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Notes -
I saw “Weird Al” Yankovic in concert last night. For those who are unfamiliar with his work, Weird Al is an American comedy/novelty singer, known best for his parodies of popular songs, although he also has a large body of non-parody original comedy songs. I assume that there is a large overlap between the users of this sub - at least those who grew up in America or Canada - and the kinds of people who would be fans of his work. And there definitely is a specific “type” of person to whom Weird Al has always appealed, which is what this post is about.
While the concert itself was a wonderful time - on this tour, Al is only performing his non-parody songs, without the frenetic costume changes and multimedia content for which his live shows used to be known, so this was definitely a “for the hardcore fans only” kind of experience - I was taken aback by something I experienced during the opening act. A stand-up comedian named Emo Philips opened the show. Philips’ onstage persona is an oddball autistic type, and his material is generally self-deprecating, ironic, and full of absurdism and clever wordplay - very much in the same vein as the style of humor that appeals to Weird Al’s fans. The first thing Philips said that raised an eyebrow for me was the statement, “I don’t think there’s a single person in this room who wasn’t bullied.” This got a relatively positive vocal response from the crowd. Then a bit later, he started talking about COVID. “How many people in here have a vaccination card?” (Wild applause and raised hands.) “Now, be honest, how many people here have a fake vaccination card?” (Some scattered hoots and raised hands.) “See, those are great, because you get to have the vaccination card and you can still die of COVID-19!” (Raucous laughter and cheers.) My brother and I, both right-wing COVID skeptics, shared an exasperated look, but the joke sure seemed to kill with this crowd. Later in the set, Philips made some more political comments and jokes, basically along the lines of how “you Californians shouldn’t let anyone make fun of you for being from this state, because they’re just all extremely jealous and resentful.” Now, I am well-aware that comedians play to their crowd, and that this stuff all could have just been naked pandering to the local sensibilities; maybe when he does a set in Tulsa, he tells mocking jokes about COVID paranoia and the scourge of Californian transplants. Still, I found it extremely odd that he would get political at a Weird Al concert - Al’s music is decidedly non-political and infamously inoffensive - and, moreover, that he predicted (correctly) that this type of material would do so well with this crowd in this context.
However, after the show, I reflected on this, and I concluded that it’s not surprising at all. I bet if you took a poll of the political affiliation of the audience at a Weird Al concert in any venue around the country, no matter how deep-red, the results would show overwhelmingly left-of-center. You would get a lot of open SJ progressives - I certainly saw a number of individuals in the crowd whose dress, demeanor, and mask-wearing marked them as MSNBC devotees - and almost certainly the farthest-right you would get would be “both parties are crooked, throw the bums out” apathetic centrism. The demographics of this crowd were overwhelmingly - quite possibly exclusively - white, middle-class, college-educated, and above-average IQ. Even above those reliable correlates of Blue Tribe affiliation, though, there was an additional set of selection effects that would skew the politics of this particular fandom.
Al’s oeuvre - not only his music, but also his cult-classic film UHF and his various other comedic endeavors - is clever, self-deprecating, absurdist, full of obscure cultural references, and, well, weird. His parodies generally take mass-culture popular works, strip them of their cultural context, and transfigure them into absurdist comedy songs totally disconnected from - and appealing to a very different audience from - the source material; many of Al’s parodies, especially his parodies of hip-hop songs, introduced the original songs to an audience who would otherwise have had no engagement with the pop-culture apparatus that generated them.
This sense of being outside of the mainstream, and of only engaging with it in an ironic, deconstructive, and alienated way is a key element of his appeal; this phenomenon is probably best exemplified by his song “White And Nerdy”, a parody of the rapper Chamillionaire’s hit “Ridin’”, which became an anthem for his socially-awkward (and overwhelmingly white) fan-base. I would wager that nearly everyone in that concert venue last night considers himself or herself “an outsider”. Not in any concrete demographic/“identity” sense - fre if any of these people qualify as a member of a recognized “marginalized community” - but in the sense of belonging to a fictive identity centered on personality traits and aesthetic preferences outside of, or in opposition to, “normie” culture.
Decades before the Marvel ascendancy catapulted “nerd culture” into the mainstream, Al cultivated a following among genuine weirdos and the socially maladroit. Even though they’re no longer truly “outcasts” in any important material sense, their internal self-image is still tied to their sense of being simultaneously victimized by and superior to the people who comprise the “normal” or “mainstream” culture. This affective orientation is a central component of leftism in an atavistic, visceral, pre-political sense. People with that orientation, of course, also tend to gravitate strongly toward leftism in the political sense.
