Recently a blog (AndrewTSKS) that I have sincerely enjoyed for a number of years and is run by an editor at RVA Magazine posted a long apology and explanation of how an article equating Uggs and various levels of promiscuity was published by RVA. After its publication the article was strongly attacked on Jezebel for generally being misogynistic and offensive. This brings me to a broader point about humor in general. Humor can (and in many instances should) be offensive without being wrong or worthy of disdain. Humor/jokes is so valuable because it can take on the various “no fly zones” of social discourse, pull them apart from absurd and often offensive angles and reveal some central truth. The process is often blunt and can make an audience uncomfortable but there is exceptional value to cutting through socially constructed niceties and getting at a dynamic’s core. The humor, the joke, is the sugar coating on an otherwise bitter pill. This takes a lot of skill and, especially, in a public forum will always be a tightrope act. IMHO, I’d rather have people failing at risky jokes (but genuinely trying to get better) than have more “what’s the deal with airplane food” populating the bit waves.
So, look, this article in particular wasn’t all that great. Uggs are pretty low hanging fruit, even Jezebel themselves has done a hit piece, and mixing signifier with signified in a gendered construct is often not a good look. Write the same piece with Greek hoodies and you can get the same criticism of drunken hook-up culture without the slut shaming. Of course then again Uggs are more innately funny in their sartorial goofiness than hoodies so there is that. All of which is to say, there are at least two moving parts to the central joke and figuring out how to weigh those pieces isn’t easy. Ultimately the failing of the article isn’t so much poor judgment but a mediocre joke.
