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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026

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Shane Gillis and the Limits of Credentialism
Comedy and the Limits of IQ Essentialism

Shane Gillis is being criticized for an SNL monologue joke about women wearing unseemly attire at the gym — this alone is totally uninteresting cw fodder — but the question of credentials got my attention. A number of the women offended at his joke have invoked their credentials to explain why Shane Gillis is obviously not a good comedian. A uniquely qualified student of comedy invokes her prestigious internship with a smirk to inform you that she knows about comedy. A graduate of comedy writing believes that her classes permit her to speak with haughty authority on comedy. A former working comic explains from a “craft perspective” why Shane Gillis’ joke didn’t work. Of course, none of these people have even vaguely approached the level of popularity of the critiqued comedian. For the sake of argument, let’s suppose that the foremost credentialed comedy expert in the world has made such a criticism: Harvard undergrad in writing, Princeton PhD in comedy studies, highly published in the highest-impact comedy studies journal. How seriously should we weigh the view of the credentialed against the comedian?

I am tempted to say that the credentialed should have zero weight added to their opinion due to their credentials alone. The only credential in comedy is whether you know how to make people laugh. It would be epistemically arrogant to think that “comedic authority” could ever be bestowed upon a person by way of credential when we barely know the origin and social purpose of comedy to begin with. I recently came across a cool study and overview of one set of theories on humor published last month (the intriguing bits in bold so you can skip through):

The Contents and Function of Humor Among Hunter-Gatherers

Adopting a view of humor as an evolved response to benign violations, I argue that four comic themes characterize most humor across cultures: pain and misfortune, sex and obscenity, the foreign, and the sacred. I propose that each of these themes are ultimately grounded in our evolved psychology as universal pressure points that humor can tap into. I review 745 descriptions of humor in the ethnographic record of the ten hunter-gatherer societies in the Probability Sample Files (PSF) within the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) World Cultures database, finding support for my account. I discuss the relevance of these findings for our understanding of the evolution and function of humor, arguing that humor evolved to signal and reinforce interpersonal trust and affiliation through reciprocal play with benign violations of socially charged norms and boundaries.

the benign violation theory stipulates that the violations required for humor must have a negative valence, hence mild physical mishaps like slipping on a banana peel are considered humorous while purely positive incongruities (e.g., strokes of luck like winning the lottery) are not. For something to be humorous, it must be incongruous not with our expectations of how things usually are but rather with our normative sense of how they “ought” to be. In other words, it must be appraised as wrong, bad, or threatening.

Secondly, the benign violation theory stipulates that for such violations to elicit humor as opposed to purely negative emotions, they must ultimately be appraised as benignly non-worrisome (i.e., normal, harmless, or okay). This explains why mild physical mishaps are funny while serious violations like being diagnosed with cancer are not. For something to be humorous according to the benign violation theory, two appraisals must then co-exist: a benign appraisal and a violation appraisal. By specifying that the violations required for humor must have a negative valence and including the condition of benignity, the benign violation theory builds on the incongruity theory to more accurately differentiate what is humorous from what is not

While humor is often posited as uniquely human, social play is an activity engaged in by most mammals, with an evolutionary antecedent of human laughter manifested in the laughlike panting that accompanies the “play face” of many other great apes (van Hooff, 1972; Gervais & Wilson, 2005; Winkler & Bryant, 2021). In play, animals typically benignly violate each other’s physical boundaries through play fighting, wrestling, chasing, and the like (Aldis, 1975). Play signals like the play face here ensure that violations are understood as benign, preventing misunderstandings from escalating the play fighting into actual violence (Pellis & Pellis, 1996).

testing function, allowing individuals to assess the quality of their social relationships (Winkler & Cartmill, 2026). By imposing a mild cost on a target in the form of a benign provocation while closely monitoring the target’s response, the teasing great ape can glean information about how much the target values the relationship. Reciprocal teasing banter in humans has been proposed to fulfill a similar, elaborated function: By benignly provoking each other without either party taking offense, the participants are in effect saying, “We are close enough that we can say anything about each other” (Terrion & Ashforth, 2002:72). Starting with small provocations and gradually ratcheting up the offensiveness of teases can thus be a way to build a bond of trust.

The fact that teasing, the variety of humor that is not unique to humans, is the most common subtheme among hunter-gatherers, accounting for a majority of humor descriptions, suggests that it may have been the original form of humor. It is also the variety of humor that most resembles the rough-and-tumble play from which humor likely evolved, with the physical violations of play giving way to the more abstract interpersonal violations of teasing. Just as teasing may serve a bond-testing function in other great apes (Winkler & Cartmill, 2026), reciprocal teasing in humans can take on a more elaborate, ritualized form of the same function, with two parties teasing each other as a mutually recognized signal of the strength of their relationship (Haugh & Bousfield, 2012). Not taking offence to a teasing provocation (i.e., appreciating it as benign) requires and thereby signals interpersonal trust.

Attempting humor by violating any norm ascribed social weight, not just interpersonal ones, requires and thereby signals trust that the recipient will interpret it as benign instead of malign. If the recipient responds by appraising it as benign and laughing, that signals reciprocal trust. For instance, Gusinde notes that Ona men, when by themselves away from women and children, engage in “coarse jokes and offensive remarks about women” that they never otherwise permit themselves (1931:1652). A bond is thereby forged through mutual complicity in transgression. Relatedly, Wiessner (2014) found that the vast majority of humor among Ju/‘Hoansi occurs at times of day when people are segregated by gender and age, allowing people to joke freely without overstepping the rules of respect organized along these lines.

Jokes reinforcing ingroup bonds at the expense of outgroups are not restricted to gender but also extend to foreigners, invoking the theme of the foreign. Such outgroups include other local bands or tribes with differing norms, such as the Blackfoot mocking the custom of eating dogs among the Cree (McClintock, 1968:238), or surrounding societies, such as the Mbuti mocking the rituals and institutions of their surrounding Bantu villagers (Turnbull, 1965a:294). Foreign ethnographers studying the surveyed societies commonly describe themselves becoming the butt of humor on account of their “naïvete and ineptitude” in native affairs (Dunning, 1959:ix) or their awkward grasp of the native language (Gusinde, 1931:104). The ethnographer may turn this to their advantage by playing along, becoming a participant in the humor rather than merely a subject of it, thereby engaging the natives in an unofficial reciprocal joking relationship (e.g., Cipriani, 1966:21).

humor may also be used to get away with deviating from otherwise reigning standards of behavior by couching one’s violations in humor. Most commonly, ethnographers describe humor being used as a non-comital way of violating social mores or interpersonal boundaries to indicate or fulfill sexual desire. The risk of rejection is minimized if an advance is coated in benign humorousness since it can always be brushed aside as just a joke, capitalizing on the affiliative signal of humor. Landes (1937), for instance, notes that Ojibwa men teasingly refer to their female joking relatives as “my debtor,” implying that they have sexual rights to them (p. 45). Among the Ona, “tender teasing” is similarly said to be the beginning of any love affair (Gusinde, 1931:445). Multiple observers report being bashfully taken aback when finding themselves on the receiving end of raunchy overtures from natives couched in humor, including Pryde (1972:89) among the Copper Inuit and Turnbull (1962) among the Mbuti. Turnbull, for instance, recounts how a woman marks her interest in him through a double entendre based on his nickname “the long one” (p. 141). (lol)

There are many branches of discourse to swing off from here. Did Shane’s norm violation go too far in the eyes of some women, thereby evoking their ire? Did some women misinterpret of Shane’s monologue, though filled with abundantly placating self-deprecation? Or perhaps it was clipped and they didn’t see the full monologue? Is there reduced social trust and affiliation between the genders? Has the dating crisis gotten so bad that a woman wearing lingerie underwear at the gym approaches the untouchably sacred? Was Shane’s humor better off in the company of only other dudes? Are women just not very funny (this is no laughing matter)?

