(film reel whirring) (suspenseful electronic music) - One, Hello Darkness. Hello children, it is
I, the darkness within! So, you know how life is like, kinda bad? Well what are you gonna
do about that, hmm? I mean there's a few things you can do. First you could work to improve yourself and make the world a better place. That's probably the most
effective approach, eventually, but the problem is that it's hard, and I don't like things that are hard. (honky-tonk piano music) Because when you do things that are hard, you have to feel bad now so
that you can feel good later. And I don't want to feel good later, I wanna feel good now. And if you want to feel good now, well, you have a couple options. The first is of course to do drugs. And I've tried that,
I spent most of my 20s on the threshold of
alcoholism, but it turns out that's not a cute look
for me, it's not my vibe, so what I do now when I
feel the darkness coming is what any respectable woman would do, I take a Xanax and lie on
the floor for a couple hours. Is that a pea under my
mattress, your majesty? Or is it another Xanax I
left under the throw rug? Now the problem with doing drugs is that when the drugs wear
off, you feel bad again. In fact, you probably feel worse. So where do we go from here? Well, how about music? When you feel bad, you want
to listen to sad music, because sad music makes you
cry, and crying feels good. It's like an orgasm for sad people. And why settle for less
than the official meme-song of sadness, "The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel, you know... I'm pretty sure there's another
Xanax under this throw rug. ♪ Hello darkness my old friend ♪ But in the memes you only
hear the first 10 seconds of the song, you only hear
"hello darkness my old friend." And that's a very sad
first 10 seconds of a song, which is good, because
if you're making songs for sad people, it's
important to establish your sadness cred up front. Because sad people don't like happy songs. When you're sad, happy songs make you feel like you're being bullshitted. So we're 10 seconds into the song, "Hello darkness my old friend," the key is D# minor,
(sad violin music) the saddest of all keys. But when we get to the next line, "because a vision softly
creeping," something happens. Let's listen. ♪ Come to talk with you again ♪ ♪ Because a vision softly creeping ♪ (gasps) What was that? Suddenly a major chord, an
unsuspected burst of sunlight through the clouds, and
every peach fuzz hair on the back of my biologically female neck stands on end, hello light! So the song has enticed
me with the promise of company for misery, and then it has tricked me into feeling good. And that's what I like about art, it takes the standard
disappointments and humiliations of life and cooks them into something worth getting off the floor for. Unfortunately, I don't really
play music much anymore because my hands are too
beautiful for instruments and my singing voice sounds like a man. So all I really have left
is what any aspiring artist with no talent turns to, comedy. And I especially like dark comedy, you know, comedy that's
about the things in life that are the most painful. To me, dark humor is
kind of like a sad song. It takes your worst feelings,
traumas, and anxieties, and twists them into a source of pleasure. And don't all the finest
pleasures come from pain? (moans) A lot of the time that
means joking about topics that in ordinary life
are considered taboo, you know, sadness, fascism,
sexual deviation, cults. Without the ability to joke and make fun of my own experiences of
self-loathing, substance abuse, gender dysphoria, I mean I'd probably be on the floor right now
looking for that Xanax. But this puts me in a kind
of difficult situation, because I want to defend
my sense of humor, which I feel is like the
core of my personality and what keeps me alive. But at the same time, I've
noticed that a lot of the people in our culture who are really
big on defending "provocative, "controversial, politically
incorrect" comedy are kind of... dicknuggets? Let's discuss this, and by discuss I mean you sit quietly and I
will tell you what to think. Two, Dicknuggets. So the year 2016 had
just begun, and already the most 2016 possible
thing was happening. Ricky Gervais, an irreverent
bad boy atheist comedian, was ranting on Twitter for days and days about how stupid it is that
people are offended by things. This is pretty standard for Ricky Gervais, a man whose personal branding screams "I don't care about your feelings, "I know what it's like to be
persecuted for my beliefs, "I'm too much of a badass rebel "to care what minorities think." But in January 2016 Ricky
was having an extra badass, irreverent, not-caring-about-your-feelings
kind of month. Why? Because he'd just hosted the Golden Globes and upset a bunch of
people by telling jokes about old tranma Caitlyn Jenner. - But as I say, I'm gonna be
nice tonight, I've changed. Not as much as Bruce Jenner, obviously. - That's cutting-edge
material there, Rick. Very irreverent, very rebellious,
very bad boy atheist, ooh. I mean I do wish he wouldn't
deadname trans people on stage, but honestly the joke
wasn't even as transphobic as a lot of the stuff I've just
come to expect from comics. Still, I'm sure Twitter had a
thing or two to say about it, and Ricky spent the rest
of the month tweeting about how offending
people is good actually, and how he definitely doesn't care that people were offended. But clearly, Twitter got to him, because two years later he
opened his Netflix special with a 13-minute bit
rehashing the incident and doing a series of even
more... "irreverent" jokes. - 'Cause I've always
identified as a chimp, right? Well, I am a chimp, if I say
I'm a chimp, I am a chimp. Pre-op, but...
