This is why I don't like Borat
Aug. 12th, 2009 09:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
puppetmakerRecently across various parts of the Internet there has been a lot of talk about something that happened at Chicago Wizard World Convention. A man who goes by the Internet handle of “The Yellow Hat Guy,” because he wears a distinctive yellow hat at conventions, blogged about his ambush humor against Rob Liefeld and how he tried to get an apology from Liefeld for Heroes Reborn and when not getting the satisfaction that he sought, he gave Liefeld a copy of “How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way” with a rather off-putting inscription and high fived his buddies because he pwned Liefeld.
Liefeld had stated that he could barely understand what the guy was saying so he gave stock answers to what he thought he heard. The guy tossed the book on his table in a bag and ran. He gave the book to someone who had lost his copy in a house fire.
YHG is now finding himself in a rather uncomfortable position of being pointed at as the reason that pros rarely or don’t come to conventions. So if a comic book pro cancels an event for the next 6 months, YHG is going to be blamed for driving them off.
I have never liked ambush humor. It seems very mean spirited and at least one of the participants has no say in the matter. And for the record, I wasn’t a fan of candid camera either but at least they gave people the choice to be shown on national television after they had been gotten. Punk’d totally drove me up the tree and convinced me that Ashton Kutcher has a dark side that rather scary.
I was at a DragonCon a number of years ago. I was working tech at the time. I just happen to be passing when Cliff Stoll poured water on Harlan’s shoes after asking if the pitcher was half empty or half full and then dumped the water on Harlan’s rather nice and rather expensive Italian loafers informing him neither he just needed to look at the problem from another angle. Some people gasped in shock and others laughed and high fived. It was ambush humor that cost Harlan one of his favorite pairs of shoes.
Borat and Bruno are nothing but ambush humor. It is Sasha Baron Cohen’s humor signature. He says it is to shine a bright light on the hypocrisy of humanity but I find it mean spirited and crass and the participants aren’t given a choice or are down right lied to as to what is going to happen to them.
If I don’t like someone’s writing or art or acting or whatever, I don’t support it. I don’t buy their wares. I leave them alone at conventions or social functions. I don’t go about stalking them and telling them that they suck or make their lives uncomfortable in various other ways. I don’t ambush them, go high five my buddies on how I told them off, and then put the whole thing on the Internet for the world to see.
It’s just….well…tacky.
I am grateful for polite people with good manners.
Liefeld had stated that he could barely understand what the guy was saying so he gave stock answers to what he thought he heard. The guy tossed the book on his table in a bag and ran. He gave the book to someone who had lost his copy in a house fire.
YHG is now finding himself in a rather uncomfortable position of being pointed at as the reason that pros rarely or don’t come to conventions. So if a comic book pro cancels an event for the next 6 months, YHG is going to be blamed for driving them off.
I have never liked ambush humor. It seems very mean spirited and at least one of the participants has no say in the matter. And for the record, I wasn’t a fan of candid camera either but at least they gave people the choice to be shown on national television after they had been gotten. Punk’d totally drove me up the tree and convinced me that Ashton Kutcher has a dark side that rather scary.
I was at a DragonCon a number of years ago. I was working tech at the time. I just happen to be passing when Cliff Stoll poured water on Harlan’s shoes after asking if the pitcher was half empty or half full and then dumped the water on Harlan’s rather nice and rather expensive Italian loafers informing him neither he just needed to look at the problem from another angle. Some people gasped in shock and others laughed and high fived. It was ambush humor that cost Harlan one of his favorite pairs of shoes.
Borat and Bruno are nothing but ambush humor. It is Sasha Baron Cohen’s humor signature. He says it is to shine a bright light on the hypocrisy of humanity but I find it mean spirited and crass and the participants aren’t given a choice or are down right lied to as to what is going to happen to them.
If I don’t like someone’s writing or art or acting or whatever, I don’t support it. I don’t buy their wares. I leave them alone at conventions or social functions. I don’t go about stalking them and telling them that they suck or make their lives uncomfortable in various other ways. I don’t ambush them, go high five my buddies on how I told them off, and then put the whole thing on the Internet for the world to see.
It’s just….well…tacky.
I am grateful for polite people with good manners.