There’s something else worth exploring here. If the above theories are true, then comedy seems tied to social intelligence, at least within the “competitive” comedy circuit. Humor is an accurate signal of a person’s ability to “socially read the room”, to know where others stand on trust / affiliation / values / sensitivities. This is interesting because comedic skill seems to be unattached to IQ. The most popular comedians are not at all the smartest, in fact many do poorly in school, like Gillis / Louis CK / Theo Von. There is no actual “Harvard undergrad in writing, Princeton PhD in comedy studies” comedian, and I don’t think this is from a lack of trying as it’s the perfect job for a trustfund kid and provides an extremely glamorous social life. I wonder if this is evidence for a social intelligence not adequately predicted by g factor?

And maybe one more thing worth considering. If comedy is the measure of affiliation and trust, then the oft-criticized KillTony (I mean criticized by left media) is actually a wonderful vehicle for national unity. Having men, women, foreigners etc all criticizing each other in offensive ways to laughter is the exact utility of humor you’d want if your interest was to increase affiliation and trust between citizens of different backgrounds.

As I've said before, when this came up- 'women in comedy' is the wrong framing. Ellen was a very popular and successful comedian a while back. But elite class proper ladies do not make good comics because comedy is inherently transgressive, and 'being transgressive' is not what elite proper ladies do. That's what this is about- these women are performing the social role of elite proper ladies, and they're rather unhappy about being excluded from comedy.

The main problem with the joke is that it wasn't really that funny. Not in a "that's offensive" way, just like Dave Chapelle did it better a decade ago. You can call women whores you just need to actually have it be funny or pay off. I used to go to small time standup shows all the time and that's just a tired stepped on bit.

Isn't Gillis a "working man" comedian? His comedy isn't targeted at elites or intellectuals who favor wry and clever observations. His comedy is "What normal people think is weird." If he made guys at the bar laugh, or had guys at the construction crew talking about his joke on the jobsite, he was a success. To me, it was hack comedy, but I'm not his audience. That so many "credentialed" women took offense is only natural, as they would never deign to hang around such low company as Gillis' audience.

Disagree, I laughed. It's funny precisely because it was on SNL and transgresses the norms of that subculture.

The only credential in comedy is whether you know how to make people laugh.

All of these words you post and you don't even tell us if you actually found his monologue/joke funny.

As someone who finds him usually quite funny, I found his monologue to be noticably half-assed and unfunny. I'm more amused by the fallout than the actual jokes.

I didn’t find it that funny, no. He seemed nervous, off tempo. I thought it was funny when he said that the spandex was the color of bait, though.

A number of the women offended at his joke have invoked their credentials to explain why Shane Gillis is obviously not a good comedian. A uniquely qualified student of comedy invokes her prestigious internship with a smirk to inform you that she knows about comedy. A graduate of comedy writing believes that her classes permit her to speak with haughty authority on comedy.

As with ludology (the study of games), the study of comedy should be considered an experimental discipline. It's reasonable for an expert in these fields to not be able to make a fun game or a funny monologue, but they should be able to predict which games are fun and which monologues are funny, and to explain why they are with principles that reliably generalize to other games or monologues. If they cannot, they are not demonstrating that the hiliarious comedy is actually Not Funny or the bomb is Funny, (nor equivalently for games); they are instead demonstrating they are bad in their field or their field is without basis. In other words, being an expert in the study of comedy absolutely does not qualify you to contradict the success of practical comedians, and more than being an expert in the study of aerodynamics allows you to contradict the flight of bumblebees.

In the Beginning, there was the Feminist Light Bulb Joke. It was thus

Q: How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: THAT'S NOT FUNNY!

One of the few constants through all waves and subwaves of feminism is that this joke is relevant throughout all of them.

There are many branches of discourse to swing off from here. Did Shane’s norm violation go too far in the eyes of some women, thereby evoking their ire? Did some women misinterpret of Shane’s monologue, though filled with abundantly placating self-deprecation? Or perhaps it was clipped and they didn’t see the full monologue? Is there reduced social trust and affiliation between the genders? Has the dating crisis gotten so bad that a woman wearing lingerie underwear at the gym approaches the untouchably sacred? Was Shane’s humor better off in the company of only other dudes? Are women just not very funny (this is no laughing matter)?

I think you're overthinking it. It was his use of the slur "whore" that pissed people off. had he just said "going to the gym is like Instagram or OnlyFans in real life" no one would have cared. It would have still been funny.

I didn't know women just dress like whores now.

Yes. It's Desdemona Women asking "Am I that name, Iago Shane?" Desdemona at least was innocent of the charges, women at the gym seem to have the uniform to do from hour to hour we ripe and ripe now.

"I didn't know women just dress like Winchester geese now. Look it up. Actually don't."

"I didn't know the gym had a dress code, and I didn't know it was Southwark, 1598." I like this one but I suspect the hobby-horses of 1598 Southwark dressed more modestly.

Aha! The misuse of the play face might be why evil clowns are terrifying: a betraying and malicious violation of the group safety mechanism. (And that mechanism misfiring or being overly precise might be why even the most benign clowns are creepy to some people.)

I recognized the humor without finding it funny. Like the first chapters of Moby Dick, I can recognize that this was probably uproariously funny to the right person with the right background. It's ok for a joke not to land. I don't think Gillis' joke lands with women. That's fine for a joke, that's less great for a joke told for SNL.

SNL is supposed to feature humor that lands with a broadly upper-middle class American public of both genders. Perhaps Gillis is trying to expand the appeal to more than just the upper-middle class, but I don't think the joke lands with lower-middle class women either.

A comedian tried something new, it had mixed results, more news at 11.

(I think having a PHD in humor is among the most humorless things you can do. And like most people here, I weigh Logos over Ethos or Pathos when evaluating arguments.)

Perhaps Gillis is trying to expand the appeal to more than just the upper-middle class, but I don't think the joke lands with lower-middle class women either.

I don't think Gillis gives two hoots about expanding the appeal of SNL. I think he thought it was funny. He probably also thought it was thumbing his nose at the SNL audience who got him fired, which makes it even funnier.

