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Once we stop laughing, this is no longer funny…
I don’t know how to paste Twitter threads. But there was a really funny one recently, regarding Kid Rock:
- Obligatory: Kid Rock makes music for people who know exactly how much Sudafed you can buy at a time.
– Kid Rock music is the official soundtrack for copper theft.
– One time Kid Rock played on the radio while I was driving and somehow I stole my own catalytic converter.
– His music came on and an electric Sawzall just appeared in my hands like some kinda trailer trash Exalibur.
Ok. First of all, those are really funny. As a proud redneck from SE Ohio and NE Tennessee, I appreciate the humor in those Tweets. Jeff Foxworthy had a great routine where he’d repeat, “You might be a redneck if…” with lots of different punch lines — those Kid Rock Tweets are all top-shelf and could compete with Mr. Foxworthy. And my fellow rednecks would all laugh, at our own expense.
Although Mr. Foxworthy’s punch lines rarely sounded critical. He did not condescend. Us rednecks identified with his descriptions, like, “You might be a redneck if…”:
…your front porch collapses and kills at least three dogs.
…you’ve ever lost a loved one to kudzu.
…your coffee table used to be a telephone cable spool.
…you think that potted meat on a saltine is an hors d’ourve.
…you consider a six-pack and a bug-zapper to be high-quality entertainment.
…fewer than half of your cars run.
…you’ve ever bathed with flea & tick soap.
…your wife has ever said, ‘Come help move this transmission so I can take a bath.'”
…your baby’s first words are, “Attention Kmart shoppers.”
…your wife’s job requires her to wear an orange vest.
…you’ve ever shot a deer from inside your house.
…you have a rag for a gas cap (on a car that actually does run).
…you’ve ever been too drunk to fish.
…your richest relative buys a new house and you have to help take the wheels off it.
…the directions to your house include the phrase ‘turn off the paved road’.
…you’ve ever gone to a Tupperware party for a haircut.
…you have a very special baseball cap, just for special occasions.
…you mow your lawn and find a car.
…going to the bathroom in the middle of the night involves putting on shoes and a jacket and finding a flashlight.
…you have a house that’s mobile and five cars that are not.
…you’ve ever hit a deer with your car – deliberately.
I will not admit how many of those fit my childhood, except to say that it is not zero. And I find all of them hilarious! Wonderful stuff.
Comedians are struggling these days. Because white rednecks are just about the only group that you’re allowed to make fun of anymore. You can’t do Polack jokes, black jokes, gay jokes, feminist jokes, or really any other kind of jokes. All you’re allowed to do is make fun of rednecks. And us rednecks find those jokes to be hilarious!
Max Acronym, via Shutterstock. Photo ID: 2195419277
But Trump’s assassination attempt yesterday highlighted the fact that this really isn’t funny. The establishment — the wealthy, the investors, the elite, the successful — they have always treated us rednecks with disdain. Which seems like harmless fun, when you’re watching Married… with Children.
But perhaps this is not funny.
A close friend of mine who is gay told me that once we stopped laughing at gay jokes, his joyous lifestyle became a deadly serious job. He thought that he was offended by the old, stupid gay jokes, but now he misses them.
I spent a weekend in Alaska with 800 gay men from California, and all they did all weekend was crack gay jokes. I was the literal straight man to more gay jokes than I thought were possible. We had a great time, and I made some great friendships. Friendships with people who seemed different from me, but with whom I had a lot in common. It was beautiful.
Amy Poehler, Joe Biden, Seth Meyers. Monday, February 26, 2024. Via Wikimedia Commons
Once things aren’t funny anymore, then things aren’t funny anymore.
Sometimes we laugh at our differences. Other times we try to destroy those different from ourselves.
I hope that we can understand such seemingly fine distinctions.
As it turns out, this may be extremely important.
If they once viewed you as funny, and now view you as a threat, you should pay attention to that shift in perspective. It may be extremely important.
Published in General
That is rough.
I agree with you about the importance of being able to laugh at yourself. Of the things I dislike about the Left, near the top is their utter damn humorlessness. And of course, in most of Islam it’s a capital offense.
Being from the non-paved part of New York State, there are actually some similar Foxworthy-ish lines about us.
You could be from upstate New York if:
–you’ve ever worn shorts and a parka within six hours of each other, or at the same time.
–you have four different snow shovels that do different things.
–you describe the distance between cities and towns in hours, not miles.
–you give directions based on going toward or away from The Lake.
–Niagara Falls is a place, not a Three Stooges routine.
–you have three seasons: winter, July and August.
–you have a gas powered snow blower, an electric snow blower for lighter days, and a powered “snow broom.”
–you have ever seriously considered clearing your walk with a flamethrower.
