Melania, He’s All Yours Now! 👐
When Hillary lost, I heard some comedians say there was a great (or should I say tremendous) silver lining to the impending Age of Trump—it would be a boon to comedy. Somehow, having an infantile pussy-grabber at the helm of a superpower would provide endless supply of joke material.
Granted, Alex Baldwin got a career boost, although I can’t help but wonder whether he would have ended doing something far more interesting than becoming Liberal America’s last resort for a desperate giggle.
Any other negative emotion would have done the job, except despair. It’s too passive and numb to gel with inspiration. Instead of zeitgeist-defining art, the Age of Trump brought us clickbait skits that could squeeze out a giggle only from the most dedicated Twitter trolls. The rest of us who repeatedly failed to crack a smile, thought we had lost our sense of humor. But what really changed was humor itself because when comedy became a pale imitation of reality, we lost our ability to make a difference between laughter and choking.
It is a self-evident truth that for comedy to exist, life has to be at least moderately mundane. You need to give less shit about the tiniest details of existence. If every little thing has the potential to rile you up and make you shoot angry tweets at three in the morning until at least one member of your trusted congregation compassionately retweets your self-righteous sermons to the already converted, you have yourself become a character in the comedy that is supposed to relieve you from whatever bullshit tortures your imprisoned mind.
That’s why I’m glad the Age of Trump is ending. As we all—hopefully—relax our sphincters, and Melania—also hopefully—gets her husband back, let us rediscover the joys of not giving too much shit about what we think of each other. And maybe one day I’ll make new maps that will actually make you laugh.
We’re all tired of choking.
Interested in stereotypes? Continue reading:
An international bestseller, the Atlas of Prejudice has been published in English, Traditional Chinese, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Italian. Its various hardcover, paperback, and electronic editions have sold more than 100.000 copies worldwide!