Yeah, women who aren't selected for priding themselves on their modesty are in general not ok with commentary on modesty. Why? Because it's one of those things where it's a rat race that you can never be comfortably ahead on, and women are real sensitive about it.

That's fine for a joke, that's less great for a joke told for SNL.

I don't know, a joke not landing is pretty much the defining theme of SNL for what, like, thirty years.

A comedian tried something new, it had mixed results, more news at 11.

pretty much. SNL achieved its goal of getting people to talk about it.

KillTony (I mean criticized by left media)

I sm bot familiar with it. It is a Podcast/YT show? Why is it criticized?

It’s a live podcast + popular YouTube channel. Amateur comedians do one minute of standup and Tony Hinchcliffe critiques them afterward. The critique afterward is often the funniest part. I’ve seen it criticized for jokes on race / gender, but also for being aligned with the Joe Roganverse.

There is no actual “Harvard undergrad in writing, Princeton PhD in comedy studies” comedian

Well, yes, I don't think there are any successful standup comedians who received formal university training in comedy. But it isn't remotely difficult to find examples of intelligent, university-educated comedians (whether comic actors or standups):

  • Monty Python: Three members of the troupe studied at Cambridge (variously studying medicine, law and English literature), two studied at Oxford (studying English literature and history), and the sixth had a degree in political science from Occidental College.
  • Fry and Laurie: Stephen Fry was offered a scholarship at Cambridge and studied English lit, where he met Hugh Laurie, who was studying archaeology and anthropology.
  • Conan O'Brien graduated Harvard magna cum laude with a degree in history and literature.
  • John Mulaney earned a BA in English lit from Georgetown.
  • Mitchell and Webb: Like Fry and Laurie, they met at Cambridge, where Mitchell studied history and Webb studied English.

Comedians are in general smart, so it's unsurprising that lots of them have college degrees. But how many of those are degrees in things like theater, or communications? Generally these seem to be irrelevant degrees to being a comedian.

Monty Python: Three members of the troupe studied at Cambridge (variously studying medicine, law and English literature), two studied at Oxford (studying English literature and history), and the sixth had a degree in political science from Occidental College. Fry and Laurie: Stephen Fry was offered a scholarship at Cambridge and studied English lit, where he met Hugh Laurie, who was studying archaeology and anthropology.

That means mostly - we are members of the British upper or upper-middle class and we are a bunch of smart chaps.

Smart people generally speaking do well in universities. This by no means that the university helped them in their careers (except by socializing and connections) or that the people that do well in universities are smart.

In the case of the Cambridge folks, presumably having a dedicated and distinguished comedy troupe helped them learn and refine their humour. I would say that probably goes beyond merely "socializing and connections".

This by no means that the university helped them in their careers

Did I claim they had successful careers because they attended university?

(except by socializing and connections)

This seems a very apt time to use this clip. "Alright, but apart from networking opportunities, socialising and jump-starting our entertainment careers... what has Oxbridge ever done for us?!" Surely that's half the reason people study humanities in the first place?

Fair point. I will rephrase - I don't think the credentials helped them in their career.

To be maximally pedantic, Terry Jones's education into medieval history proved invaluable when they were writing Holy Grail, to the point that it's sometimes been called one of the most historically accurate films with a medieval setting.

But in general, yes, I don't think having a piece of paper with a 2:1 on it helped any of them in their careers. I took @coffee_enjoyer's point to be that talented comedians tend not to be "book-smart", and hence that comedic talent is orthogonal to g. And I think it's trivial to demonstrate that that isn't true: there have been plenty of talented comedians who were at least book-smart enough to complete a humanities degree.

Terry Jones's education into medieval history proved invaluable when they were writing Holy Grail, to the point that it's sometimes been called one of the most historically accurate films with a medieval setting.

I would very much like to know more.

TV Tropes has more information. See "Aluminium Christmas Trees" on the YMMV page.

As someone with a white bunny at home, I can confirm that they really are like that. Well, I can't confirm whether medieval bunnies had the acrobatic skills to do the stunts required of The Beast of Caerbannog, but the murderous intent is still here.

*EDIT: But actually, it's really part of the "strangely accurate" stuff that a student of medieval history would appreciate. Killer rabbits are a weirdly recurrent motif in medieval art and decoration.

These are the details I crave!

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Wait, but it’s trivially easy to demonstrate that it is true that comedy is orthogonal to both g and the academic accreditation filter process. If comedy tracked with either one, then we should expect virtually all the best comedians to be from elite institutions, because there are many hundreds of people graduating from elite institutions with a high IQ who are interested in comedy every year. The best mathematicians and the best lawyers nigh universally come from the best elite institutions. That’s what we should expect: the top 10 come from top institutions. But right now, and for decades, seldom do the best comedians come from such institutions. You had to go all the way back to look at Monty Python and this is complicated by the British class system. American comedy is more meritocratic, so where are all the Ivy-educated high IQ comedians? The high IQ and the Ivy graduate would both outperform Shane Gillis on a verbal iq test. So why is Shane the comedian du jour and not those ranked above him in either g or accreditation? Harvard Lampoon alone poops out 120 super-elites per decade, who are ahead of Shane in IQ, accreditation, training, and support. So… where are they?

I’d actually go further than “orthogonal”. Per the available evidence, comedy is negatively associated with possessing high g or strong academic success.

American comedy is more meritocratic, so where are all the Ivy-educated high IQ comedians? The high IQ and the Ivy graduate would both outperform Shane Gillis on a verbal iq test. So why is Shane the comedian du jour and not those ranked above him in either g or accreditation? Harvard Lampoon alone poops out 120 super-elites per decade, who are ahead of Shane in IQ, accreditation, training, and support. So… where are they?

high IQ people with strong verbal skills and ivy league degrees would choose the safer and more profitable bet of lawyer or consultant

Maybe, but no shortage enter journalism or an academic track, which are not very profitable at all. Being a good standup comic earns more social rewards than being a consultant: no shortage of women or parties, meeting famous people, being locally renowned.

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I’d actually go further than “orthogonal”. Per the available evidence, comedy is negatively associated with possessing high g or strong academic success.

You made a mistake somewhere.

the “6% rate of top comedians come from Ivys” is way smaller than should be expected were you to control for the selection effect of the Ivy’s (eg family wealth, health, drive) and the incidental benefits of an Ivy education (vastly enhanced social connections and opportunities). You should probably also exclude the bottom 20% in intelligence; of course the dumbest people can’t be comedians, so the negative correlation with g would only be found after a certain threshold; it’s rather a negative correlation with high g. Then you’d have to check if any of these comedians were legacy admits, which is an exclusionary criteria case. Maybe a more important argument against this data: we have to look at comedians born after, say, 1980, as it’s the Internet that has made comedy meritocratic. Your wikidata dataset premising your argument includes comedians born in 1940. But surely the world of comedy was not as meritocratic in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, when your connections with wealthy producers you went to school with had an outsize impact. In the internet age we can actually see who is funniest, they rise to the top of algorithms that are more difficult to game then 1 or 2 late night talk shows dictating the entiret of prominence.

