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FtttG

Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.

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joined 2022 September 13 13:37:36 UTC

https://firsttoilthenthegrave.substack.com/


				
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FtttG


								
								
									
								
								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.

				
				
				

				

					7 followers  

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					joined 2022 September 13 13:37:36 UTC
				


				
					

					
https://firsttoilthenthegrave.substack.com/



				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Every time I ask a friend what they like about a girl they just started seeing, something creative comes up.




Dare I say this effect might be contaminated by social desirability bias? "I like her because she's so creative" sounds a great deal less crass than "I like her because she has cracking tits and she's great in bed".


Even then, no one's debating that, ceteris paribus, creative people are more interesting to talk to. The point is, your friends aren't dating these women because they're creative. Your friends never would've asked these women out had they not found them physically attractive: physical attraction is the rule-in criterion, "being creative" is just gravy.




Additionally: your theory predicts female rockstars should be mid, but that's not what I see?




Maybe I'm overgeneralising from my personal experience + the most famous female rockstars. Dublin's post-punk scene exploded in popularity over the last decade, including a handful of female musicians, and I genuinely cannot think of even that I would call more attractive than mid. Any list of the greatest female rockstars in history is bound to include Janis Joplin and Patti Smith, neither of whom were anything to write home about in terms of looks even at their peaks. Stevie Nicks, not bad-looking but hardly a knockout. I'll grant that Debbie Harry was a legitimate knockout.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I know. It depresses me that the denizens of that sub were willing to take that principle to its logical conclusion, surrendering even subjective aesthetic judgements to the "experts".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Excellent. I also forgot he had that one bit about Back to the Future.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for October 14, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
On the other hand, the odds of fucking the person interviewing you at the end of the interview are negligible.


I know, I know, "skill issue", "not with that attitude".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There's the old saying "half of success is just showing up", the insight of which I didn't appreciate until I started trying to book gigs for my band. I suggest a major (and underrated) factor in becoming a successful comedian is temperament. Being a successful comedian means going on tour for large chunks of the year and not seeing your family and loved ones for months at a time. It means working late and sleeping in during the day. It probably means drinking a lot more than the average person would. It means being exceptionally thick-skinned (like customer service, standup is a rare profession in which complete strangers feel entitled to interrupt you mid-sentence and insult you to your face; unlike customer service, they're drunk more often than not while they do so). It means turning in an engaging, high-energy performance regardless of whether you're hungover, sleep-deprived, jet-lagged or all three. And like every entertainment career, it means doing for this minimal (and variable) reward for many years until you get something going.


Few people are cut out for this lifestyle. I'd hazard a guess that successful standups are those that trend above-average in g, and which have the kind of temperament where the lifestyle described above appeals to them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Now this really seems like moving the goalposts. First you claim that Shane Gillis didn't do well in school and would score poorly in a verbal IQ test. Then I point out to you that he actually holds an undergraduate degree, and the claim becomes "yeah but not from an elite institution though". And @roystgnr claims that Westchester is a middling college (and cites a source), rather than one of the lowest-ranked institutions in the country.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


You had to go all the way back to look at Monty Python




I didn't, actually. Mitchell and Webb's careers started in the 2000s, as did John Mulaney's. Monty Python was the first example that popped into my head, but I cited several others from both sides of the pond.




so where are all the Ivy-educated high IQ comedians?




Here's a few. Also, per his Wikipedia page, Gillis holds a history degree from Westchester University. I'm not American so I don't know how prestigious that is, but he seems to be a lot more book-smart than you're giving him credit for.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What goalposts am I moving?


And just because these comedians aren't famous outside of the US doesn't mean I don't follow standup closely.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Iliza Shlesinger, Sarah Silverman, Nikki Glaser, Whitney Cummings, Kelsey Cook, Taylor Tomlinson, Maddy Kelly




I've only heard of half of these. Even in her prime Silverman was mid, as far as I'm concerned. Tomlinson is about as good-looking as Maggie Gyllenhaal, so not bad-looking by any means, but I wouldn't hold my breath for the start of her modelling career. Kelly I would also consider mid. I'll grant Whitney Cummings, Kelsey Cook and Iliza Shlesinger. "Three" seems numerically equivalent to "essentially zero".




Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Kaitlin Olson




Granted, but I'd consider them both more comic actresses than comedians, and I addressed the point about standup vs. comedic acting in the upper post.




Tina Fey




Mid even in her prime.




Veronika Slowikowska




Mid.




Ashley Padilla




Mid.




Jane Curtin




Mid, even in her prime.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To be maximally pedantic, Terry Jones's education into medieval history proved invaluable when they were writing Holy Grail, to the point that it's sometimes been called one of the most historically accurate films with a medieval setting.


But in general, yes, I don't think having a piece of paper with a 2:1 on it helped any of them in their careers. I took @coffee_enjoyer's point to be that talented comedians tend not to be "book-smart", and hence that comedic talent is orthogonal to g. And I think it's trivial to demonstrate that that isn't true: there have been plenty of talented comedians who were at least book-smart enough to complete a humanities degree.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for October 14, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The latter two are fine, although I would be a bit more vague and say something like "I love classical music". If you can play an instrument, even better.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


This by no means that the university helped them in their careers




Did I claim they had successful careers because they attended university?




(except by socializing and connections)




This seems a very apt time to use this clip. "Alright, but apart from networking opportunities, socialising and jump-starting our entertainment careers... what has Oxbridge ever done for us?!" Surely that's half the reason people study humanities in the first place?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No idea, I only know him for that dig he made about Madame Web.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You're correct that there are a lot of people who are funny on an interpersonal level, but who would die onstage if they ever attempted standup. Making one's friends or colleagues laugh is a very different skill from making a roomful of paying strangers laugh. But I nonetheless think that, for someone who has never attempted standup (or any other kind of comedy, like improv or sketch comedy), the former is the best proxy for the latter a complete amateur is likely to have.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"TNW". You know that famous song by Jay-Z and Kanye West, "T-N-Dubyas in Paris".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I'd also argue they are in many such cases willfully entering a predominantly male subculture in order to increase their mating chances due to themselves not being able to find eligible mates the conventional way for whatever reason.




Oh yeah, this is a valid point. Big fish in a small pond.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For clarity, I don't think there's any intrinsic correlation between being (un)attractive and being the specific kind of funny necessary to be a successful standup comedian. My argument is that the only people who become successful standup comedians are people who are not unusually physically attractive, which doesn't imply that being unattractive in itself confers some kind of competitive advantage. Physical unattractiveness is necessary but not sufficient for a successful career in standup.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


There is no actual “Harvard undergrad in writing, Princeton PhD in comedy studies” comedian




Well, yes, I don't think there are any successful standup comedians who received formal university training in comedy. But it isn't remotely difficult to find examples of intelligent, university-educated comedians (whether comic actors or standups):


    

  • Monty Python: Three members of the troupe studied at Cambridge (variously studying medicine, law and English literature), two studied at Oxford (studying English literature and history), and the sixth had a degree in political science from Occidental College.
    • 

  • Fry and Laurie: Stephen Fry was offered a scholarship at Cambridge and studied English lit, where he met Hugh Laurie, who was studying archaeology and anthropology.
    • 

  • Conan O'Brien graduated Harvard magna cum laude with a degree in history and literature.
    • 

  • John Mulaney earned a BA in English lit from Georgetown.
    • 

  • Mitchell and Webb: Like Fry and Laurie, they met at Cambridge, where Mitchell studied history and Webb studied English.
    • 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This reminded me of something, and I realised that I once got a scolding here about how a joke that I told literally didn't qualify as a joke, per five criteria the commenter meticulously outlined in detail. Not just that my joke wasn't funny, or was offensive, or didn't make him laugh (which would be fine): that it literally didn't meet the prerequisite criteria to be considered a joke. So as not to embarrass him, I won't tag the user in question.


I'm also reminded of a commenter I saw on the /r/ireland subreddit who was complaining about other users criticising TV shows they didn't like, and saying their opinions didn't mean anything because they weren't qualified. I couldn't believe what I was reading. Are you seriously suggesting you need a BA in television studies before you're allowed to say "I didn't enjoy this show"?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have a slightly more nuanced take on this, but I didn't sleep very well last night so it might come out a little disorganised.


