Sorry it’s been so long between missives.
I’ve been practicing that ‘non-striving’ I wrote of, pretty vigorously.
My reading has diverged sharply from the philosophical but my YouTube viewing has picked up the slack. Natalie Wynn aka Contrapoints is the ex Philosophy academic turned comedian + performance + video artist + Breadtube pundit who became my first full blown parasocial crush. Melbourne’s Orwellian lockdown conditions provide fertile hours for my growing obsession and I’m really beginning to see why so many youths turn to YouTube for educational content. As Stephen Colbert once said “others will read the news to you, but I will feel the news at you” and the confluence of loving the style with which a creator expresses themselves as much the substance of what they’re saying is truly compelling. The seductive ease of having complex topics masticated, peppered with jokes and fed to me by an aesthete and wit so brilliant she is routinely compared to Oscar Wilde has been decadent indeed.
I became aware of Contrapoints by listening to The Rabbit Hole a New York Times audio series recanting a disaffected young American’s YouTube algorithm fuelled descent into far right politics. Contrapoints was only mentioned in passing as a heroine of the left, willing to engage with and provide alternative views to the alarmingly large communities forming around the platforms Alt Right pundits.
In ‘I used to be AltRight’ reddit threads claiming Contrapoints played a critical role in your conversion has become cliche. As a transwoman creating content for a notoriously bigoted and troll dense demographic, there is a real personal risk involved in the important work Contrapoints is doing.
The video below is a meditation on the alchemical process of turning the darkest and most base aspects of life into comedy gold. It’s also the first response by a transperson to Ricky Gervaise’s trans jokes I’ve ever been privy to, so even if we differ and you don’t feel compelled to consume every single videos she ever posted afterward - its well worth the watch.
Another brilliant woman who has made a career out of sharing her most vulnerable and painful experiences is Maria Bamford - a veteran comedian who's Netflix stand-up special, Weakness is the Brand encapsulates Bamford’s ingeniously off kilter way of weaving jokes out of stories about her anxiety, depression, O.C.D. and stints at inpatient psychiatric units.
My first encounter with Maria Bamford’s comedy stylings was also via YouTube in her 2007 web series The Maria Bamford Show. She sings her own intro song explaining how after suffering a nervous breakdown she now lives with her parents in Duluth, Minnesota. Bamford seemed then a comics comic, someone who was able to turn their mental health issues into schtick - to a point. In the first episode of the short lived series she describes herself as a “marginally successful comedian” who never got her own show. Since the finale of the series Bamford has released multiple comedy albums, appeared in Season 3 of Arrested Development and even got two seasons of her own Netflix show “Lady Dynamite,” another foray into the mental illness recovery of a fictionalised version of herself.She jokes in the opening moments of her show “I’m a female comedian over 40 who is clearly sun damaged. I can’t believe anyone gave me a show.” Not that I think it was a savvy marketing strategy but Bamford is living proof that by embracing vulnerability and ‘weakness’ she has built an incredibly robust career.