Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

I had the same thought earlier. Read this Jacobite piece from a few months ago that, despite being totally overwrought, kind of confirmed their impotence & limitations as a force bigger than yeah, The Daily Show. I don't know how they're approaching the book - I fully expect it to be some America: The Book or Alphabet of Manliness piece of shit. they shouldn't lean on their humor, they're really not that funny.

what do they actually have to lean on then

their analysis of the news & their guests, no shit

i think they're frequently insightful & that's much more helpful & useful than their limited comedic abilities. they're very good on their feet when riffing, esp. Felix. not sure it would work in a structured form like a book.

I can't tell if you're serious, flappy bird, but I'll bite: for most of the audience and for the hosts themselves, comedy is the main appeal of the show.

Speak for yourself. They had on Naomi Klein tonight. They're not restricted to a half-hour cable tv format. I've found their take on things to be the most valuable part of the show. If they really start hammering on about "it's just a comedy show!!!!! we have an idiotic joke name!!!!!" then they will become The Daily Show. I think they're wary of that & smart enough to avoid it. hopefully

They are funny at times but inconsistent. Comedy is not their profession. I really notice a stark contrast when I listen to someone like Nick Mullen (i.e. their friend who has done a lot of standup) and then them, the difference between people with real comedy chops and experience doing the "we're just a bunch of dirtbags shooting the shit" thing versus, like, weird/left media twitter people doing similar schtick and trying to spin good tweets into jokes. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but it gives me more appreciation for people who legit practice/study/do comedy.

maybe "craft" is really more the word I'm looking for than "profession"

no you're right, your comparison is otm. there's a stark difference listening to CTH vs. Mullen, Halkias, & Friedland.

anyway Chapo is much more substantive than just a "comedy show." it's certainly not why I listen

I think the main appeal of CTH for upwards of 90% of the its audience is that they find the show funny, and I would literally bet my life on that without hesitation.

for the record i wasn't implying they were actually funny

I think they're very funny, riffing and responding to articles/books/tweets. That's definitely the appeal to most of the audience.

They can also be good with serious guests (when they let them speak) or when actually talking politics (primarily Amber and Matt).

as for the book, hard to imagine it being great if only because I can't imagine it being something different than America: The Book - Felix has some good not-political pieces on Deadspin, Amber is good, I imagine Matt could write an interesting historical/political essay. Will and Virgil, meh.

I tried listening to some of the other leftist US podcasts after enjoying Chapo - Delete Your Account, Katie Halper - and while they were informative and fighting the good fight, realised that as someone outside the US I didn't really care enough about US domestic policy to keep listening. But Chapo I kept up with, and I think that is indeed because it's funny. Not as funny as a lot of comedy podcasts, but then no professional comedians have moved to occupy this niche.

the Naomi Klein segment this week is a good overview/entry point for the curious

yeah, I don't know. I think I listen to too many lib/left podcasts so very often the "serious" guests are ones I've heard interviewed before, and the Chapo guys are imo pretty mediocre at interviews. They either turn the same crank as usual or they seem like some Nerdist try-hards waiting for an opportunity to get their jokes in. But now and then there's some good back and forth.

The only part of the show I find funny is the idiot readings. And even then I could do without the "this David Brooks column made me scream so hard my neighbors called the cops" shit. But yeah I guess I got over Sam Kinison shit back in the 80s.

the Peggy Noonan one this week is funny but if anything kind of undersells over just how weird and bad the piece is

really weird discussions come up in this thread. as in hard to tell if people are being disingenuous or just daft as a brush. podcasts which are "funny" but where the hosts are not comedians nor do they have traditional comedic chops compromise a good chunk of popular podcasts, people generally enjoy the humour that is in them.

Freudian slip?

"Why do people like this thing that I'm so obsessed with that I can't stop posting about it?"

imo Amber's writing is great on intra-left beef. this dispatch from left forum

https://thebaffler.com/latest/flakes-alive

or this oldish one in jacobin on deriding leftists as "bros"

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/06/bro-bash/

are both great funny bloggy writing. but her actual writing on "actual politics" i have found not that good

really weird discussions come up in this thread. as in hard to tell if people are being disingenuous or just daft as a brush. podcasts which are "funny" but where the hosts are not comedians nor do they have traditional comedic chops compromise a good chunk of popular podcasts, people generally enjoy the humour that is in them.