It's emphatically not the case that women aren't funny. My current favourite standup comedian is Jordan Jensen, who I discovered via clips she shares on Instagram. When I saw her live, I could hardly breathe from laughing so hard.


Click on the link in the paragraph above. If you're a heterosexual man (as are most of the people who post here), I'm betting you didn't look at her picture and think "would". And indeed, Jensen constantly cracks self-deprecating jokes about her appearance, complains about how often she's mistaken for a lesbian, how she envies women who are more naturally feminine than she is, and how in many regards she's more masculine than the man she dates. She's also rib-crackingly hilarious. I posit that this is not an accident.


So it's not the case that women generally aren't funny. It is absolutely the case that hot women generally aren't funny.


The reason for this was cleverly illustrated by an old CollegeHumor sketch, "POV: Hot Girl". The titular character goes to a bar and meets a male childhood friend and two of his friends, one of them asks where she works, and she replies "I work for a PR firm. It's a living!", whereupon all three men laugh uproariously. We hear her internal monologue: "I should seriously consider doing standup comedy". The joke, obviously, is that the men aren't laughing at her lame joke because it's funny, but because they want to get in her pants. In social settings, hot women essentially never receive accurate feedback on which of their jokes are landing and which aren't, as people will laugh at their jokes for reasons unrelated to their comedic value ("boys will laugh at girls when they're not funny"), meaning attractive women never get opportunities to hone their comedic craft. In the tiny pool of female standup comedians successful enough to make a living off it, there are essentially zero lookers, despite physical attractiveness generally being considered an asset in the entertainment industry. (Amy Schumer isn't turning any heads even post-Ozempic.)


I know what you're going to say – sure, straight men have ulterior motives for laughing at a hot woman's unfunny jokes, but straight women don't, so hot women must still be receiving some accurate feedback on which material works and which doesn't. But I suspect the halo effect has a lot to answer for here, and in much the same way that attractive waitresses receive more tips even from other women, I imagine a straight woman might well laugh at an unfunny joke told by her hot friend. Women are also more conformist than men: if Plain Jane is at a party, Sexy Stacy tells an unfunny joke, and all the straight men in her vicinity laugh – Jane might well laugh along for the sake of fitting in.


But the more I think about it, I think the dynamic I'm describing might be even broader than this. When I saw Jordan Jensen live, there were two support acts prior to her. The second one was a short weaselly Jew (whose name escapes me), who was pretty funny. The first was a six-foot tall jock who looked like a J. Crew model, and he was hopeless.


Think about the most successful male standups in history. I daresay you will be hard pressed to find one that would be considered unequivocally handsome in strictly physical terms. (Shane Gillis himself is no head-turning beauty.) Louis CK, Dylan Moran, Patton Oswalt, Danny DeVito, Woody Allen, Rodney Dangerfield, Eddie "Suzy" Izzard, Mitch Hedberg, Bill Burr, Bill Hicks, Jerry Seinfeld, George Carlin – I could go on, but I think my point is abundantly clear (especially given how many of these comics' routines feature bits in which they vent about the frustrations of being sexually undesirable). Black comics fare a little better, but I still think it would be fair to describe Eddie Murphy or Chris Rock as "a little funny-looking". The dynamic is much the same as for hot women: when a physically attractive man tells a joke, people might laugh at that joke for reasons other than its comedic value (namely, the halo effect; because they find him generally charming; because they're a straight woman who wants to be his girlfriend/wife), which inevitably gives the man a misleading impression of how funny he really is and compromises his ability to hone his comedic instincts. The only people who can get constant, accurate, real-time feedback on which of their jokes are landing and which aren't are people whom no one has ulterior motives for laughing at: namely, people who are ugly and poor.


Let me illustrate it another way. There are many Hollywood actors who moonlight as models for fashion brands, watches, cologne etc. (e.g. Jake Gyllenhaal, Timothée Chalamet, Ben Affleck, to name the first three that came to mind). Can you name one person who first achieved fame as a standup comedian and who is still best-known for that vocation who does fashion modelling on the side? I honestly can't think of one.