There is also an additional component to Weird Al’s music - a slightly “darker” side, if you will - that tends toward poking fun at certain characteristics of what might be considered natural outgroups for the people to whom he appeals. I recall, years ago, reading a thinkpiece - I believe it was in Slate, but I don’t care enough to check - in which the author argued that Al’s song “Word Crimes” (a parody of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”, in which Al assumes the character of a pedantic grammar-Nazi taking the listener to task for making various common grammar/spelling errors) reveals the elitism and “punching down” that underlies much of his work. His popular parody song “Fat” is another great example of this; it’s the type of casual mockery of fatness which would be deeply taboo in most mainstream-media circles today. There is certainly an element of mockery in some of Al’s work, and it all tends to target people who are low-IQ, low-class, and physically unappealing.
While it is indeed odd for a fandom full of self-proclaimed weirdos and outcasts to find such enjoyment in the mockery of other ostensibly subaltern identities, I don’t actually think there’s much of a contradiction there. While being fat, poor, uneducated, and lacking in middle-class cultural capotal are all markers of an “outsider”, they’re markers of a very different kind of outsider than the modal Weird Al fan. They’re the qualities that a middle-class nerd would associate, on a conscious or subconscious level, with the Red Tribe. Never mind what any empirical data say about which identity groups are most likely to be poor, fat, and stupid; in the mind of an urban white nerd, when you say “imagine a fat and stupid person” the mental image conjured is always a conservative rural white. And if you have built your identity around finding ways to be different from, and superior to, that class of people, you will find your prejudices well-reflected in the Democratic coalition. Is it actually true that a white jock is more likely to bully you than a member of the black underclass? Certainly not - unless you don’t know any underclass blacks, and the white jock is the only thing remotely like an enemy that you have any experience with. That doesn’t matter, though; what matters is whom you identify with, or more importantly whom you identify in opposition to, that’s determinative of your political tribe.
I often ask myself, “Why were you a leftist when you were younger. What about it appealed to you?” And the inescapably obvious answer is that it provided me with an outlet to express my sense of contempt for, and superiority to, regular run-of-the-mill non-nerdy white people. It was pure atavistic chauvinism that led me to identify with the “nerd culture” of the time - which had not yet become fully commercialized at that time - and with pseudo-“outsider” figures like Weird Al Yankovic. I was lamenting to my brother that if my political views were somehow made known to those in that room, many if not nearly all of them would want to see me hounded out of the room and banned from any venue they expect to attend in the future. I might be an outsider - in a much more important material sense than whatever these people still think marks them as outsiders - but I’m an outsider of the wrong kind, and there’s probably no longer any room for me in the coalition of the fake, self-indulgent, marginalized-in-their-own-heads community that comprised the people in that room last night.
My own experiences with school bullying (taunting to the point of tears, flinch-teasing, verbal bullying), though never physical, were free of politics. However, though it was the Popular Kids and Sports Kids I expected to tease me (because American entertainment made me expect it), it was actually the everyday kids, and sometimes my fellow nerds. The Cool Gamer and his buddies stole my box of 1.44” floppies twice.
American entertainment also told me to look for outsiders as my natural friend group. What I got was a series of bad friends who were outsiders for a reason: they were toxic. The Island of Misfit Toys is as fictional as Rudolph the Inspiringly Disabled Reindeer.
Conformity to tribal norms is valued across all three tribes; it’s just that uniqueness is a norm of the Grey Tribe: liking geeky and nerdy things, dressing in reference-laden clothing, taking being kept outside the Red Tribe’s inner circle as a badge of honor. As a kid with autism, I also heavily enjoyed Robin Williams’ weirdness, and his death hit me so hard because he was the first person to tell me it was okay, and even good, to be weird. Having attended Weird Al’s Poodle Hat, Running With Scissors, and Straight Outta Lynwood tours in Albuquerque, I felt as accepted as I am at sci-fi conventions and game stores.
As a Grey Tribe Christian from a Red Tribe church, I never consciously sought to feel superior, and when I notice it’s a motive of mine, I deconstruct it to not feel it. What I crave is acceptance of my whole self: my truth-seeking, logic-loving, nerdy self. And I find it at Weird Al concerts. I don’t want to analyze it away.
