Dingus of the Week: Troll Hunters

While Lyz is on vacation, Professional Comedian™ Josh Gondelman has a dingus for you

This week, Lyz is on vacation. So, the very hilarious

Josh Gondelman

agreed to pitch in so you do not ever have to ever miss a dingus meal. We here at MYAM would not want you to ever go dingus hungry. Please enjoy!

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Many years ago, I told some jokes on a variety show where one of the acts was a man whose performance consisted of lying down on the floor and exhorting as many audience members as physically possible to stand on top of him. Shoes were allowed, and high heels seemed encouraged. With the exception of his face, no area of his body was off-limits from the crowd’s feet. Most of the show’s attendees didn’t seem like they had been yearning for the chance to stand on a man’s hands, chest, or testicles, but when presented with the opportunity, they couldn’t, or at least didn’t, resist. On the drive home, I turned to my friend Ken, who had also performed, and wondered (naively) how this peculiar sideshow came into existence.

“It’s a sex thing,” Ken replied, without hesitation. Right. Duh. Of course, it was. And honestly, what a neat trick to get paid, even if it’s just $50 and a couple of drink tickets, to turn your fetish into an act that strangers will watch and participate in. In fact, without the audience’s participation, there’s no act at all.

I think of this guy whenever I see someone post an astonishing, pudding-brained take on the internet, enticing dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people to tell them in clear and often vicious terms Just How Wrong They Are. Whenever a columnist at a legacy outlet spends 1,200 words bloviating about how there shouldn’t be dancing at weddings and someone responds with an 87-tweet thread about the cultural importance of dance. Or any time someone with 372 followers tweets: “Sleeping on your stomach is a female trait. I’d never date a man who did it idk idk.” and a trillion people respond with pictures of John Wayne or Shaq or some other capital M Man snoozing comfortably on his tummy. Or when someone on Twitter jumps the barrier and goes real-world talking-about-it-out-loud viral for posting their weekly budget, which somehow features a $500 line item for “scones.” Every time this happens, I remember the man whose name I never learned, happily smushed under sneakers, sandals, and stilettos. 

Obviously, this isn’t a new phenomenon, but lately, it seems like SO MUCH of social media consists of dunking on things that don’t matter. I don’t know the specific stats, but it certainly feels like social media, especially Twitter under the reign of the world’s wealthiest open-mic comedian

¹

, has gotten less fun. Cool and smart people are (smartly and coolly) spending less time on the site or leaving entirely. Mathematically, that means a greater percentage of the remaining users are the inch-long, foot-wide chodes. And without any sense of fun or community, all that’s left is these dumbasses spewing total nonsense, and the rest of us telling them how dumb their asses are. (It’s not just Twitter of course. Half of TikTok is just people making TikToks shitting on other TikToks.) I, for one, hate it.

Nobody needs you to debunk some random guy’s claim that everyone over age fifty literally smells like expired ham. And we certainly don’t need 2,100 people to fact-check that assertion. I shouldn’t even have to know someone thinks that. I’ll go one step further: I shouldn’t even have to be aware of the existence of any person who would think that. Stop making me know about people just so I can dislike them!!! There’s enough to dislike in the world already! And look, I’m not above doing this. I’m a massive hypocrite. But at least make it fun. Every day I log online and am pelted in the eyes with joyless, perfunctory slams of people whose identities I instantly forget. It has to stop.

I’m not talking about going easy when there’s actual harm being done. Cruel abuse. Widespread misinformation. Giddily misinformed New York Times columnists jerking off for several column inches instead of just Googling whatever burning question of the week they’ve decided to pose but never explore. By all means, please verbally bodyslam those people straight through the Earth’s crust. I’m talking about the chumps who proffer their dullest impulses for the sole purpose of having the shit grimly kicked out of them with words for 12-48 hours. A twenty-four-year-old who’s never read a book posting a video that says it’s ableist to be tall, for example. Who cares? Just let them be stupid in peace. 

Or, feel free to participate in the beatdown if you want. Just remember that you’re accepting an enthusiastic invitation to step on the floor man’s balls. And without your participation, there’s no show.

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And Now For Something Good:

This is Lyz again writing you from a week in the past. As I write this, I have no idea what this week will bring, good or bad. But as always the world is sometimes bad and sometimes good. There is a system crushing us, but there is so much beauty and joy in our fights and in the community and connections we make. So, this week, I hope you take a break. Maybe small, like an hour or two, or maybe longer.

And thank you so much for being a subscriber. Because you subscribe and read this newsletter, you have made it so that I have a job where I can take a break and spend some time eating chips by the pool with my kids. Where we can go somewhere and stay up too late watching Survivor, then spend the morning being lazy and eating Pop-Tarts. You made it so I can pay Josh a better-than-market rate to write a newsletter for me at a time when media companies are imploding and Hollywood refuses to pay writers what they are worth.

So, thank you.

Now, drink some wine or a very ridiculous concoction and listen to Kelly Clarkson.

Drop your good things in the comments and tell us what you are drinking so we can all be inspired. Well, you all can be inspired. I’m probably eating fried seafood and drinking white wine.

1. Editor’s note: This man is also a former dingus-of-the-year award winner.