(audience laughing) Don't ever deadname me. Don't ever call me Ricky Gervais again. From now on you call me Bobo. (sighs) - Does he also identify
as an attack helicopter? Does he realize he's doing
a meme from 2014 onstage in a $20 million comedy special? My issue with this joke is that, apart from being extremely
passe and overdone, it also doesn't make sense
unless you ignorantly believe that trans women are delusional men, and even then, it's just not very funny. But am I offended by the joke? Well, I think that it's
ignorant, misinformed, unoriginal, and not very funny, and as a great comedian named
Ricky Gervais once said, "to me, an 'offensive'
joke is one that's lame, "badly delivered and not funny enough." So by that measure, yes, I'd say this "I identify as a chimp"
bit is pretty offensive. But I'm not bringing
this old controversy up because I'm offended. I'm bringing it up because
it's just an arbitrary example of a cycle that it seems
like our culture repeats about once a week. Somebody makes a joke, some
people are offended by the joke, and other people are
indignant about the fact that those people are offended. The cycle usually gets framed
as a battle in a culture war that's supposedly going on
between generation snowflake, easily triggered, humorless PC cucks, and badass, edgy, nothing-off-limits free-speech truth tellers. Now if this really is a
culture war between two sides, then I am a double agent, because
I'm a generation snowflake PC cuck who loves dank edgy memes, and I've found myself on both sides of this type of conflict many, many times. So on the one hand,
when I see the internet roasting a comedian for
some shitty trans joke, my inner snowflake wants
to watch the bastard burn. But my inner edgelady knows how it feels to be dragged across Twitter over a joke. And as someone who basically writes jokes about controversial topics for a living, I appreciate how difficult it is to maintain the mildly
sadomasochistic character of comedy while also keeping your moral compass from getting too jittery. So what I want to try to do
is step away from the heat of these social media battles
and try to abstract from them some more general philosophical questions. What is the purpose of comedy? What is it that makes comedy good or bad? Does good comedy punch up
and speak truth to power? Does it bring light to some
aspect of the human condition? Is it, as Aristotle said, "the imitation "of worse-than-average men?" Or is it just anything anyone
laughs at for whatever reason? Well, I don't think there's
a single objective answer, I mean, comedy's pretty subjective. But we can probably reach
some kind of understanding by discussing this, right? And by we, again I do mean me. The rest of you can keep
your goddamn mouths shut. Three, Strawmen. So, as a trans woman up here discussing why I don't think Ricky
Gervais's trans jokes are funny, a lot of haters and losers out there are probably gonna try to strawman me. "Did you just assume the
strawperson's gender?" (groans) Cis people have like two trans jokes and they're both so bad. Here's the strawpersons, assholes. Strawperson one, "you hate free speech "and are trying to silence comedians." I'm not trying to silence anyone. Comedians can say whatever
they want onstage, and I can say whatever I want about them. Strawperson two. "You just can't take the
heat when the joke's on you." I transitioned on YouTube,
making controversial political content all the
while, and I read the comments. My heat-taking capacity is
among the highest of all time. Of course, I do now have the
internalized self-loathing that has damaged my psyche irreparably, but sweetie, who doesn't? Strawperson three. "You think no one should be allowed "to joke about trans people." I invented joking about trans people. Ever heard of the mouthfeel? I'm that tran. That's right, if I die
tomorrow, my legacy will be that I applied wine tasting
terminology to fellatio, and I accept my destiny. Look, half my job is telling
jokes about trans people. I live for trans jokes. I just don't think cis people
are very good at telling them, because they don't know
enough about trans people to know what the funny things are. And being transgender is honestly the perfect topic for comedy. Like, you used to live as one gender, and then you became a different gender. Every single thing about
that is absolutely hilarious. But humor is in the
details, and Ricky Gervais does not know the details,