That sounds good to me.
A few months ago I had a cardiac procedure in NYC. The Anestheologist had an obviously Jewish name. And as I was about to go under he was telling Jewish jokes. The rest of the team was guffawing at his humor. As I was going to sleep I remember thinking…I guess he’ll get a pass… but the rest of the team is going to be in trouble with HR for laughing at his jokes.
I make fat jokes about myself, because if I tell the best ones, anyone trying to mock me just looks like a tool. Usually, it is more situational, like asking for a coat on Size Tent.
Humor is a social lubricant, just like politeness.
Unless the snow is about to melt anyway, you’ll just end up with a sidewalk covered by glare ice.
It’s the redneck superpower (well, that and coming up with bail money). For a redneck, the only proper response to a redneck joke is a better redneck joke.
(Unfortunately, you’ve already listed most of my best ones.)
Not to worry. Jokes at the expense of Jews are still acceptable.
Reminds me of the saying, to find out who rules you, just ask yourself who you’re not allowed to make fun of.
There’s another way?
A song that explains it all:
This is true for me. One summer when I was in college, I worked for one of my neighbors who owned an electrical contracting company. He let me have two empty electrical cable spools, which I refinished into two tables. One was large enough to eat off of (using a plate, of course) . . .
We used one as a table in our house in TN. We just covered it with a tablecloth. Worked fine.
Tablecloth? I didn’t think of that . . .
I haven’t read it yet myself, but comments and reviews are that Kat Timpf’s book “You Can’t Joke About That” is very good.
What’s a tablecloth?
Grandma had a cable spool out in the yard next to the picnic table for her cloud of grandchildren to use when they came over to visit.
Somewhere in my morning news crawl/coffee IV infusion I read an article that included a Twitter quote I should have noted. I’ve searched for the piece but can’t find it.
It seems that Trump played a round of golf yesterday afternoon, greeting a lot of onlookers and chatting with the club employees. One of the caddies reported that Trump sank a fairly long putt, turned to a friend, and said, “That’s the difference between me and the shooter. I don’t miss.”
I have no idea if this is true, so I disclaim any authenticity…but I hope it is. It’s right up there with “Honey, I forgot to duck!” and “I hope all you doctors are Republicans.”
Humor is not only an essential survival mechanism (ask our friends the Jews). Humor is triumphant.
Another one is innovation home repairs
e.g.
10 Hilarious Redneck Home Repairs | 12 Tomatoes
Is Jeff Foxworthy just the white equivalent of an Uncle Tom, encouraging outsiders to mock and denigrate his own people using hurtful stereotypes? If you think so, you may be a humorless woke d___bag.
What’s the last sound you hear before a redneck dies?
“Hey y’all, watch this!”
At Fort Dix in 1972, I heard an actual redneck respond to a sneer from an Ohio man with this question:
“What is the difference between a hillbilly and an SOB? The Ohio River.”
My husband and I miss all the old ethnic jokes. :) :)
We laughed a lot more than our kids do. :)
OK, I’m on board for at least six of these. (Sometimes with an upcharge. For example, a “telephone cable spool” was not my “coffee table,” but was my dining room table for something more than eighteen months.)_
Do I win?
Used one of those for years as a table by our pool. It was the only thing the kids could not pick up and throw in the pool.
For many years, we mostly furnished our house with pieces that our fellow military neighbors didn’t want to pack up and take to their next duty station. And…our “dining room” table was a spool. And…yes, we had a lovely tablecloth on it! That’s how you live on a sailor’s budget when you have five children and get to be a stay-home mom when they are all littles. Plus, my husband was a mechanical genius and we never had to make car payments. He’d buy an old beater, rebuild the engine, fix up the interior, and I could just drive all over with confidence.
That isn’t true, in my view.
I was wondering which group started driving humor out of these areas. My impression is that it was either the Jews, the blacks, or the feminists.
Probably the Jews, I suspect. I think that they were the first with a major organization dedicated to persecuting anyone saying anything that they don’t like, the so-called ADL. Such impressive chutzpah, for a group devoted to defamation to choose such a name.
“It were only an old movers pad, but it were a tablecloth to us.”
Which group?
Group think, anybody?
It is an excellent book. My wife and I had dinner with her on one NR cruise. She has a wicked sense of humor, a sailor’s mouth, and, after reading her book, is one tough lady who overcame an avalanche of s**t to get where she is today . . .
My favorite Foxsworthy non-You Might Be routine:
“I see a lot of teachers are caught having sex with their students. I might just go back and finish 8th grade. I had a friend who slept with his teacher, but he didn’t like it. He was home-schooled.”
Lucky. I can’t think of many people I’d want to have some time with, like over dinner or something, she’s one of the few.