The pօpսlatiօո is peօple with a giveո օccսpatiօո, US citizeոship, aոd birth years 1940–1995. Prօmiոeոce is measսred by the ոսmber օf Wikipedia laոgսage editiօոs

Is this an accurate measure of prominence?

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This suggests Ivy League is primarily selecting on g. They also are strongly selecting for conformity which kills comedy.

stand-up comedy, yes, but written comedy selects for strong verbal IQ

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You had to go all the way back to look at Monty Python

I didn't, actually. Mitchell and Webb's careers started in the 2000s, as did John Mulaney's. Monty Python was the first example that popped into my head, but I cited several others from both sides of the pond.

so where are all the Ivy-educated high IQ comedians?

Here's a few. Also, per his Wikipedia page, Gillis holds a history degree from Westchester University. I'm not American so I don't know how prestigious that is, but he seems to be a lot more book-smart than you're giving him credit for.

John Mulaney is double legacy Georgetown University alum, so we can’t really measure his IQ / credential. Westchester is one of the lowest ranking universities in America. Your link mentions Seinfeld, one of the all-time greats, and he went to a CUNY ranked #158 of us college. Our version of Mitchell and Webb is Key & Peele and they both went to pretty middling schools.

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Gillis holds a history degree from Westchester University. I'm not American so I don't know how prestigious that is

Slightly below 50th percentile as a national university. Knowing nothing else besides his degree, best guess would be that he's smarter than average, but ironically "becoming nationally successful in stand-up comedy" is by itself probably better evidence of above-average IQ than the degree is!

John Mulaney earned a BA in English lit from Georgetown.

Doesn't he have a bit where he specifically cracks jokes about how he didn't do the work?

"I spent $400,000 to have someone tell me to go read Jane Austen and I didn't."

Generally the relevant signal of University education has a lot more to do with clearing entrance hurdles than actual benefits of the coursework

No idea, I only know him for that dig he made about Madame Web.

Clip.

Excellent. I also forgot he had that one bit about Back to the Future.

Conan was also the first two-tiime editor of the Harvard Lampoon

actually legit smart comedian

This reminded me of something, and I realised that I once got a scolding here about how a joke that I told literally didn't qualify as a joke, per five criteria the commenter meticulously outlined in detail. Not just that my joke wasn't funny, or was offensive, or didn't make him laugh (which would be fine): that it literally didn't meet the prerequisite criteria to be considered a joke. So as not to embarrass him, I won't tag the user in question.

I'm also reminded of a commenter I saw on the /r/ireland subreddit who was complaining about other users criticising TV shows they didn't like, and saying their opinions didn't mean anything because they weren't qualified. I couldn't believe what I was reading. Are you seriously suggesting you need a BA in television studies before you're allowed to say "I didn't enjoy this show"?

That guy deserves some sort of Redditor Award.

At least one person thought he was doing a bit, doing an elaborate parody of a Reddit wokescold. But it seems he was quite serious.

Hilarious read.

This reminded me of something, and I realised that I once got a scolding here about how a joke that I told literally didn't qualify as a joke, per five criteria the commenter meticulously outlined in detail. Not just that my joke wasn't funny, or was offensive, or didn't make him laugh (which would be fine): that it literally didn't meet the prerequisite criteria to be considered a joke.

The mods just recently did that too. Boner jokes not allowed on the Fun thread because they're too serious, they don't qualify as fun, or a joke, so you have to keep in in the CW thread ... you can debate theology in the «small question» thread though.

Anyway, some jokes.

A man walks into a forum and asks for a small question. The forum responds, «does God exist, and if so does He love us, and if so, did He die on the cross, or did He speak to that Arab?»

Another man goes to the forum on joke night and asks for a joke. A user says, «What bulges when a 17 year old boy gets to dance with with a hot coed in gym class? His eyes, of course!», but the mods throw the user out the door and comedy night became tragedy night.

I think you're putting words in the mods' mouths. From the linked comment, I can't see anything even resembling the sentiment "jokes about erections literally do not qualify as jokes".

Well, what do you think "trust the experts" means?

Oh well it actually did mean vibes, papers and essays. What is the world coming to?

I know. It depresses me that the denizens of that sub were willing to take that principle to its logical conclusion, surrendering even subjective aesthetic judgements to the "experts".

"This utterance does not obey the Joke Axioms of Applied Humouristic Theory, thus it is not a joke.", is itself a joke.

The most popular comedians are not at all the smartest, in fact many do poorly in school, like Gillis / Louis CK / Theo Von

Um... you are posting a jab against credentialism, and yet with straight face consider academic success in the mandatory battle royale gulag as a measure for smartness?

The overreaction to this fairly mild joke is brutal - I don't know why the observation that there are more camel toes in a modern gym than in a zoo struck a nerve. And even less why said nerve was so exposed. I think because it was the offhand way the comment was delivered - not only he did what modern blue tribe hate the most - being judged, but that he dared to make this judgement not a center piece of the monologue or even the joke. A fat unattractive straight guy has the audacity to think so little of their hypersexualization attempts, that he give the hot jacked gay guys more screen time than to their vaginas. The ultimate insult.

Credentialism except from telling something about the mindset of the person with the credential - the more indifferent said person is about the piece of paper, the higher the chances of real brain functioning behind the eyes. The moment you say - I have a bachelors in something, which means you should take me seriously, you know it is safe to discard their following sentences.

A friend of mine, and me graduated from really high end and very selective school for gifted kids. That is actually one of my achievements in life that I really hold dear. She continued with the academic path, it took me more than 15 years to get a bachelor's. She really likes to lean heavily into her various diplomas when discussing stuff - both from - I have studied this so I know more than you, and life owes me a bit of nice things to happen to me because I am educated angles. So I had to snap at one point with "Look - you think you are smarter than the others because you graduated X, I graduated X because I thought I was smarter than the others. We are not the same." . It didn't land as well as the Shane's whore joke did.

As an offtopic - the step by step episode where Dana and Cody are into di.. SAT scores measuring contest, to which Cody is even unaware he participates in is one my favorite.

I don't know why the observation that there are more camel toes in a modern gym than in a zoo struck a nerve.

I believe the only women who can wear tight-fitting pants and yet not expose their camel toes are the pretty and slender ones – it’s just how female anatomy is – and women who aren’t like this don’t want to be reminded of it. The bygone patriarchy enforced the norm of female modesty which acted as a sort of non-aggression pact among women and took the ‘unfair’ advantage of hot women away. Feminists have demolished this without thinking twice and now their daughters and granddaughters are rightfully mad. Ideas have consequences.

The expansion of credentials has been a disaster. Most credentials are useless, and in fact most outside of highly technical degrees are almost an anti-intellectual signal. The degrees do not, generally, require any serious rigor, no real achievement, and therefore are mostly ways for the schools to admit more dummies to study things that don’t matter in an environment where failure is almost impossible. Comedy should not be a stand alone area of concentration in a college. Very few humanities programs have serious rigor, and even those that do serve no useful purpose.