because he's clearly never been close to a trans person, and that's why he's still telling these tinkertoy 2015 Caitlyn Jenner jokes. And it's too bad, cause I'm
actually starving over here for good trans comedy, and I
mean the real dark stuff too, I'm not talking about trans Rachel on the timeline calling her
hormones titty skittles. No, I like the edgy stuff,
I like being on the edge. Hi, my name is Natalie Wynn,
and I enjoy edging. (laughs) Now, there is one recent
work of trans comedy that I'd like to share with you, because when you're doing art criticism it helps to have positive as
well as negative examples, and the exemplary work I have in mind is one that not a lot of
people are talking about yet, but which I have no qualms placing in the same company as
the works Dante or Swift. I am of course referring to
"My Sperm Bank Experience" by Gigi Gorgeous. If you don't know who Gigi is, first of all, who even are you, do you have no respect for legends? She's a trans YouTuber,
like THE trans YouTuber, whose classic works
such as "MY HEMORRHOIDS" and "I HAD SEX WITH A DOG"
long ago cemented her status as a comedy icon. But in this critic's
opinion, the crown jewel of Gigi's oeuvre is without a
doubt the singular masterpiece "My Sperm Bank Experience." Let's do a close reading. Four, Gigi's Sperm Bank Experience. A great work of literature
is never just a text. It is also what the theorist
Jean-Jacques Visage du Poisson would call "a moment within
an intertextual dialectic." Love that! Let us therefore place
"My Sperm Bank Experience" within its proper context. Several months earlier,
Gigi had released a video about how she and her girlfriend were trying to have a child,
so far without success, and so they went to a
fertility specialist. Apparently Gigi was not aware that taking feminizing hormones can make you sterile, which girl, they tell you like seven times before you start hormones, like how? We'll move past it. A few months later, the notification for "My Sperm Bank Experience"
shows up on my phone, 'cause that's right, I clicked the bell, and immediately I knew I
was about to experience something special. The thumbnail for this
video is so much greater than anything I've ever conceived of that honestly it makes
me feel like a failure, both as a YouTuber and as a woman. The sperm donation cup is
labeled with Gigi's signature, the i's are dotted with hearts. And her facial expression. "Ew. "Cum." The video begins with Gigi explaining that in order to produce
a sample for the clinic, she had to stop taking
hormones for three months. - So I hesitantly agreed, I was like fine, I will stop all of my
hormones so you know, my shit can get juicy again and I can get a good little sample up in here. - The sperm bank day arrives,
she goes to the clinic, and approaches the receptionist. - And I said, "yes ma'am. "I am here to give sperm
from me to be frozen now." - The doctor arrives and
leads her to the exam room, which she describes with the
precision of Mama Flaubert. - I walk into this room. Fluorescent lighting the house. I was like, I can see
every pore in my arm, like Jesus, what do they want me do here? And then the kicker,
this like, leather couch, the back is kind of like
angled, so I guess like you can lean and really
get into it or something. - The doctor offers her
lubrication, pornography if needed, and a donation cup. Gigi closes the door and gets to work. - I get in the mood, I get in the zone, and I'm killing it bitch,
I am like, I'm gonna give the best sample ever, my kid
is gonna be a godsent child. Before I know it, the
moment has crept up on me and happened, and it's been so long that it hits the wall behind me. - And it's at this moment that
glam goddess Gigi Gorgeous gets up off the leather
couch and attempts to scrape a prodigious quantity of Gigi jism off the wall of a
fluorescent-lit exam room in a desperate final
bid to become a mother. - And I took the cup and I was like full-on scraping it off
the wall because I was like I'm not gonna let any
little drop go to waste, you know, I'm here,
this is like, my moment. - I'm trying to understand why this video makes me laugh so much. It's really the contrast
of style and substance. Like it wouldn't be funny
if a masculine person told this story. It's funny because Gigi has this peak female storytelling style and this Real Housewives diction, but then the story
itself is about blasting a giant load onto the wall of a room full of leather and pornography. The dissonance between
