Funny, no?

It tickles me immensely when I hear people chastise those who amuse themselves by poking fun at things which the public at large deem as subjects that are off limits for humor. Why they would do that, I’m not quite sure. I have discovered that humor can in fact be a sort of wormhole to the hearts and minds of people. You could try to reason with a lay person but it’d only get you so far if the person’s beliefs (whatever they may be) are so deeply ingrained in him that he will be dogmatic enough to argue with you even if he is in the wrong (Religion being a case in point). But if you bend over backwards or underhandedly slip in a message through humor (or poetry or music), they’re more likely to remember it, so laughter in fact becomes an important carrier of social messages and values. The same goes for poetry and music, because we’re more likely to remember rhyme and verse than a long speech or dialogue.

I truly believe it has an important function when it comes to making people see the evils and wrongs of their ways. If you’re skilled enough to get someone to laugh at something like rape or mutilation you’re able to bypass the jadedness that a person may have acquired overtime about a particular subject from, say the influence of media and society. It wakes people up to the reality of things, gives them pause and makes them consider exactly what it is that they’re laughing at, so your effect has been twofold: Firstly you’ve made them that much happier by making them laugh and secondly you’ve passed on that social message I talked about earlier. That’s a dual benefit to that person, and every other person he or she re-narrates the joke or comic routine or whatever you want to call it to someone else later on. Consider the impact of something like this as opposed to conscious efforts at raising conscientiousness amongst the general public through a more proactive medium such as the press. It’s subtle enough to work very effectively, has mass appeal, and the bonus of getting people to agree with you simply because you’re an agreeable person whom they enjoy the company of.

For George Carlin. Written soon after listening to his amazing routines some time ago.

We will miss you.

Sincerely,

WittyWanker

The Dynamics of the Nipple

Recently I’ve found myself immensely bewildered by our society’s turning of an innocuous and otherwise unassuming body part into a subject of international debate and spectacle. Most people tend to think that it started with Janet Jackson, but I like to think it started off with the Batman movie, yeah you know, the one where Clooney runs around in a suit with nipples sculpted onto them. But you know when I saw this I was actually surprised, no not because there’s something weird about there being nipples on a batsuit, but because, as far as I could tell, comic books had always been against displaying nipples. All these guys and girls running around in skin tight spandex suits and you expect me to believe there was never a single nipple revelation? Hell even the shirtless scenes seem to have a chronic case of nipple absenteeism. I mean come on. How stupid do you think we are?

And then came along Janet. Now if you were to ask me, I’d say it was planned. Not because she flashed a boob, no, but because, if you look carefully at the screen grab of the thing, you will notice the conspicuous ABSENCE of a nipple. There is instead, a star, some kind of a nipple ring over the thing. Now again, here I was surprised. No, not because I had a boob in front of me but because there was instead, a star. Why a star? Is it because she wanted to be seen as a star? Want her own star on the walk of fame? Or was it some kind of wish, to get marched off to the gas chamber?

And so that launched the trend. But the press has taken it too far you see, no… I honestly believe that many of these cases are genuine accidents. I mean, after all, the celebrity nipple is something like Haley’s comet, you see it once in your lifetime and never again. And why do I think they were accidents? No star! Not even the even more bewildering phenomenon known as nipple tape. Now, why would you ever want to do that to your nubs? And this raises another compelling thought: The fact that the fashion world regards the exposure of a nipple as one of the grossest things you can do on the ramp, those same people have no qualms about showing every other inch of the woman’s boob! (or for that matter, about 99% of the rest of her body!) Talk about tough love… why so mean with something as friendly-sounding as... ‘nipple’?

Ponderously yours,

WittyWanker

What about the damn title?

So I decided to make a blog :| An entirely anonymous one. What else is new about that? Absolutely nothing. What's new about me, 20 year old me sitting in his room in Bombay (I refuse to call my home Mumbai) writing in what he thinks is impeccable English for an audience of equally anonymous people who probably won't even read what his little mind has to say? What is, in fact, different about this rant itself, doubtlessly posted by hundreds of other bloggers when they wrote THEIR first blogs? Absolutely nothing.

It doesn't matter if no one reads this, I suppose. Then again, I recant that in the eventuality of this blog becoming popular down the line. I don't know when I started writing, really. At first I found it gratifying to just write for myself, to get my thoughts out. But then I realised writing is a cathartic process that necessarily involves the voyeurism of other people. I'll also be starting my career as a Journalist soon, so I figured having a blog to maintain is probably as good a way as any to get into the habit of writing.

As for the title. Well, I tried half a dozen names I liked MORE than this one but they were all taken. So WittyWankings it is.

Yours truly,

WittyWanker.