The OTHER Pandemic

We all knew this was coming.  Today, the International Association of Satirists set a target date of May 15th for the cessation of humor writing about the coronavirus. 

Speaking for the Association, Dave Barry asserted that “we need to seriously flatten the curve on COVID-19 humor.  The coronavirus has made writers lazy and sloppy.  If all you do is shoot fish in a barrel, sooner or later everything starts to stink.  When The New Yorker publishes an essay by Steve Martin on ‘How COVID-19 Made My Poop Soft and Mushy’, you know things have gone too far.  And there are only so many laughs you can squeeze out of the Trump-Fauci relationship, despite Woody Allen’s attempt to capture the duo’s bromance in his new film, Odd Couple 2, just released on Hulu.”

Dave Chappelle recently observed that “the worst thing about the coronavirus is that it has sucked all the imagination and creativity out of white people.  I swear to God, if I read one more piece about toilet-paper shortages or Walmart shoppers using thong underwear as face masks, I’m going to punch Jerry Seinfeld in the throat, just out of principle.  And I actually like Jerry.”

Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, and Amy Poehler all agree.  In a joint statement issued on April 12th, they maintained that “COVID-19 humor writing, if left unchecked, could catastrophically undermine the quality of satire in the next generation.  By 2025 we could be drowning in a cesspool of knock-knock jokes and riffs about three viruses walking into a bar.  Now is the time for Congress to take bipartisan action.  Mitch McConnell and Charles Schumer, the ball is in your court.”

Indeed, the coronavirus has come to represent the gravest threat to worldwide humor since 475 AD, when the Pope banned stand-up comedy throughout Europe, claiming that it triggered multiple orgasms in virginal female audience members.  (The fact that this claim was later supported by scientific research is not the issue here.)  The Pope’s decision ushered in the 400-year-long period known as the Dark Ages.  And women’s quality of life suffered (though that’s not the issue here). 

If we fail to act now, we are flirting with a return to that desolate era.    

Friends don’t let friends write COVID-19 humor after May 15th.

 Do your part to flatten the curve.  Please.

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