form and content is genius. And that dissonance perfectly captures the absurdity of being transgender, with a comedic incisiveness
that Ricky Gervais could only dream of. I also really relate to this story because right before I started hormones, I decided to freeze a sample of my own, so I too have had a sperm bank experience. And it was exactly like Gigi
describes down to every detail. It is not a dignified moment, ladies, there is just no way to feel like a woman while you're hastily rubbing one out in an overlit room designed
for men to ejaculate in. I feel so fish right now! (gags) For those five minutes in
that exam room, I was a man. Now, I somehow managed
to get most of my sample into the cup, but there's
a different absurd detail to my story. The receptionist at the sperm
bank saw on my paperwork that I was depositing
because I was going to start feminizing hormones, and he asked me if there was a name I
preferred he call me. In retrospect, he was
actually really sweet, and really cute, not
that anything was gonna come of that at the time,
cause I was pre-everything and rough around the edges. Be honest, I was all edges. But he asked me for my preferred name and I just blurted out Natalie. And so this was actually the first time anyone ever called me
by my biological name, and it went like this. The receptionist at the sperm
bank turned to me and said, "right this way, Natalie, here's a cup "for you to bust a nut in." And that's how my life as a woman began. (gags) Now in the end, Gigi's story
is actually pretty tragic. Her sample wasn't usable. She wanted to have a
child with her own DNA, but she's been on hormones
too long and she just can't. And that revelation at
the end of the video kind of re-contextualizes
how you see the whole story. In this ridiculous image
of Gigi scraping ejaculate off the wall, I now see
this primal maternal urge to produce and protect children, I see a mother bird
whose chicks have fallen prematurely from the nest,
I see the Virgin Mary cradling her child. - I really really thought
that I was gonna have a good sample and I was gonna be able to participate in having
a baby with my DNA, but it's just not in the cards for me, and I really wanted to make this video more positive and funny, because
there's nothing I can do. - And that's exactly it. That is the darkness. Five, The Darkness. The darkness is my name
for what I consider the highest form of comedy, where you take your own worst feelings,
traumas, and anxieties, and twist them into a source of pleasure. The darkness is Richard
Pryor running down the street in flames because he set himself on fire in a coke-fueled psychosis. The darkness is Gigi
Gorgeous scraping her own prodigious jism off the
wall of an exam room in a desperate bid to save
her chance at motherhood. If you can make these low points funny, then you're gonna be okay. You're gonna survive. You're gonna make it through life. And I need that now more than ever. Because trans experience is,
in a lot of ways, pretty dark. But trans people make it through, because we're good-humored
and strong as fuck. Pretty soon I'm gonna
have to stop hormones before an operation, and
I'm terrified of that. What's gonna happen to
me when I stop hormones, am I gonna become a man again? 'Cause I don't know if I can handle that. I am thinking about names though. Like maybe Nathan? Or Jayden? I can see myself as a Jayden. See, I've gotta have my little jokey-jokes or I don't think I could
make it through this. Like when I have bottom surgery, I am absolutely going to
constantly refer to it as "my sex-change operation,"
because it makes me laugh, it brings me joy. Calling it "gender confirmation
surgery" brings me no joy. Now it's important to
notice that just because it doesn't make me laugh doesn't mean it's a politically correct euphemism. "Gender confirmation"
is a more accurate term than "sex change," because
you're literally not changing your sex, that's
not what surgery does. But edgy people have their own
kind of political correctness where they mistake edginess
for honesty, accuracy, and directness, and these
are very different things. For example, George
Carlin has a classic bit about euphemisms that
has some great moments, but also some moments
that are way off base, for example, content
warning, ableist slur. - They say they're going to
pre-board those passengers in need of special assistance. Cripples!
