How far should we take a joke?
Our lead guest writer Leo Thorncroft is back with another wise and insightful post. His previous article (view it here) became an instant success, and now he's back with more. Read On!
A couple of nights ago, the last episode of the second series of Black Mirror aired, titled 'The Waldo Moment'. As I've only just got around to watching it, I thought I'd talk about it a little.
I'm going to spare the details, but essentially it was about a blue bear named Waldo who was a sketch on a comedy show, pretending to be a children's character to politicians before turning on them. Not exactly shocking stuff.
Someone then has the bright idea of making him run as a political candidate. Suddenly, this swearing blue animated bear is everywhere. The animated screen even takes part in a question time scene, where the guy voicing him eventually snaps at all the other candidates, calling them all fake, etc, etc. He begins to represent a way for people to show their resentment to the politicians, and he becomes popular. Really popular. Social networks become obsessed with him, and his YouTube videos' are watched by pretty much everyone.
In the end, Waldo loses. But not before he's become a worldwide symbol, everywhere and everything. This got me thinking how far we can take a joke. People love to be able to have some way to actually rebel against things. Look at Rage Against the Machine a couple of years ago, they managed to get to number one, beating the X Factor. We love showing that we can fight back, we just need a way to do it. We also love being able to laugh at all of the people we've managed to beat. Even if you didn't give a damn who was top of the charts, you might still have bought Killing in the Name of, because why the hell not? When something fills Twitter, or Facebook, you might finally decide to listen, and that kind of messes with our generation. How far would we let something go just because it was funny? Just because it was new and outrageous and finally put those people in their place. Look at Boris Johnson. I love him, he is brilliant, but only because he's... Well, kind of a joke. People like Frankie Boyle, do you think you'd vote for him because he was funny, because it was a chance to rise up and just have a laugh at all the others? I think we would, but maybe that's me. It's just sort of scary, how powerful it can be if we just don't care. I'm not saying Frankie Boyle's going to rule the world like Waldo basically did. But why not, if enough people stop caring and just try and do things for a joke, it's not impossible?
We've all got a bit too loud and a bit too powerful for our own good, and we could mess everything up. I know I sound boring, but we need some sensible people or some sort of line of where enough is enough, else we're all buggered.
Leo Thorncroft - Idle Scribe
I'm going to spare the details, but essentially it was about a blue bear named Waldo who was a sketch on a comedy show, pretending to be a children's character to politicians before turning on them. Not exactly shocking stuff.
Someone then has the bright idea of making him run as a political candidate. Suddenly, this swearing blue animated bear is everywhere. The animated screen even takes part in a question time scene, where the guy voicing him eventually snaps at all the other candidates, calling them all fake, etc, etc. He begins to represent a way for people to show their resentment to the politicians, and he becomes popular. Really popular. Social networks become obsessed with him, and his YouTube videos' are watched by pretty much everyone.
In the end, Waldo loses. But not before he's become a worldwide symbol, everywhere and everything. This got me thinking how far we can take a joke. People love to be able to have some way to actually rebel against things. Look at Rage Against the Machine a couple of years ago, they managed to get to number one, beating the X Factor. We love showing that we can fight back, we just need a way to do it. We also love being able to laugh at all of the people we've managed to beat. Even if you didn't give a damn who was top of the charts, you might still have bought Killing in the Name of, because why the hell not? When something fills Twitter, or Facebook, you might finally decide to listen, and that kind of messes with our generation. How far would we let something go just because it was funny? Just because it was new and outrageous and finally put those people in their place. Look at Boris Johnson. I love him, he is brilliant, but only because he's... Well, kind of a joke. People like Frankie Boyle, do you think you'd vote for him because he was funny, because it was a chance to rise up and just have a laugh at all the others? I think we would, but maybe that's me. It's just sort of scary, how powerful it can be if we just don't care. I'm not saying Frankie Boyle's going to rule the world like Waldo basically did. But why not, if enough people stop caring and just try and do things for a joke, it's not impossible?
We've all got a bit too loud and a bit too powerful for our own good, and we could mess everything up. I know I sound boring, but we need some sensible people or some sort of line of where enough is enough, else we're all buggered.
Leo Thorncroft - Idle Scribe