People who want to work in writing or comedy or art or music would be much better served to major in business to manage their career and do the work of learning the craft on their own in places where they get meaningful feedback from the future audience for their work. It’s not useful to become a good comedian to study it in a classroom and read theory. You need to get out in front of a crowd in a bar and fail until you learn how to read the crowd and tell jokes that land. Or play music in seedy bars until you learn to put on a good show.

The expansion of credentials has been a disaster. Most credentials are useless, and in fact most outside of highly technical degrees are almost an anti-intellectual signal. The degrees do not, generally, require any serious rigor, no real achievement, and therefore are mostly ways for the schools to admit more dummies to study things that don’t matter in an environment where failure is almost impossible. Comedy should not be a stand alone area of concentration in a college. Very few humanities programs have serious rigor, and even those that do serve no useful purpose.

They serve a function from the perspective of employers in corelating well with baseline proficiency . There is a huge gap in writing skills and other signifiers of ability of 4-year grads, even for humanities degrees, vs high school grads. Screening for degrees saves employers time and boosts productivity without having to interview everyone. This could also mean improved customer satisfaction from having smarter and more competent employees.

Screening for degrees saves employers time and boosts productivity without having to interview everyone.

So does an IQ test.

A degree works because it is an IQ test, just one that costs at 50,000 dollars and 4 years of your life to complete, much like high school used to be in the days before graduation rate became something governments would be punished at the voting booth for failing to sufficiently game.

Now, there's an entire industry that depends on forcing perfectly good high school graduates to spend at least 50,000 dollars and 4 years of their lives, in co-operation with a management system that refuses to employ anyone who didn't take this kind of IQ test. If they wanted to increase the fee, management has no reason not to agree, forming the bedrock of the academic-managerial complex, if you will.

There is a huge gap in writing skills and other signifiers of ability of 4-year grads, even for humanities degrees, vs high school grads.

This gap has been rapidly closing in the last two decades thanks to lowering standards at universities. Frankly the only reason the gap hasn't disappeared completely is because of similarly lowering standards at high schools.

yeah as long as there is a gap, the universities serve a purpose. the college dropout rate still stands at 50% and many still take 5-6 years of a "4 year degree "suggesting it has not necessarily gotten easier. I think this "lowering standards at universities" is much more anecdotal. There are certain standards that degree-awarding colleges must follow.

I think a sort of college can be useful for these fields. The problem with today’s colleges is bloat.

Most importantly, people who want to work in writing or comedy or art or music should write or act or draw or make music. But most will benefit from working with like-minded peers and learning theory. So imagine a group of people in a profession who practice, work and somewhat live together, and older members coach the younger ones. IMO, that’s art school as it should be.

(Notice the above description doesn’t mention “admin”. A couple managers, social media consultants, etc. are probably ideal, but there should be way more professors, not the other way around; and if there are more admin than students…is the institution a school anymore?)

Art school, even a literal clown college, can be a net benefit that is seriously worth your taxpayer money. But the artists should definitely perform or give away their works publicly. Then it’s obvious why.

Now credentials for creative work are practically meaningless. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. have credentials most importantly because if they mess up, someone will die or suffer seriously. And attend many lectures and exams because these skills are more methodical and can be measured far more objectively. Your “GPA” for a creative profession is your output and awards, and awards from an ingrained “credentialed” institution are less accurate than an organic one (see the slop that gets “prestigious” awards, sometimes literally AI slop).

I don't think "technical" is really the right criterion here. I'm an engineer, which is plenty technical, but that doesn't necessarily say much about my ability to do any particular job. In some ways it's more of a qualification to learn how to do a job than anything else.

I mean, I know a fair bit of university math and have some basic university-level knowledge in a bunch of technical fields, with a bit more in one specific area. But the main thing my degree tells an employer is that I'm reasonably intelligent and capable of putting in the work to learn difficult things.

I've had plenty of colleagues without engineering degrees who were about as capable of doing the same jobs. Maybe my education prepared me a bit better (in fact i would argue this), but it was hardly some strict prerequisite.

That's pretty different from studying something like medicine or law, where the degree is much more directly tied to a particular profession. My competence base is pretty broad and nonspecific, and a lot of what I actually need to know for my job is stuff I learned afterwards anyway, or could have learned through other routes.

So I guess my point is that there's a much more meaningful distinction between degrees that actually qualify you for a specific profession and degrees that mostly give you a foundation to build on. Whether they're technical or not doesn't seem like a particularly useful way of making that distinction.

I think you're significantly underestimating how much of required engineering is actually learned in university (or you're overapplying the American liberal arts college generalism to everywhere). A random mechanical engineer is going to know fuck all about DSP and I, as an electrical engineer, would be completely lost if I had to do a stress analysis of some motor part.

I am not. I'm saying that most engineers are actually not working in hardcore engineering in their subfield.

There are career paths as an engineer that actually depend on the technical specialization of said engineer but those are far fewer than the vaguely technical generalist roles that absorb engineers of various different backgrounds and some people of other backgrounds as well.

Engineering frequently works as a sort of finishing school for the non-retarded.

agree. employers get so many applicants. they need some way to filter at scale.

That's pretty different from studying something like medicine or law, where the degree is much more directly tied to a particular profession.

There is right now an interesting trend going on. First generation UK migrants sending their second generation progeny to study medicine in my EU country because it is relatively cheap and the tutors take bribes (and anyway are forbidden from failing them because the university really like the tuition fees). When they come back to UK they will be more capable killers than SAS and Spetsnaz combined.

In some ways it's more of a qualification to learn how to do a job than anything else.

I wonder how this is different than your IQ + your demonstrated ability to jump through hoops.

Universities love to say they "teach you how to learn". In my mind, this is cope. There is no indication that they are making an effort to do this, nor that it is even possible.

Universities love to say they "teach you how to learn". In my mind, this is cope. There is no indication that they are making an effort to do this, nor that it is even possible.

Regardless of their purpose , whatever it is, employers sure want it.

Yes, it has signaling value. So does an IQ test. But no one says that the process of taking an IQ test makes you smarter.

Really, we've been down this road a million times. I've never heard a convincing argument against Bryan Caplan's "The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money".

I think they are both true. his book is right but at the same time employers derive value from degrees.

I think its more that you demonstrate that you're capable of long term sustained effort at solving difficult abstract problems. Forcing you to do this does in itself teach you how to think.

This is both separate from demonstrating a willingness to jump through hoops and it is teaching something important beyond the object level.

Now, if you're getting a degree in something simple that doesn't require work or intellectual ability, that also doesn't have practical applications then that is probably more or less useless beyond the fact that you might have qualified for the education in the first place.

Good professors model critical thinking skills and ask their students to reflect on the material in a manner they may not have considered. Don't just memorize the formulars. Figure out what purpose they serve and think about how you might use them to make something real.

I think in general "teach you how to learn" may be cope in a lot of cases. But "teach you how to think" is absolutely not. Just from personal experience, a lot of the students I started university alongside were terrible at reflecting on the material. They became better due to interacting with it and receiving feedback from the professors.