(audience laughing) Simple, honest, direct language! - So look, I understand
the aesthetic preference for simple, honest, direct language, and the repulsion toward
verbose, bureaucratic jargon. That's why so much of the
rest of this bit is so good. But the word he just
used is literally a slur, so I wonder if what
you're being honest about is your feelings toward disabled people. Because the phrase "passengers in need "of special assistance"
is a little wordy, sure, but in this situation it's
actually more accurate since it also includes
the elderly, the pregnant, anyone in need of assistance boarding. So I call my gender confirmation surgery "getting a sex change," not
because it's more direct and honest, but specifically because it's inaccurate and outdated,
and that makes me laugh, not because I'm fearless truth-teller, but because I'm a bad person. And I get to call it "my
sex-change operation," but cis people don't get to call it that, because it's my darkness, not yours. Get your own darkness. When Ricky Gervais jokes
about trans people, he's being a hack, because he
knows nothing of our darkness. And when someone tries
to joke about something that they're totally ignorant of, the result is usually clumsy,
awkward, and not very funny. What I'd really like to
see is if Ricky Gervais took that irreverent bad boy derisiveness and turned it within. Because within is where the darkness lies. Six, Self-Deprecation. Self-deprecating humor
is my personal favorite, because as a lazy, selfish,
preening attention whore who looks like a slightly
more passable Ann Coulter with the voice of tropical bird, there's a lot material here to work with. But especially when it
comes to these trans jokes, there is a faction of the trans community that is not amused by the buffoonery that goes on on this channel. I think the objection
to it is best summed up by the comic Hannah Gadsby,
who in her stand-up special Nanette said that when self-deprecation comes from someone who
exists in the margins-- - It's not humility, it's humiliation. - And to be honest, I felt
a little called out by that. - I put myself down in order to speak, in order to seek permission to speak. - And she's not wrong, like
that is how this works. In order to gain an
audience as a trans person, you have to demonstrate
what cis people call "self-awareness." That is, you have to signal
that you see yourself the way the audience sees you, which can mean looking at yourself with a pretty merciless gaze. And of course I'm happy to do that because I have no
self-respect and laughter is the only way to numb the pain. (laughs) But the terrible thing
about being a not-normal with an audience is that
don't you don't just get to be yourself, because whether you like it or not, people will see you as a representative of
the community. (groans) So because of that responsibility,
which I never asked for, I have to balance out the self-deprecation with a lot of positive
messaging about my people. And that way, the dark jokes function as a spoonful of sugar to help
the feminine penis go down. But even without the group
representation issue, it definitely is possible to
take self-deprecation too far. As I've said, I have been diagnosed with an incurable edginess of temperament, and I sometimes do feel suffocated by the safe-space rules
of a lot of trans spaces, even though those spaces
are there for good reason and a lot of people need them. But sometimes this
atmosphere of everything and everyone is valid all the time, no uncomfortable questions may be asked, any self-deprecation
is a sign of traumatic internalized bigotry, I just
need to get out of there for a while and find a
place where I can relax and be my edgy self. I need a safe-space for my edginess, where I can just blurt out
whatever stupid question or joke that comes to
mind without being afraid that I'm going to inflict horrible trauma on everyone around me. So I call up another transsexual edgelady, you know, kiki, accuse each
other of being crossdressers, and just laugh it all off. And it's so, so cathartic to do that. But it has to be done in moderation, because can come a point where you're picking at the wound
