To N4G: Learn How To Laugh!

Satire! It’s one of the forms of comedy where you make fun of something simply to get laughs. But it’s not because they necessarily dislike the material. Some of the most well known comedians use satire to get laughs, poking fun at some of the most timeless classics of our time. Anyone from Weird Al parodying a famous song to Seth MacFarlane using pop culture influence for shows like Robot Chicken or Family Guy. Hell, Mel Brooks even did it back in the day with the movies Blazing Saddles and Spaceballs. It’s one of the easiest recognizable forms of comedy.

So why, then, after many people had commented on the article explaining as clear as day what it was, are people still insisting that the Funny or Die article “6 Reasons Why you Shouldn't Buy A PS4” is either not satire, a trolling article, or a joke article that was meant to trash anything?

Yes, this has been going on for a day or so now that the article reached the top status on N4G: people who insist that the article has no place on the site. Seriously, go look at some of the comments, such as “Why do stupid articles like this get approved ???...GODDAMNN !! I wish there were mods for these type of news…these reasons reasons articles ARE NOT NEWSS !...N4G, NEWS 4 GAMERS”, which appeared when the story got approved. Or maybe one that came up just recently, “Doom article already?? Lolz” 4 hours at the time I write this. Or perhaps one that tries to point out that “yeah ok i get it, its supposed to be a joke. but jokes are supposed to be funny”. 3 hours ago, from someone who has six bubbles. Oh, and let’s not forget one that came up when the story got approved, “funnyordie is a site that, like 1up, should indeed die. Just die already…Like 1up they do not want anyone to decide for themselves.” Good thing this guy (who was the same guy I was referring to when I was saying that people should grow up before debating me about Geohot…which I haven’t stood away from, by the way) only has one bubble.

Yes, there are those that have tried to make it known that it was just meant to be funny, and know what Funny or Die is as a site. But do people listen?

Of course not.

Here’s the deal: FoD has always been a comedy site. It’s known for its memes and parody articles from various people. Some of them, I’ve found out, are from various celebs that you might recognize, such as Emma Stone and Will Ferrill. There are other users on there, too, though, and the person that posted this article in question also posted such lists as “6 Things Chris Brown Has Time For Since He Quit Twitter” (which one of those things is the author ripping on Xbox Live…so much for him being an X-Box fanboy), and “Chris Brown's List of People to Beat Up”. Aside from his fascination with Chris Brown, he’s got a ton of things he’s posted, most of them are there simply to get some laughs, even if it is at the expense of something famous.

And this is where us taking things like this too seriously comes into play. No one in the public eye is exempt or immune from being satirized. It’s natural. Thing is, as the case is here, most in the public eye don’t really take themselves too seriously, either. How much do you want to bet that if Sony saw this list and saw that one of the reasons was that the system “didn’t exist yet”, they would laugh? I’d bet you a lot that they would (how can you buy something that isn’t there). And, in reality, if people took the time to click on the article and read it, then they would see that it’s clearly not meant as a serious attempt at any FUD and instead just looked to parody other FUD articles like that for some laughs.

Is this what we’ve come to as a gaming community? We’ve become so insecure to our allegiances that anything that dares to poke fun at anything we like is automatically viewed as playing for the other team? Have people like Rob Foor, a cancer in the gaming community, picked on the Sony fanbase so much that they have guarded themselves against anything comedy about the system? Hell, gaming in general (not meaning to pick on you Sony faithful, but that article WAS about the PS4, after all). What would’ve happened if the creators of the works that Brooks, MacFarlane, or Weird Al parodies took themselves way too seriously? We would never have any comedy at all! If we can’t laugh at ourselves from time to time, then we’re doomed in all kinds of ways.

I can see why some would think twice about an article like that. After all, we all know how N4G is with approving articles. Hell, we get a blog about how screwed up the approval system is at the rate of one a week. That should tell you something about how after seeing so much of the same kind of article without any sort of regulation, you’re going to get a reaction like what we got when an article like Funny or Die comes along that reminds us that it’s okay to laugh at ourselves, and reminds us that being an elitist is a bad thing, and that we should have a sense of humor.

Besides, who wouldn’t want a new Vectorman game? Get on it, Sega!