This can be true, but I do not like to push it all onto them. The people who are freaks and outcasts of society are that way partly because of their own choices and partly because society did it to them.
Some are genuine social retards in the sense that they simply cannot comprehend that their own behavior is bad -- while others use that excuse to continue their shitty behavior. Without seeing in their heads I cannot tell.
One was a lapsed Catholic with bipolar paranoia who evaluated literally every bad, unpleasant, or unfortunate event in his life, no matter how small, as if God were trying to judge him on something he should already have figured out.
One had Borderline Personality Disorder because he was a victim of childhood emotional and physical abuse by a Vietnam vet alcoholic father.
One was a person with autism and an iq of 86 whose perseverative interest is tirelessly manipulating and wheedling other people into giving her everything she wants.
One was a person with autism and an IQ of 145 who had been instrumental in hardening satellite microchips against cosmic rays, but whose wife had left him because of his biological anxiety attacks, which gave him psychological anxiety attacks too.
When I realized my only role in their lives was to be “the good friend,” the Linus to their Charlie Brown, I left each one in turn. I’m now in a recovery group for codependency, and doing much better, but they cost me the two decades I could have spent raising a family.
Public school failed me by not having a friendmaking curriculum. I aim to change that.
My life followed a remarkably similar trajectory, down to the amount of time lost and the conclusion that family was absolutely not going to happen. I wasn't even interested in trying. I have a family now anyway.
Where there is life, there is hope.
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Man, am I the only person left alive who went through the stereotypical jocks vs. nerds thing? I'm getting the feeling everyone is conspiring to convince me it was all a dream.
I'll give you that one. Even at the time, I remember thinking "you guys are cool, but howcome everyone here comes from a broken home, and seems to have a drug or alcohol problem?"
My experience with jocks (students who participated in the school's sports teams) is that they were perfectly nice, friendly people. Not as smart as me, but then again I wasn't as athletic as them.
Virtually all trouble (bullying, fighting, stealing, class disruption, etc.) was caused by underclass kids. And, yes, they were mostly black.
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My high school was in a military town. While we did have folks that might fit the definition of a jock, there was no dominant jock clique, and jocks were distributed pretty diffusely throughout many friend clusters. There was also a great deal of kids that had just arrived last year and would be leaving the next, and didn't have the time to develop strong cliqueish ties.
I witnessed one instance of physical bullying during all of high school, and as far as I know it didn't recur. The bully didn't get any positive or negative reinforcement, those of us around just kind of stared because this was strange and like something from a TV show.
I also can't recall any instances of serious nerd teasing, and being fairly nerdy, I think I would've been a target. My friends and I would tease each other about all kinds of things, but there wasn't anyone enforcing non-nerdy norms.
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More of my teasing was in elementary, where those groups hadn’t yet coalesced. Ironically, I was in track & field (100y dash + long jump) and T-ball at the time, so technically, I was jock as well as nerd.
In middle school, I had the distinct displeasure of being picked literally last every time we had captains picking teams in PE, so by that point, it was closer to true. But in high school, the jocks were in such a different social class, I barely even interacted with them.
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My school was small, in a deep red, rural area so probably different enough from the norm, but outside of a few very physically gifted kids, like the 300 lb guy who'd started on the offensive and defensive lines all his years, or the son of a former major league pitcher who wasn't too bright, the jocks were most of the advanced tracked kids, too.
Our math olympiad team included two very nerdy guys, one very nerdy girl (our schools only national merit finalist) the head cheerleader, a starter on the basketball team, and me who lettered in 2 sports.
I went to a relatively large suburban California high school, and noticed the same thing. Most of the popular kids were also jocks and most of the actually outstanding athletes were also honors students, and a fair number also acted in the school musicals. The fact they were likeable and good at everything and possessed the social confidence to effortlessly pass between groups was why they were popular.
The vast majority of the bullying I saw, experienced, and (shamefully) participated in was intra-clique. You were far more likely to be humiliated by the only-slightly-more-socially-adept-than-you nerd attempting to gain status within the small group of friends you played video games with than some chad in a letterman's jacket. They were too busy bullying the fat kid on the football team to pay attention to the nerds.
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At small rural schools, there's often not much else more interesting to do than athletics and AP classes, and classes are small enough for teachers to actually teach the material. Unless there's a "real" ambient culture of thinking learning is dumb and for poofters (seeing a black guy on TV occasionally doesn't count), so you don't see as much segregation of academic performance, athletics, and popularity.
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