instead of numbing it. And it mostly has to be done in private, because in public, you have to worry about how cis people will interpret it, and so you have to find a
way to be self-deprecating without abandoning all
social responsibility. (groans) If there was ever phrase
that instantly deadens all laughter, it's
"social responsibility." But since it's kind of the central topic of the comedy culture
war, I should probably say something about it,
even though, believe me, I'd much rather go back to
jabbering about my sex change. Seven, The Eternal Tension. So what is a comedian's job? What is a comedian supposed to do? I suppose my ideal comedian is one who is perfectly able
to balance the tension between shitposting and snowflakery. And this is an eternal tension,
and must never be resolved. It is a tightrope I have
devoted my life to walking. See, if the tension collapses
into pure snowflakery, you get a moralist, who might
say that a comedian's purpose is to promote justice by punching up, by speaking truth to power,
by exposing the flaws of bigoted mindsets and so on. And these are all very admirable goals, but they leave out what I think is the essential purpose of
comedy, which is to be funny, to surprise, to shock,
to make people laugh. It's kind of like how
some art and media critics only ever evaluate a work
based on whether or not it's socially progressive,
and don't seem to really think about aesthetic pleasure very much, which to me is the reason why
art exists in the first place. But then again, I am a
hedonistic bourgeois decadent and should probably be sent
to the guillotine at once. Just let me do my makeup first so that when they hold my head up,
everyone can see my beat and their wigs all fly to the Bastille. Also someone please post
the video to my Instagram, 'cause that's gonna get
a lot of engagement. So the opposite of the pure snowflake is the pure shitposter, who
might say a comedian's purpose is to make the audience
laugh by any means necessary. But that seems kind of
barbaric since like, if a guard at a prison
camp is torturing an inmate and the other guards are laughing, does that count as comedy? Is a war crime funny? Well, according to the Geneva
Convention, it's hilarious. The thing is, I don't think many comedians actually believe in a
completely nihilistic vision of comedy. I think they sometimes pretend to when they're trying to evade criticism. I mean, take even the
edgiest of white guy comics and listen to way they
talk about their heroes, Lenny Bruce or George Carlin. There's always an element of admiration for bravery, risk,
subversion, truth-telling. In other words there's a concern there for what is virtuous and what is true, not just for what makes people laugh. So maybe before we can even
talk about what's funny, we have to have a level
of shared agreement about what is true and
what is morally right. My objection to Ricky
Gervais's trans jokes is not just that they're not funny. I think that he's wrong
about trans people, and I think his ignorance is infectious. I think he's stirring up bigoted
sentiments in his audience, which has the consequence
of making the world slightly scarier for people like me. And this is edginess at its worst, just a privileged person with a platform punching down at a
politically besieged group he understands nothing about. And that's what happens when
the snowflake/shitpost tension collapses into pure shitposting. It's boring and immature. Like when someone says he
wants to watch the world burn. You only get to watch when
you have the privilege of not being on fire. It's edgy, but it's not the darkness. The darkness is finding a way
to laugh about being on fire. Edginess is always adolescent. The darkness is edginess
aged by time and pain. And it's only at that full
maturity that comedy becomes art, that it becomes comparable to music. So, those are my thoughts, umm,
like, comment, and subscribe, uh, the end. Fine, I'll sing the song. (film reel whirring) I wish my brother George was here. (solemn piano music) ♪ Hello darkness my old friend ♪ ♪ I've come to talk with you again ♪ ♪ Because a vision softly creeping ♪ ♪ Left its seeds while I was sleeping ♪ ♪ And the vision that
