waiting for the laughter to save us

(it never will)

I wrote this in 2016 when Trump was elected the first time and everyone thought we could laugh or resistance our way out of it. It’s kind of cynical, but these are cynical times.

Celebrities and talk show hosts and comedians are not going to save us. No matter how many times they “slay” or “kill” or “destroy” on their nightly shows, they’re not going to save us. The only difference they’ll make is perhaps causing one to laugh at what is one great, big misfortune.

All the jokes about Trump and his administration, all the zingers and impressions and dressing down aren’t going to affect change. The late night monologues aren’t going to help, either. The rants about climate change and impeachment and white supremacy will resonate with the audience for a few minutes and then the words will just clang around the internet for a day or two before we remember we’re depressed as fuck and nothing seems funny or even impactful anymore.

The hashtags are not going to save us. They are not going to push impeachment or make him resign, the tweets and retweets and quote tweets are not making a single fucking difference except for making you feel like you are part of a process, but that process is more about thinning the anger for a few seconds than anything else.

The comedians are not going to foment a revolution. Their routines will not propel social just forward. Their tweets will not destroy or kill or slay anything but your existential dread, and that’s only for as long as your laughter lasts, which is as long as it takes for you to realize there’s really no humor in this at all.

They can dismantle speeches and take down policies and zing their way into rising ratings but it just does not fucking matter. The SNL cold open can address this issue and the audience will hoot and holler and applaud wildly as if a pressing problem was just solved but as soon as the clapping dies down, that feeling of the world stomping down on your chest comes back because you know that feeling of victory was a sleight of hand, a little magic trick to make your angst disappear for a brief respite.

You can take to twitter and see all the famous people who have made a new name for themselves as by throwing insults, snark, sarcasm Trump’s way and maybe he does really read each and every one of those tweets and skeets and posts — that is totally believable — but to think that those replies are like pins in a voodoo doll or that they will eat at him in any discernible way is to think those words have way more power than they do.

I don’t know what’s going to save us. Impeachment, voting, I don’t know. There’s a lot of damage already done and probably a lot more to come. Putting a laugh track on it all, trying to cut through the despair is all well and good, but let’s not kid ourselves enough to think that the laughter is going to get us anywhere, that the potshots and pointed insults and well placed gifs do anything except make us feel more alive than dead for seconds at a time.

Comedians are not going to save us. Late night hosts are not going to save us. All that slaying and killing and destroying they do is but momentary relief. None of it is going to change the world. Not a single joke, not a hashtag, not a quote a tweet, not an impression and lip sync.

I hate living in a world where every gesture meant to make you think as well as laugh feels so futile and empty. But that’s where we are now, that’s where I am now. I’m in a place where the wild applause and hollering seems like an overreaction, like people grasping on to anything that will make them feel good for ten seconds. Problem is, when that ten seconds is gone, our despair, our problems still remain. The jokes feel hollow, the zingers like empty threats.

Someday we’ll get back to the real laughter. Some day things will feel good again. The celebrities are not going to take us there.

2024 addendum: It is up to us. We have to save ourselves. I just have no fucking clue how we do this when there’s so much standing in the way. I honestly don’t know where we are going to be a year from now, and I dread finding out. We’re back in the position of being citizens in Trump’s America for the second time. There’s nothing funny about that. We’re not going to celebrity-singalong and resistance our way out of this. Sorry to be so dour.