I don’t doubt that good individual professors can have a positive effect, but these are quite rare. If there is a pedagogical philosophy, it’s not something that the university is promoting. Teaching is often an afterthought. In almost no cases is there a serious effort to educate educators, especially using any sort of evidence driven approach. College instructors are often just thrown into classrooms with no training. How can they “teach you to think” when they dont know the first thing about teaching?

That is what I love about electricity. You never need bother remembering anything if you have just basic math skills.

I think they do "teach you how to learn" but that really consists in widening the distance between checkpoints and motivating you to figure out how to learn by yourself. Some people can develop these skills alone but it isn't easy.

I don't remember where I originally heard this, it might have been my theater teacher in high school, or it might have been an interview with some big name comedian, but it is something that has stuck with me since I was a teenager...

Humor is by it's nature transgressive, it is about violating norms. The purpose of "the punchline" is to make it clear that you are fully aware of the transgression and "making fun" of those norms not just shitting on them like an asshole.

Has anyone involved in this scandal in any capacity had the temerity to state the obvious - that women are generally not funny because nobody expects them to be so?

I have a slightly more nuanced take on this, but I didn't sleep very well last night so it might come out a little disorganised.

It's emphatically not the case that women aren't funny. My current favourite standup comedian is Jordan Jensen, who I discovered via clips she shares on Instagram. When I saw her live, I could hardly breathe from laughing so hard.

Click on the link in the paragraph above. If you're a heterosexual man (as are most of the people who post here), I'm betting you didn't look at her picture and think "would". And indeed, Jensen constantly cracks self-deprecating jokes about her appearance, complains about how often she's mistaken for a lesbian, how she envies women who are more naturally feminine than she is, and how in many regards she's more masculine than the man she dates. She's also rib-crackingly hilarious. I posit that this is not an accident.

So it's not the case that women generally aren't funny. It is absolutely the case that hot women generally aren't funny.

The reason for this was cleverly illustrated by an old CollegeHumor sketch, "POV: Hot Girl". The titular character goes to a bar and meets a male childhood friend and two of his friends, one of them asks where she works, and she replies "I work for a PR firm. It's a living!", whereupon all three men laugh uproariously. We hear her internal monologue: "I should seriously consider doing standup comedy". The joke, obviously, is that the men aren't laughing at her lame joke because it's funny, but because they want to get in her pants. In social settings, hot women essentially never receive accurate feedback on which of their jokes are landing and which aren't, as people will laugh at their jokes for reasons unrelated to their comedic value ("boys will laugh at girls when they're not funny"), meaning attractive women never get opportunities to hone their comedic craft. In the tiny pool of female standup comedians successful enough to make a living off it, there are essentially zero lookers, despite physical attractiveness generally being considered an asset in the entertainment industry. (Amy Schumer isn't turning any heads even post-Ozempic.)

I know what you're going to say – sure, straight men have ulterior motives for laughing at a hot woman's unfunny jokes, but straight women don't, so hot women must still be receiving some accurate feedback on which material works and which doesn't. But I suspect the halo effect has a lot to answer for here, and in much the same way that attractive waitresses receive more tips even from other women, I imagine a straight woman might well laugh at an unfunny joke told by her hot friend. Women are also more conformist than men: if Plain Jane is at a party, Sexy Stacy tells an unfunny joke, and all the straight men in her vicinity laugh – Jane might well laugh along for the sake of fitting in.

But the more I think about it, I think the dynamic I'm describing might be even broader than this. When I saw Jordan Jensen live, there were two support acts prior to her. The second one was a short weaselly Jew (whose name escapes me), who was pretty funny. The first was a six-foot tall jock who looked like a J. Crew model, and he was hopeless.

Think about the most successful male standups in history. I daresay you will be hard pressed to find one that would be considered unequivocally handsome in strictly physical terms. (Shane Gillis himself is no head-turning beauty.) Louis CK, Dylan Moran, Patton Oswalt, Danny DeVito, Woody Allen, Rodney Dangerfield, Eddie "Suzy" Izzard, Mitch Hedberg, Bill Burr, Bill Hicks, Jerry Seinfeld, George Carlin – I could go on, but I think my point is abundantly clear (especially given how many of these comics' routines feature bits in which they vent about the frustrations of being sexually undesirable). Black comics fare a little better, but I still think it would be fair to describe Eddie Murphy or Chris Rock as "a little funny-looking". The dynamic is much the same as for hot women: when a physically attractive man tells a joke, people might laugh at that joke for reasons other than its comedic value (namely, the halo effect; because they find him generally charming; because they're a straight woman who wants to be his girlfriend/wife), which inevitably gives the man a misleading impression of how funny he really is and compromises his ability to hone his comedic instincts. The only people who can get constant, accurate, real-time feedback on which of their jokes are landing and which aren't are people whom no one has ulterior motives for laughing at: namely, people who are ugly and poor.

Let me illustrate it another way. There are many Hollywood actors who moonlight as models for fashion brands, watches, cologne etc. (e.g. Jake Gyllenhaal, Timothée Chalamet, Ben Affleck, to name the first three that came to mind). Can you name one person who first achieved fame as a standup comedian and who is still best-known for that vocation who does fashion modelling on the side? I honestly can't think of one.

Another potential rebuttal to my theory is that there are at least a handful of successful, attractive Hollywood actors who didn't come up through standup, but who turn in legitimately funny performances in comedy films. (Despite his reputation for portraying Literally Me™ in assorted serious indie dramas, Ryan Gosling was hysterical in The Nice Guys and Barbie.) The difference, I would argue, is that film is a fundamentally collaborative medium, and a lot of what makes a funny performance comes down to the chemistry between the actors, the director's coaxing of the performance from the actor, and judicious cutting in the editing suite. For standup, by contrast, the comedian is on his own, with no one to bounce off once the house lights go down. It's probably the purest kind of comedy there is, and to make it in that industry, you have to be really funny.

So, yeah. Being a jester is an uggo's game, because uggos are the only ones receiving accurate, real-time feedback on how funny they are which they can use to refine and improve their material.

Separate from this, I think there's a separate but related dynamic wherein men are sort of expected to be funnier than women. Guys go for looks, women go for status, and being funny and making other people laugh is one way a man can make himself seem higher in status and in turn make himself seem more attractive to the opposite sex. But even if an attractive woman could somehow make herself funny, that in itself wouldn't make herself more desirable to the opposite sex. People respond to incentives: if most men would rather date an unfunny twenty-two-year-old who's a 9 than a hilarious thirty-year-old who's a 3, most women intuitively understand that their time would be better spent making themselves hotter than making themselves funnier. The only women who invest any effort into being funny are women who have nothing else to fall back on to make themselves seem attractive i.e. unattractive women. In other words, there's more baseline competitive pressure for men to be funny than women.