was planted in my brain ♪ ♪ Still remains ♪ ♪ Within the sound of silence ♪ ♪ In restless dreams I walked alone ♪ ♪ Narrow streets of cobblestone ♪ ♪ 'Neath the halo of a street lamp ♪ ♪ I turned my collar
to the cold and damp ♪ ♪ When my eyes were stabbed
by the flash of a neon light ♪ ♪ That split the night ♪ ♪ And touched the sound of silence ♪ ♪ And in the naked light I saw ♪ ♪ 10,000 people, maybe more ♪ ♪ People talking without speaking ♪ ♪ People hearing without listening ♪ ♪ People writing songs
that voices never share ♪ ♪ And no one dared ♪ ♪ Disturb the sound of silence ♪ Stay gorgeous. (laughs)
Also can you guys BELIEVE that Natalie took off her nails and sang for us despite her reluctance and previous joking about how she doesn't like anymore because she thinks it sounds manly? Thank you so much mom, we don't deserve youuuu, it sounded beautiful 😭😭😭
The receptionist at the sperm bank turned to me and said, "Right this way, Natalie. Here's a cup for you to bust a nut in" and that's how my life as a woman began
I'd read any book if it started off with that passage
My biologically female neck.
Contrapoints. Never. Ever. Stop. Honestly one of the few youtubers out there that brings pure joy.
That was the best explanation of the millennial sense of humor I've ever seen. We laugh at the darkness within, teetering on the edge of nihilism and self-destruction, trying to win a game of chicken with despair.
A shame about Ricky Gervais, reminds me about Dave Chappelle and his cringe fest netflix special, the world def need some transgender comedians to hit it big.
I honestly didn't think we'd see it for another week at least. But...
I'M FUCKING HYPED! TAKE ME DARK MISTRESS!
Dark Mother BRINGS IT. I loved the art criticism in this, she's mentioned before she wished she could do more of it, and I've been hoping she'll find an excuse to do it since!
The Simon & Garfunkel song was a great surprise, I've always loved her piano interpretations, but the performance for this one really hit it out of the park for me.
Great video as always lol, this is a video I'd been hoping she'd make for a while but never thought she would tbh.
I'm in huge agreement with her about being trans being a funny situation to be in, like there's honestly so much potential for humor right there and it feels like a lot of people just resort to "lol I identify as an attack helicopter" and "Did you just assume my gender," it's boring and repetitive and completely misses all the potential humor behind being trans.
I also very strongly identify with that she was saying about how it's difficult to walk the line of trying to be funny and find happiness within The Darkness, while also having to worry about what cis people might think about the humor. Sometimes it is really difficult for me to make jokes about being trans because I constantly worry that it might give some of my cis friends the impression that it's okay to make similar jokes about other trans people. For a lot of my cis friends I'm the only trans person they know, and that means they often don't really have much of a basis for what sorts of things are acceptable and what aren't beyond me, and I constantly have to clarify what sorts of things are jokes and what aren't; like if I make jokes about how I "Used to be a boy" or something, I do worry that they're going to end up referring to other trans people the same way unless I give them a whole lecture about it afterwards lol. It's really is difficult to try and make jokes about my situation while also having to remember that those jokes might impact how they view other people.
Also at the end when she said "It's easy to say you want to watch the world burn when you're not the one on fire," really simple wording to get the point across tbh, and I'm probably gonna steal that from now on lol.
"I invented joking about trans people! Ever heard of the mouthfeel? I'm that tran."
My wig flew so high, it landed on Pluto, adding to its overall mass and allowing it to be considered a planet once again.