I like to think I understand comedy on some deeper, cosmic level, but really, I just enjoy making silly things. I try my best to make a statement with my work, but sometimes the statement I’m trying to make isn’t what people take away from it.
For instance, I made a video this week that was intended to be a subtle commentary on how corporations utilize social media to exploit our nostalgia and serve us ads. I wanted to point out how we can now indulge in endless scrolling of the past and the only people who benefit the most from our longing are the advertisers and those serving the ads.
The video is very silly, but it also ended up treading this weird line where what I’m attempting to comment on isn’t conveyed succinctly enough. Everyone I sent it to enjoyed it, but not one person asked why it was in a fake Instagram account, or why I’d picked this song specifically.
I picked Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” because it’s a song about progress. It literally progresses through decades, so the idea of doing the whole thing about one decade made me giggle, but also felt apt when places like Instagram allow us to scroll nostalgia accounts endlessly and stay stuck in one place if we want.
To help make this point more clear, I decided to treat the video description like an artist statement at a museum:
Cush '90s vibes all around. This is for all the people who get bummed when they realize Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" ends in '89.
Come, sit and endlessly scroll with me through a bygone era as we flit in and out of a collective nostalgia grasping for moments in time that no longer exist. Let us consume the past while massive conglomerates violate our longing to reminisce by inserting highly targeted ads from the future into our joyous memories! Also, remember Gak? Remember when Billy Joel smashed his car into the front of someone’s house?
But, like artist statements at museums, not many people read the descriptions of YouTube videos. When taken at face value without the description, the video is a parody of a Billy Joel song with lots of images from the ‘90s that were seemingly ripped from an Instagram account. That’s still funny to me, but it also means I’ve made the exact thing I was trying to comment on: a nostalgic romp through ‘90s references social media companies can make money from. Either way, I think it’s still an amusing video and in the end, I think that’s what matters most.
The Internet is a fun place.
UPDATE:
The above video wasn’t gaining any traction, and I couldn’t put it on Reddit because all the moderators thought I was putting up a real Instagram account, so, on a whim, I switched it to an old TV and posted it directly to Reddit and it blew up.
So I uploaded the TV with the bad photoshop job in the place of the above one and it’s already doubled in views. I’ve become the thing I wanted to comment on, but that’s what the people wanted. What I didn’t expect was how much people wanted something like this. I know I like to dip in and out of nostalgia when I’m feeling bummed, but I didn’t realize how deep of a common connection it was. The amount of “Thanks, I needed this” and “Didn’t think this video would make me cry” was a lot more than I would have expected for a Billy Joel parody. Even if I couldn’t make my statement about how that feeling gets exploited, it’s nice to connect in a shared experience and give people 4 minutes to fumble through their past.
This made me smile way too hard. Ah, nostalgia.
I've just been indulging in bit of nostalgia with "Back to the Future," but it's nostalgia for a future that isn't quite here (where are the flying cars, hoverboards and the Weather Service that precisely controls the weather?):
https://moviewise.substack.com/p/the-best-time-traveling-movie-of
If you brought joy to others through your work (and you did), that is the goal of comedy, I think, in my humble opinion. As for the takeaway, or the meaning, no author or creator can control how the audience will react or what they will take away with them. But as long as they got something that helped them, then you've gone beyond the confines of comedy or art.