually my date’s idea to just leave about 15 mins into the show. It was DUMB material, the dumbest I’ve ever heard from a professional comic. I have no clue how “hickory dickory dock” kept a showbiz career alive for as long as it did. lol
Oh… and we were seated right up front, front row, and straight got up and walked out down the long upwards slanting aisle in a showroom in Vegas. lol I always thought that can’t be too fun to experience as a comic, and I know others in attendance got exactly why we were leaving… haha. May as well have thrown a tomato.
I think Clay’s comedy hinged on being crass and brash. That was the gimmick imo. If that’s not amusing to you then you probably won’t care for him.
But we are the funny gender.
…just not “ha ha” funny.
[I’ll see myself out…]
You can definitely add me to the list of people who say that about you.
EJ,
Personally, I have noticed that I have a slight preference for male comedians. I would imagine that’s due to the fact that I’m a straight, white male, and thus end up relating to more of the jokes.
What I’ve never done is conclude that this means that men are objectively funnier than women. That would be an incredibly unimaginative, self-centered view of the world that fails to take into consideration other people’s viewpoints or opinions.
You know, the sort of total lack of empathy that makes racists think white people are discriminated against and that explains the entirety of MRA thought.
It’s almost like these guys are doing exactly that…
In oral form, I tend to prefer dry, sarcastic humor and I tend to find that women are better at that. In written form, I prefer surreal / absurd humor, and about all the author that I know who do that well are men.
(incoming recommandation of women who specialize in absurd humor I guess :p)
While my sample size is way too small to generalize that to the entire population, I would hazard the hypothesis that people have each their own taste in humor.
Case in point : each time I see what kind of stuff the far/alt right see as “humor”, it seem to be stuff that glorify or justify their belief. As if they were actually pouty teenagers trying to mask their insecurities under a facade of self confident. But who am I to doubt their alpha-ness and confidence ?
A human being.
Hitchens said that humour is intelligence plus aggression, and since women are socialised to not show either of those traits, it leads our society to believe that women aren’t funny.
Being Hitchens, he said it in a more objectionable and dickish way than that, of course.
…am I the only one struck by the sheer level of all-I-know-about-this-is-that-it’s-a-liberal-fnord it takes to write the phrase “snorting condoms”?
I well remember the day my dear old dad took me aside and warned me not to snort soap or contraceptives.
So Andrew Dice Clay and f*cking Steve Martin was all that guy could come up with. Okay not trying to turn this specifically into a racial issue but this is how I know he’s a White male. They are the ONLY ones who have ever liked Andrew Dice Clay, who I personally have never been able to stand.He has always been the kind of person I turn the television channel away from.
Not in the history of ever have I heard anybody Black say they liked Andrew Dice Clay, although I have known a few who will tolerate Steve Martin because they liked the movie The Jerk. I liked Steve Martin just fine, but really? Those were the best examples of male comedians that guy could come up with, which is kinda sad. I mean he didn’t even consider George Carlin, Eddie Murphy, or Richard Pryor.
My favorite male comedian, right now, is Kevin Hart, and my favorite two female comedians, right now, are Melissa Mccarthy, and Kate McKinnon.
I’ve had a whole choir of favorite female comedians over the years, though. Ellen Degeneres, Wanda Sykes, Tig Notaro, Kathy Griffin, Whoopi Goldberg. Hell, female comedians is something that is very easily googled, which tells me sooo much about that guy.
For the record, the two funniest people I personally know are both women. One is an actress and stand-up comedian who regularly has gigs in the Bay Area. The other is a gifted physical comedian in the vein of Lucille Ball who regularly gets hired for commercials and hosting gigs.
Second, the men in Jennifer Wright thread don’t understand how generalizations work or the point she was making.
Humourless dudes, have you watched Samantha Bee lately? She’s killing it in Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. And here’s an interesting bit from the show’s wikipedia page:
So, when experienced comedy professionals hire based on talent without knowing the gender of the writer, it turns out that women do as well as men.
Hey there, Ikeke35. Good to see you again.
I’m a big fan of Katherine Ryan. Her work can get a little non-PG-13 at times, but she’s funny as hell and seems to have decent politics.
SubHuMans (UKSubs) said it best in “Mickey Mouse is dead”…
So much terrible Stand-up, I usually can’t stomach it, particularly because there’s so much of a white-boys-club-aura surrounding it. I know there’s plenty of funny people, but too rarely do they get the spotlight.
And as is proven tenfold over in those, the male ego is the most fragile thing in existence…
Andrew Dice Clay is the “unsolicited dick pucture” of comedy
A white man who makes obscene comments about everyone who is not a white man, and thinks the comments are funny because they’re about people who are not white men… that’s not comedy, that’s bigotry.
First I heard of Andrew Dice Clay was some news show doing opinion coverage of him, concluding that his comedy wasn’t sexist because there were women in the audience and they were laughing.
That was years before I had read feminist websites about things like how women are socialized, and even then I thought the obvious explanation wasn’t “he’s really funny” but “They’re probably just trying to be polite to their date”, because certainly none of the pictures he showed of women laughing where of women on their own.
Nothing Clay said struck me as the slightest bit funny, despite me being in the target demographic of white, male, straight. Probably to do with the censorship bleeps. I’m sure it would have been hilarious if only I could have heard the actual bad language.
But clearly, I’m only saying this so I can impress feminist chicks so I can sex them, despite all feminists being too ugly for men to want to sex them. I clearly suck at being male. Well, actually, that isn’t surprising. : – )
This is my favorite Andrew Dice joke.
https://youtu.be/cGuGeBT3MFY
Does anybody really believe teens are really chowing down on Tide Pods or snorting condoms? I thought we could chalk that one up to the same myth-churn that brings us “jelly bracelets are sex games!!!!” every few years.
There have been people of all ages, races and genders who have made me laugh and as a woman I made people laugh and had them tell me I’m funny.
Women like Toniajo Hall aka auntie beechress, Liza and superwoman on YouTube are pretty funny.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l13A2re7AEk
And to Amanda Jenkins’s comment I like to vote for is ‘Christopher Hitchens law’
Trying to recall what few “dice man” jokes I remember,
I thought, – if you’d swap M and F in his “jokes”, and it was a woman telling them, it would be nothing but BOO! and outrage and sluts and cock carousels and all their other various bs.
How do you snort a condom? That’s not making any sense at all . . .
Hey EJ,
Immaround still!
Hippodaemia: Yeah, I’m confused about that too. Wtf?!!
My mom told me about it, and I gave her a look, like maybe she had made a mistake in her words, cuz she couldn’t explain it to me, either.