It wouldn't surprise me if this fundamental dynamic likewise explains the underrepresentation of women in rock music and similar. Single-minded devotion to one's artistic muse is only one reason of many that people join rock bands, and probably not even very high up on the list: a big part is the desire to be a rock star i.e. to be seen as locally higher in status i.e. to get groupies into bed. I think most people intuitively understand that a smelly dude with a guitar is more attractive to women than a smelly dude without one, whereas a hot girl who plays in a band isn't necessarily more attractive to men than a hot girl who doesn't play in a band. If a woman is trying to nab herself a husband, her effort is better spent trying to make herself more physically attractive. It follows that the only women who'll join rock bands are either a) women who simply cannot resist following their artistic muses, or b) physically unattractive women desperate for something to make them seem more attractive or higher in status than they otherwise would be: no man really wants to date a girl who's a 4, but if you had to date a 4, a 4 who plays in a band might seem that bit cooler than a 4 who doesn't.

I agree with your overall point but you're overselling how focused guys are on looks and underselling how much they care about other factors. Both men and women are attracted to creativity and status. Every time I ask a friend what they like about a girl they just started seeing, something creative comes up. "She draws", "She published a novel", "She plays guitar". People with creative pursuits tend to be more interesting to talk to.

Girls max out how attractive they can make themselves. Maybe you start as a physical 5/10. With great effort you get yourself to 7/10, but you're unable or unwilling to advance further. The same distinguishing logic works for the 7/10 as the 4/10. 7/10 looks + cool beats 7/10 + boring. Also you seem more like a peer to rockstar types when you also have a musical career, so it's a winning strategy for nabbing them. See the singer from The Distillers marrying Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age.

Additionally: your theory predicts female rockstars should be mid, but that's not what I see? Girls in bands, both big and small, tend to be a bit prettier and more stylish than baseline. (Pop music girls tend to be just straight hot. Why that difference is another issue entirely). It helps get the audience emotionally invested when you're easy to look at. Once I went to a diner before a show. There was a girl there that was way prettier than anyone else there. She was getting stares the whole time. When I went to see the show I found out she was one of the acts.

Can I just say, the fact you two are using the Hold Steady and the Distillers to support your arguments make me feel like you're competing specifically for my favor and I love it. I hope you both win

your theory predicts female rockstars should be mid, but that's not what I see? Girls in bands, both big and small, tend to be a bit prettier and more stylish than baseline.

I would agree, but with a slightly different take: the female equivalent to Meatloaf (appearance-wise) would not make it.

Susan Boyle did kinda make it for a bit, but then again she kinda got through as a deliberate freak show and had the TV Talent Show pathway work for her where the Meatiness worked as a point of differentiation.

Every time I ask a friend what they like about a girl they just started seeing, something creative comes up.

Dare I say this effect might be contaminated by social desirability bias? "I like her because she's so creative" sounds a great deal less crass than "I like her because she has cracking tits and she's great in bed".

Even then, no one's debating that, ceteris paribus, creative people are more interesting to talk to. The point is, your friends aren't dating these women because they're creative. Your friends never would've asked these women out had they not found them physically attractive: physical attraction is the rule-in criterion, "being creative" is just gravy.

Additionally: your theory predicts female rockstars should be mid, but that's not what I see?

Maybe I'm overgeneralising from my personal experience + the most famous female rockstars. Dublin's post-punk scene exploded in popularity over the last decade, including a handful of female musicians, and I genuinely cannot think of even that I would call more attractive than mid. Any list of the greatest female rockstars in history is bound to include Janis Joplin and Patti Smith, neither of whom were anything to write home about in terms of looks even at their peaks. Stevie Nicks, not bad-looking but hardly a knockout. I'll grant that Debbie Harry was a legitimate knockout.

Dare I say this effect might be contaminated by social desirability bias?

Yeah, suppose a genie who offers men two deals:

  1. While her physical appearance is otherwise held consistent, your girlfriend/wife is uglified by 1 point on the 10 point scale, say from a 7 to a 6. However, she now draws!
  2. While her physical appearance is otherwise held consistent, your girlfriend/wife is yassified by 1 point on the 10 point scale, say from a 7 to an 8. However, she no longer draws or plays guitar or whatever.

I imagine deal 1. gets near universal denial and deal 2. gets easy majority acceptance, where the rejections to 2. mostly come out of risk aversion or concern for some type of monkey’s paw situation.

One point on the 1-10 scale is a big deal though. What if it was 0.1 points on the scale? 0.01?

My broader point is that looks aren't literally everything for guys, even if they're the most important factor. Guys aren't pure looks maximizers. They frequently make tradeoffs against pure looks. This is more pronounced when you look at relationships than casual sex. Imagine a 7.5 whose hobbies are watching the office and tiktok, versus a 7.3 who plays guitar at fun house parties and gets your homies invited. Which would you rather date?

One point on the 1-10 scale is a big deal though. What if it was 0.1 points on the scale? 0.01?

Indeed, it only further highlights how little female “creativity” matters relative to looks, that it’s immediately conceded that we need to divide the delta by 5, 10, or 100 to make the thought experiment less obvious.

It also further highlights the male burden of performance and the female bar being on the floor, where “she draws” or “she plays guitar” is understood to be an earnest compliment for a woman by her boyfriend or husband. In contrast, “he draws” or “he plays guitar” by a woman about her boyfriend/husband would make him sound like a loser without further qualifiers, as such descriptors sound like someone characterising an elementary or a high school family member, respectively.

Imagine a 7.5 whose hobbies are watching the office and tiktok, versus a 7.3 who plays guitar at fun house parties and gets your homies invited. Which would you rather date?

The 7.3 who likes drawing attention to herself by playing guitar at house parties is likely thotting around even harder on Insta and TikTok than the 7.5 Office and TikTok watcher.

I couldn’t care less about a girlfriend/wife’s ability to get my homies invited places, except insofar the caring goes into the negative, as such ability (holding looks equal) is correlated with traits I wouldn’t want in a girlfriend/wife. The bros are more than able to fend for themselves.

So, yeah. Being a jester is an uggo's game, because uggos are the only ones receiving accurate, real-time feedback on how funny they are which they can use to refine and improve their material.

Ah, this is why I'm terribly unfunny: I'm just too darned handsome.

In the tiny pool of female standup comedians successful enough to make a living off it, there are essentially zero lookers

Iliza Shlesinger, Sarah Silverman, Nikki Glaser, Whitney Cummings, Kelsey Cook, Taylor Tomlinson, Maddy Kelly… and that’s just off the top of my head. And of course if you expand the criteria slightly to successful improv/sketch comics the field expands even more and you get people like Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Kaitlin Olson, Tina Fey, Veronika Slowikowska, Ashley Padilla, Jane Curtin…. I could keep going, but I think the point is made.

Iliza Shlesinger, Sarah Silverman, Nikki Glaser, Whitney Cummings, Kelsey Cook, Taylor Tomlinson, Maddy Kelly

I've only heard of half of these. Even in her prime Silverman was mid, as far as I'm concerned. Tomlinson is about as good-looking as Maggie Gyllenhaal, so not bad-looking by any means, but I wouldn't hold my breath for the start of her modelling career. Kelly I would also consider mid. I'll grant Whitney Cummings, Kelsey Cook and Iliza Shlesinger. "Three" seems numerically equivalent to "essentially zero".

