Parodying yourself
2024-07-15 11:20:00 +07:00 by Mark Smith
I've heard two examples of this recently. I’m starting to wonder if it’s a thing people do.
First there was Louis Theroux, on a recent episode where he sits down for a catchup with fellow podcaster and childhood friend Adam Buxton. From what I remember from the show, Adam was doing an impression of Louis, and Louis then tries to mimic the impression, very effectively I might add, so he’s basically parodying himself. It’s very funny.
At the time I remember thinking I wouldn’t even know how to parody myself. I can hardly even recognise myself in the mirror most days.
Anyway I didn’t think much of it until I started listening to Ed Zitron. His recent episode with some of the Vergecast folks is pretty good for example. He’s got a very east end of London kind of accent. What occurred to me was that at times he really lays the accent on thick, it’s like a total piss take. The interesting thing is that you momentarily wonder if his accent is real or not. It feels uncomfortable. Then he returns to the normal version, and you are comfortable again. Few. It occurred to me this might be a very effective way to get people to unknowingly trust you. If you do it enough that is. Btw whether it’s a put on thing or not, Ed’s reporting and analysis is top notch.
The reason this popped into my consciousness today, is because I’d made a note to write about it a while back, but also because yesterday someone tried to assasinate Trump and he did a fight fist followed by what looked like a nazi salute as he was evacuated off stage, and everyone is ignoring it, and I thought wouldn’t it be the ultimate extreme self parody if it turned out he was taking the piss? Is he an actor or a comedian, or both? Or indeed neither?
Another extreme self parody that springs to mind is Stevo from Jackass who had an enormous tatoo of himself done on his back.
Anyway just thinking about self parody today, wondering if it’s a thing people do on purpose, or whether perhaps it’s some weird Carl Yung shit people do unknowingly. Or perhaps both.