― -_- (jim in vancouver), Monday, 18 September 2017 16:40 (five hours ago) Permalink

no that wasn't my point at all, it works fine for a podcast, and I do like the podcast quite a lot, obvs, it's just that when they try to move outside their range into, e.g., live shows, the fact that they aren't actually comedians or performers becomes much more naked. And I imagine the same would be true with a book. I mean actually most "humor" books suck anyway, so whatever.

Also, their podcast is good because it doesn't *exclusively* rely on them being funny, and when it veers too much into that direction it's not as good as they seem to think it is.

Naomi Klein ep was good. I was worried Felix was going to shit it up with his comments but it felt like someone had him on a short leash or had given him a good talking to beforehand, or maybe Klein is just a commanding enough guest to control the conversation in a way other guests haven't been.

Xpost. Yeah their live shows and bits are not good

The Harvard show was painful but I thought the last one not so bad.

Deadspin or Splinter should steal the Harvard Evil tourney idea (Ryan Fitzpatrick definitely makes it to the Sweet 16)

Harvard ep was the only good live show thanks to the concept keeping them grounded

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DKTN7pYUQAAEwhB.jpg

Oooh la la who made that beauty

Rob Whisman, isn’t it?

would like to announce my new grassroots political movement pic.twitter.com/W9d6aQ4eH7

— rob whisman (@robwhisman) September 22, 2017

Tim Faust is great on this:

http://art19.com/shows/with-friends-like-these/episodes/5a14a188-96ee-4906-a399-7161a06162ca

tim faust always sounds like he's been practicing his relatable dirtbag schtick in the mirror for 2 weeks before any of his podcast appearances :/

I disagree, I find him really passionate and easy to listen to

not an easy combo to find lol

He just seems like a really hyped-up but endearing nerd to me - he could be telling you about his favorite Dischord bands but instead it's single-payer healthcare.

Matt was on the Michael Brooks show. Not the most high-energy of performances, but fun to have on in the background.

Also I noticed that no one(including him) ever adjusted his mic, so he's constantly hunched over and looking at the table.

At least he's right up on that mic, so we'll take what we can get.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSAlqts697w

(about 30 mins in)

If Crulge is doing a shtick he's certainly consistent about it

.@crulge explaining how we're going to win Medicare for All to like 300 @DemSocialists members. pic.twitter.com/CYeh97B5Up

— Micah Uetricht 🌹 (@micahuetricht) September 28, 2017

He just seems like a really hyped-up but endearing nerd to me - he could be telling you about his favorite Dischord bands but instead it's single-payer healthcare.

Haha, his new podcast is exactly this, only they go on about metal.

http://www.blubrry.com/heavyxmedical/

I don't understand the release schedule anymore -- is it Sundays and Thursdays?

it's "sometime between Tuesday and Thursday" and "on Sunday, most of the time"

new premium is up. can't believe they got Hillary Clinton. impressive

He just seems like a really hyped-up but endearing nerd to me - he could be telling you about his favorite Dischord bands but instead it's single-payer healthcare.

― louise ck (milo z), Tuesday, September 26, 2017 11:33 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

will be interesting to see these dudes grow up in the public eye

I'd never really looked at this thread, which, along with the Innocent Smoothies thread, seemed pretty active yet completely foreign to me. I just assumed they were about some British comedy troupe or something. But lo, it turns out to be about a popular political podcast! Who knew. I don't listen to many (any?) podcasts beside what my wife plays on car trips, but I think I'll give this a shot. I like political yammering.

Hah I had the same experience until a friend of a friend I respect mentioned he listened to the show and it forced me to check it out.

Josh in Chi, I usually recommend people start with one of the Ross Douthat episodes. It's not Pod Save America, you have to kind of get acclimated to their sensibility and their mythical pundit world.

Cool, thanks. It's always tough when you find you're 150 episodes behind.

(That said, I think I've heard maybe part of an ep of Pod Save America and I don't remember it being radically different, mostly less prone to crazy reference-strewn digressions?)

the recent Naomi Klein episode was a good overview of their politics and a bit of their humor, maybe skip the cold open though (virtually all of their scripted stuff, of which there is thankfully little, is bad)

Mostly agree. I still love the "Woke Morning Zoo" bit from one of the early eps though.

And obviously the Adornian Gorka bits are classic but I assume he comes up with those.