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Wednesday, August 11, 2010

On being Crude

Lately I've noticed a trend towards being brash, crude, intentionally shocking, and/ or juvenile in places where it just doesn't belong.  In the book blogging community itself there are a handful of bloggers who seem to delight in the panty-jokes and bathroom humor that I spend much of my time trying to train my 5 year NOT to use. I occasionally feel like I'm part of the wrong generation, as I don't see the humor or the appeal of referring to one thing, say wet panties, to describe your feelings about something else, for example, a book. Perhaps the blogger means this literally, in that he or she really is turned on by the book in question, but from reading the posts, I believe it's just being used as a shocking turn of phrase to garner attention.

By this same token, how is bathroom humor funny in the contest of the book blogging world? I admit to laughing at the occasional fart joke. If  someone were to fart and my two year old popped up with, "he FARTED!", I would laugh. If someone blogged about a memorable incident with potty training or the weird thing they overheard in the public bathroom at Target, I'd probably see the humor. But how is it funny, or even cute, to use this type of humor to refer to something like reading? Unless your book got peed on in a memorable manner? Maybe? Or was about poop? Everyone Poops (My Body Science Series) and Walter the Farting Dog come to mind as acceptable.

I spend much of my time trying to teach two young children when it is appropriate to laugh at poop and when it is not. I'm not really a prude, I see the humor in a lot of the posts on the Fail Blog. I read romance novels and sex in a fiction book doesn't turn me off the book. I just don't see the humor in using this type of talk to describe something unrelated. It feels like a cheap way to make a joke or an intentional attempt at shocking me. (You might remember I felt the same way about Screwed Up Life of Charlie The Second by Drew Ferguson, which many people loved.)  To be clear, this bothers me a lot more regarding book blogging than mommy blogging.  I just don't get it and honestly don't even want to get it. Am I the only one that feels this way? Am I an overreacting old biddy (at 35!) who will be chasing the kids off the lawn next? Is any humor appropriate at any time? Am I grossly out of touch with reality? Is my sense of humor stunted?  What do you think? 

(I'm sure someone will come along soon and tell me that I'm over-reacting. I'm not truly distressed about this trend, I just don't understand why it's funny.)


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11 comments:

  1. As you said though, I don't think "funny" is what they're going for. All I'll say is this...

    The "joke" gets old. Fast.

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  2. I am SO with you on this! It really does get old. Funny once or twice (or maybe even three times, but that's it. When I want to talk books, read reviews, or follow bookish Twitter posts, I don't need all that extra crap.

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  3. You are not alone. That type of humor/description is in very poor taste. It is what my grandmother would have said: it shouldn't even be thought, much less said" (in this case, written).

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  4. I agree with you also. Everyone has a different sense of humor but for me "potty jokes" are not cool and quickly turn me off reading a post.

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  5. Totally agree with you. It's a way for the not-very-clever to draw attention to themselves. Lazy writing (and speaking).

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  6. You're not in this alone. I totally agree with you and Ti.

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  7. I agree with you, Lisa. It all gets old fast.

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  8. Why don't you just not read those blogs or follow those Twitter accounts?

    I don't happen to enjoy Web sites containing graphic videos of people "gerbilling" each other but I've solved this problem by--wait for it--not visiting those sites. Well, very often in any case.

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  9. Nope, not just you. Annoying and old. I don't know if we're thinking of the same bloggers but I've unfollowed bloggers from twitter because of the panty-throwing jokes and never even bothered to subscribe to these blogs in Google Reader in the first place. Honestly I don't get it and I think it is in poor taste.

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