what puts me off to Colbert Report, various other things
You know, Stephen Colbert is a pretty funny guy. Excellent at what he does. Always extremely pointed. Almost always in character, too.
Lots of people love his show … calling it as good as, or even better than the Daily Show. And you know, if you’re into what he’s doing, then minute for minute he’s probably funnier than Jon Stewart is on the daily.
But I think I’ve finally put my finger on why I just don’t like the show much. It’s sincerity.
I guess I’m sort of stupid about this, but I just have a hard time with insincerity in general. I … have a really, really hard time saying things I don’t mean, and I have a lot of trouble realizing when other people are being insincere for the sake of irony. Not that I don’t get sarcasm — I do, but that I only get it in small, blunt doses. I guess I rely on other cues to pick up on it … inflection changes, conversation flow, etc.
In a recent interview on 60 minutes, Stephen Colbert said “I truck in insincerity. With a very straight face, I say things I don’t believe”.
When Jon Stewart lays it out on the Daily Show, it really seems like he’s just laying his actual thoughts and feelings out for people to see. And his moment of non-comedy-channel fame, when he was on Crossfire, sort of drives that home.
The thing is, I don’t think it’s that I don’t pick up on it. It’s that I don’t consciously realize that I’m picking up on it. I get what the person is expressing, and the hints of what they actually mean, but I just … maybe it’s that I really really hate how they’re expressing their message.
And then I got to thinking: that’s sort of a common thread in a lot of the music I don’t like. People saying things that they don’t mean, things that are opposed to what they mean, people who just don’t know whether they’re being serious or not anymore. Then there’s emos and hipsters….
Interesting realization about myself, that I just really viscerally dislike insincerity that much. Thanks Stephen Colbert! Without you, I wouldn’t have realized that about myself, and just would have kept on disliking it without quite knowing why.