Pen Name and Humor
(In my extensive search for an image for this post, not one of them was funny.)
I decided to split out my writing into another group once again. I love my work advising companies, but when I'm not doing that, I'm writing. I'm providing content on five blogs, including Quora and Substack, and each is aimed at a different audience. Sometimes I'm just in the mood to write something that doesn't fit anywhere else I do. It always ends up sticking out, and besides, it's intended to sound like a different writer, and I write in character. It's harder to do than it sounds, but writing is much like any other art, and it takes constant effort to become something better. If I'm writing humor, it takes even longer because there is a rhythm to writing humor, and it's similar to playing jazz. If words are not in the right order, you can lose all comic timing.
I also think political correctness has affected humor negatively. There is almost no such thing as a sitcom anymore. Comedians and movies that once made fun of everything have faced cancelation somehow, and we just don't know how to laugh anymore. It's just humor. It's not intended to cure cancer or get rid of the mumps. It's just dumb jokes. I was trying to think of an edgy comic who hasn't had someone attempt to cancel them in some form. It's been a long time since I watched a movie that made me laugh until I cried. The last one was probably "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," made in 1988, and I don't think that movie could be made today.
To make my point, Rolling Stone ranked the 25 funniest movies of all time. Their number 1 choice, "Blazing Saddles," couldn't be made today. It was made in 1974. My parents wouldn't let me see it. I had to go without my parents knowing. The top five movies were all made in the 70s. In the next five rounding out the top ten, only "Dumb and Dumber" was made in the 90s; the others were all from the 70s and 80s. More were made in the 70s than any other decade, and not one on the list was made after 2010! Few of the movies on the top 25 were laugh-until-you-cry. I remember going to see one of the Pink Panther movies and laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. It was the scene where the Inspector was driving another car into the pool just as they were pulling out the last car he drove in. Blake Edwards would write the same joke three times in the same movie, and it got funnier each time.
When I'm writing, I sometimes think of things that make me laugh until I cry, and I can't write them because someone would be offended. I was at the doctor's office, and I was thinking about how I'd be nervous when I was younger, and now it felt like nothing. I was thinking to myself as I sat in the exam room waiting for the doc, "What would it take for me to be nervous?" I was thinking a bone saw would do it. I was sitting in the room all alone laughing, and the doc came in and noticed I'd been laughing and paused for a moment, and I said, "Oh, it was something someone said. It wouldn't be funny." I couldn't tell her. In fact, I tried once before to joke around with the exam nurse, and she just wasn't having it.
It's a shame really. When you look at what happened to Bud Light, that was all about cancel culture and humor that was their mainstay for decades. The arrogance of that marketing team won't be forgotten by me anytime soon. I hope humor someday makes a return. And for those who don't like it under my pen name, FO. Go read something else.