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Kaitlin Olson

Granted, but I'd consider them both more comic actresses than comedians, and I addressed the point about standup vs. comedic acting in the upper post.

Tina Fey

Mid even in her prime.

Veronika Slowikowska

Mid.

Ashley Padilla

Mid.

Jane Curtin

Mid, even in her prime.

You are already moving the goalposts. (And revealing that you just don’t follow stand-up very closely, making the value of your takes on the industry pretty questionable.)

What goalposts am I moving?

And just because these comedians aren't famous outside of the US doesn't mean I don't follow standup closely.

In social settings, hot women essentially never receive accurate feedback on which of their jokes are landing and which aren't, as people will laugh at their jokes for reasons unrelated to their comedic value

I'm not sure there's such a strong link between friends laughing at jokes in real life and the craft of being a stand up comedian. Even for men, looks and social status also matter pretty significantly in how likely you are to get a laugh. Indeed, I would say that women laughing as a form of flirting with a guy they are interested in is more common than the gender-switched variant you talk about (although they both definitely happen).

Although if you're looking for good looking female comedians, shout out to Taylor Tomlinson (who incidentally learned stand up as a fat teenager in church).

You're correct that there are a lot of people who are funny on an interpersonal level, but who would die onstage if they ever attempted standup. Making one's friends or colleagues laugh is a very different skill from making a roomful of paying strangers laugh. But I nonetheless think that, for someone who has never attempted standup (or any other kind of comedy, like improv or sketch comedy), the former is the best proxy for the latter a complete amateur is likely to have.

I know what you're going to say – sure, straight men have ulterior motives for laughing at a hot woman's unfunny jokes, but straight women don't, so hot women must still be receiving some accurate feedback on which material works and which doesn't.

I wasn't going to say that actually because the notion that hot women would ever feel compelled to tell jokes to or have banter with either other hot women or plain women never occurred to me.

But even if an attractive woman could somehow make herself funny, that in itself wouldn't make herself more desirable to the opposite sex.

Indeed.

It follows that the only women who'll join rock bands are either a) women who simply cannot resist following their artistic muses, or b) physically unattractive women desperate for something to make them seem more attractive or higher in status than they otherwise would be: no man really wants to date a girl who's a 4, but if you had to date a 4, a 4 who plays in a band might seem that bit cooler than a 4 who doesn't.

I'd also argue they are in many such cases willfully entering a predominantly male subculture in order to increase their mating chances due to themselves not being able to find eligible mates the conventional way for whatever reason.

So, nerd queen.

Also, to be more generous, often times the sorts of women who are that obsessively driven towards an artistic pursuit or hobby don't get along with other women, or at least with the normie female social scene.

I'd also argue they are in many such cases willfully entering a predominantly male subculture in order to increase their mating chances due to themselves not being able to find eligible mates the conventional way for whatever reason.

Oh yeah, this is a valid point. Big fish in a small pond.

I think there may be a degree of truth to what you’re saying, but remember Berkson’s Paradox. The null hypothesis is there is no relation between humor and attractiveness, no effect by which ugly people train their humor in order to win friends and influence people. You just never even notice the unfunny plain people, and they don’t become celebrities.

Keep in mind that there is a less-polite two-sided version of the paradox, too: not only do you not notice the unfunny plain people, the people who are funny and beautiful also go so far in life that they do not have to put themselves in front of the likes of you. There are more pleasant occupations out there than "stand-up comedian", if someone abundantly blessed with both wits and looks even has to work at all (as opposed to, say, being a cocktail party regular on some rich guy's yacht).

Notice how there's a massive gulf (even in Hoffmeister's maximally generous list) between the looks of "stand-up comedians" and "screen actresses who specialize in comedy". One gets paid a lot more for a much more pleasant job.

For clarity, I don't think there's any intrinsic correlation between being (un)attractive and being the specific kind of funny necessary to be a successful standup comedian. My argument is that the only people who become successful standup comedians are people who are not unusually physically attractive, which doesn't imply that being unattractive in itself confers some kind of competitive advantage. Physical unattractiveness is necessary but not sufficient for a successful career in standup.

You made an error in the code.

Or does nobody expect them to be so because women are generally not funny? Chicken/egg problem.

I think women are generally not expected to impress men with sophisticated social skills.

Men have the burden of performance. It extends beyond sexual/romantic situations too.

Your male coworker who never has anything funny or interesting to say is one boring dude. Your female coworker who never has anything funny or interesting to say is just your female coworker.

Did Shane’s norm violation go too far in the eyes of some women, thereby evoking their ire?

Hoes are indeed big mad (x24). You’re not supposed to Notice much less point out the female love of being sex objects and farming sexual attention, discourse about which feminists of various stripes have now Streisand Effected into the mainstream.

Apparently, as part of the hoe maddening related to the Gillis fallout, it’s now even a trend that TikThots will wear their usual thotty attire to the gym and post videos with captions attempting to reclaim the wearing of whorish outfits to the gym as a form of Empowerment and sticking it to the patriarchy. Not exactly defying the meme-gender allegations.

That's literally the joke he was making. "I'm probably in the background of like 6 tiktoks right now." He also has an old Gilly and Keeves sketch about the same situation, where he innocently glances at some hot girl at the gym only to be ambushed by her and her boyfriend who were deliberately trying to entrap him for a video. He's joked in the past about throwing on his tard face as an uno reverse card.

It’s also a bit in the most recent season of Tires.

Yeah, it's the "hello, human resources?" meme, but in the gym instead of the office. You're allowed to directly ogle women wearing sexually provocative athletic wear only if you're equally attractive, otherwise you have to avert your gaze and watch them on social media instead.

Make a brutal kind of sense - social media viewing is much easier to monetize.

The businessman inside me suddenly wants to sell women's sportswear with 'Whore' written on it.

Just pitch it as "reclaiming your sexuality" and you're golden. Twerking and W.A.P are both considered feminist.

Dew it. It’s not a coincidence how the Playboy bunny became a female lifestyle brand and how JUICY pants blew up for a few years.

it’s the perfect job for a trustfund kid and provides an extremely glamorous social life

I'm going to disagree with you on this one. Developing a stand up act is extremely humbling. It involves years of going to crappy bars to perform for unsophisticated drunk people for terrible money.

There's no glamour until you have a high level of success.

I think having any sort of "credentials" about comedy should be counted as severe negative points of credibility for any judgements made about comedy. Taking comedy seriously enough to get a degree in it utterly defeats the purpose. Also the fact that such a degree exists in the first place and that my tax dollars likely funded the program and likely subsidized the girl's loans to pay for it too makes me want to burn everything down.

Dave's first rule of comedy was that if you have to explain the joke, the joke is not funny.

Also the fact that such a degree exists in the first place and that my tax dollars likely funded the program

If you can't appreciate the dark comedy of such a joke, then irony is truly dead.

Oh it's funny, and it's sending me to the funny farm thinking about it

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