Another potential rebuttal to my theory is that there are at least a handful of successful, attractive Hollywood actors who didn't come up through standup, but who turn in legitimately funny performances in comedy films. (Despite his reputation for portraying Literally Me™ in assorted serious indie dramas, Ryan Gosling was hysterical in The Nice Guys and Barbie.) The difference, I would argue, is that film is a fundamentally collaborative medium, and a lot of what makes a funny performance comes down to the chemistry between the actors, the director's coaxing of the performance from the actor, and judicious cutting in the editing suite. For standup, by contrast, the comedian is on his own, with no one to bounce off once the house lights go down. It's probably the purest kind of comedy there is, and to make it in that industry, you have to be really funny.


So, yeah. Being a jester is an uggo's game, because uggos are the only ones receiving accurate, real-time feedback on how funny they are which they can use to refine and improve their material.


Separate from this, I think there's a separate but related dynamic wherein men are sort of expected to be funnier than women. Guys go for looks, women go for status, and being funny and making other people laugh is one way a man can make himself seem higher in status and in turn make himself seem more attractive to the opposite sex. But even if an attractive woman could somehow make herself funny, that in itself wouldn't make herself more desirable to the opposite sex. People respond to incentives: if most men would rather date an unfunny twenty-two-year-old who's a 9 than a hilarious thirty-year-old who's a 3, most women intuitively understand that their time would be better spent making themselves hotter than making themselves funnier. The only women who invest any effort into being funny are women who have nothing else to fall back on to make themselves seem attractive i.e. unattractive women. In other words, there's more baseline competitive pressure for men to be funny than women.


It wouldn't surprise me if this fundamental dynamic likewise explains the underrepresentation of women in rock music and similar. Single-minded devotion to one's artistic muse is only one reason of many that people join rock bands, and probably not even very high up on the list: a big part is the desire to be a rock star i.e. to be seen as locally higher in status i.e. to get groupies into bed. I think most people intuitively understand that a smelly dude with a guitar is more attractive to women than a smelly dude without one, whereas a hot girl who plays in a band isn't necessarily more attractive to men than a hot girl who doesn't play in a band. If a woman is trying to nab herself a husband, her effort is better spent trying to make herself more physically attractive. It follows that the only women who'll join rock bands are either a) women who simply cannot resist following their artistic muses, or b) physically unattractive women desperate for something to make them seem more attractive or higher in status than they otherwise would be: no man really wants to date a girl who's a 4, but if you had to date a 4, a 4 who plays in a band might seem that bit cooler than a 4 who doesn't.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Okay, you made me laugh out loud, gg


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I understand thinking the euphemism is stupid. I was baffled by the way this guy (in my brother's telling) actually lowered his voice to say "the N-word", as if that phrase in itself constituted a hateful racial slur.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yesterday I started reading Gerald Posner's Case Closed, about the assassination of JFK. Right now he's describing Oswald's abortive attempt to defect to the Soviet Union. After his request was declined, Oswald unsuccessfully tried to kill himself, whereupon the Soviets took pity on him and allowed him to stay in Minsk as a stateless person:




On January 13, Oswald began his job as a metalworker at the Belorussian Radio and Television Factory, an enormous complex that employed over five thousand workers. He was initially disappointed with his work, since he had told Soviet officials he was instead interested in going back to school to study economics, philosophy and politics.




Oswald literally did the meme.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My brother attended college with a woke Millennial from the states, who felt uncomfortable saying the N-word.


To clarify, I don't mean he felt uncomfortable saying "nigger", which is hardly unusual. I mean he felt uncomfortable saying the phrase "the N-word".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
R.J. Mitte, the actor best-known for playing Walter Jr. in Breaking Bad, killed himself two days ago.


Does anyone find it kind of weird that I know he killed himself, that this fact is being reported openly? Are media outlets just not concerned about the Werther effect anymore? Maybe they think that, in the age of social media, trying to keep this sort of thing quiet is a fool's errand. I'm trying to remember how long it's been like this – when James Ransome killed himself last December, I remember feeling a bit startled that this fact was being reported openly. I know of several celebrities who killed themselves in the decade+ prior (among them Chris Cornell, Chester Bennington and Robin Williams), but I can't remember if the fact that they took their own lives was openly stated by respectable media outlets at the time.