Co-authored by Ashlyn Daniel-Nuboer, UNH Graduating Class of 2016
Earlier this year, Hulu's Funny or Die produced a segment featuring Triumph the Insult Comic Dog--a crass-talking puppet who first debuted on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. As part of Triumph's Election Special 2016, the producers interviewed a group of 14 students from the University of New Hampshire. The video quickly went viral, surpassing two million views--but not for reasons the students had hoped.
The piece framed the students as stereotypical liberals plagued with the virus of political correctness. Internet trolls quickly emerged from the corners of the net, hurling insults so crass that even Triumph would blush. As graduating senior Amanda Barba recalled, "I was personally contacted by [one of my] professors, asking about my well-being."
Though it likely won't make a blip on the mainstream radar screen, Amanda took it upon herself to turn insult into inspiration. As a capstone project for her senior year, she created a video titled Voices Behind Something Viral: From Insulting to Inspiring.
Amanda's heartfelt efforts in the wake of the Funny or Die segment show that millennials--despite all the flack they receive--may yet lead a defiant charge to a more civil and dignified future.
Tr(i)ump(h), the Insult Dog
We have no evidence that Triumph has ever met Donald Trump. (Rumor has it, though, that the presumptive GOP nominee is considering the Insult Dog for a high-ranking cabinet position, if not VP. In terms of qualifications, that decision would represent a step up from other recently-floated names.)
Nevertheless, Triumph openly mocked the notion of political correctness in ways that embrace the spirit of Donald Trump's campaign of gratuitous bigotry. In fact, the resemblance is so similar that (in the spirit of the liberal-elitist fetish for gratuitous punctuation) we'll hereafter refer to the dog-puppet with the moniker Tr(i)ump(h).
The students, who had clearly been selected for their left-leaning views, reluctantly answered a range of pointed questions from Tr(i)ump(h) about gender identity, micro-aggressions and trigger warnings--the obvious targets of choice for the conservative backlash against any apparent progress towards social justice.
Like Trump and his handlers, the Funny or Die producers played fast and loose with the truth. They coaxed the students into participation through a slick bait-and-switch routine that would offend even Harold Hill from The Music Man.
And in an eerie parallel to Trump's loyal followers, online commenters took their cue directly from a foul-mouthed half-human/half-dog. They castigated the UNH students as "faggots," "retards" and "man-hating feminists," and taunted the female students with especially hateful and vulgar comments.
Trump and Tr(i)ump(h) would indeed make a fetching POTUS/VP ticket: two Alphas leading a nascent movement of reactionary Insult Dogs.
That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
Satire can be a potent moral force. From Roman times to the appearance of the first satirical newspaper in the early-nineteenth century, it's a comedic form that demands justice from those who abuse power.
Detractors and party-insiders once dismissed Trump's campaign as its own form of performance-based political satire. If he were aiming merely to lampoon the political establishment's moral vapidity, it would be a stingingly hilarious feat. It might even approach the brilliance of Stephen Colbert's "Papa Bear" mockery of Bill O'Reilly.
Tr(i)ump(h) once aimed his fiery dog-breath at the likes of Bill O'Reilly, too (as well as John Kerry, among other high-powered elites). But today he's desperately grabbing the lowest-hanging fruit, comedy-wise.
"It's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate; It takes guts to be gentle and kind," as one Wildean poet once crooned.
Tr(i)ump(h)'s campaign segment surely took the low road, pandering to prejudice and ignorance with every quip. One of the participating students recalled that "When we started filming after we were mic'd, I just remember going 'Oh my God, I can't believe he just said that.'"
Watching the video, another student noted that she experienced "a feeling similar to witnessing an injured person struggle to make it to the top of a staircase and watching as someone pushes them back down again. 'This isn't comedy,' I thought."
This was, after all, a group comprised of (or allied with) the most marginalized students on campus--gay, transgender, overweight. If satire takes aim at the privileged, derisive laughter strikes at the most vulnerable.
As that same Wildean critic famously sang, "I wish I could laugh, but that joke isn't funny anymore."
The Triumph of Virtue
Not to be defeated by the puppets of prejudice, Amanda decided to finish her undergraduate career by turning the tables on Tr(i)ump(h). As a capstone project in her Media & Ethics seminar, she created a video titled Voices Behind Something Viral: From Insulting to Inspiring.
After watching a video of Donald Trump ejecting reporter Jorge Ramos from a press conference, students in Amanda's Media & Ethics seminar discussed the importance of protecting freedom of the press.
"My video is about bringing the voices of a few of the participants to light, as the video Funny or Die produced included nothing about who we are or what we have been through," Amanda said.
On the first sunny day following a week of heavy April showers, Amanda and three other students--all of whom serve in various capacities on campus as student leaders--sat in a small room in the depths of the Memorial Union Building at the center of campus. One student, Ryan Walsh, fiddled with a cup half-filled with blue Gatorade, adjusting his navy UNH sweatshirt in preparation for the interview about his experience with Tr(i)ump(h).
Ryan had been specially targeted by the popular satirical sports and men's lifestyle blog, Barstool Sports. As he told Amanda, "I found out when my best friend Snapchatted me my picture [on the website]. In the article they singled me out and wrote an additional blurb about me. I was called a garbage pail." But Ryan remained hopeful, putting his trust in Amanda to show how this group of social justice leaders had been led unwittingly into the lion's den.
It should come as no surprise that same commercial media environment boosting Donald Trump's unique brand of racist xenophobia would also produce the likes of Tr(i)ump(h). They are two variations of the same half-man/half-canine creature that so many angry Americans have allowed themselves to become. The Insult Dogs of the world certainly have chutzpah, and they've relished their time in the media spotlight.
It's easy to laugh, and it's easy to hate. And it makes for good TV.
Luckily, human dignity is not so easily trumped--not by callous demagogues, and not by mass media, however crass and commercial. For the long game, place your bets on this year's graduating class. Their immediate prospects may have been hobbled by standardized tests and a rigged economy. But when push comes to shove, they know what matters. They understand the virtues of compassion and courage.
These kids aren't spoiled and sensitive. These kids have guts.