Fuck had run its course. For the beloved curse word, the future did not bode well. Gross overuse of fuck had continued to degrade TV and film, music and prose. Rap, the musical genre in which fuck had become most unironically parodic was a fat, ripe, slow-moving target and was the first to be hit. Pop a cap in your bottom? No, not that dire. The minor profanities seemed fine. Even the nastier ones looked to be okay. Only the fucks were fading. What were fans saying?
Soon to follow their fuck-dependent rap brethren, standup comics were next to feel these winds of change, the gentle breeze starting to gust. Most starkly and notably, the fuck that is delivered by the comic to get the customary post-punchline second laugh, a laugh as good as guaranteed, no longer seemed to be working.
You know the bit, we all do.
The comic delivers his punchline, which is, let’s say, “The guy has no clue.” As the audience laughs at the punchline, the comic walks the few steps to his stool for a sip of bottled water. Lifting the bottle to his lips as the laughter generated by the “no clue” punchline begins to wane, the comic aborts his sip and says, “No fucking clue.”According to a longstanding formula, the repeating of the punchline here, reinforced by the strut that is fuck, should be an easy second laugh. Not anymore. Such was indicative of the diminishing power of fuck, an early warning sign, the not-funny-a-second-time-unless-supported-by-fuck punchline no longer getting those easy second laughs. The comic may hear more chortle than laugh, a laugh of manners, a laugh forced not earned, or, there may be no laugh at all. Among the comics, fears of fuck failing in its role as reinforcer is why deliveries of the second, fuck-dependent punchline would usually occur during the sip of water, for should you find yourself sipping in silence at least you have something to do.
This was the moment in entertainment when audiences were letting it be known that they weren’t finding the word funny or shocking or dramatic anymore. To the artist, the audience was saying, “We need more than your cursing. We don’t find it impactful. We’re not twelve years old. It’s kind of insulting.”
For comedians, the message was clear enough. They abandoned the formula that is the fuck-supported second laugh—but it didn’t stop there. Even the fuck-supported first laugh, the fuck-supported laugh in general, was losing traction, losing its cultural standing, the comics coming to fear that even to use fuck, let alone overuse it, had become cliché. The “fuck comics,” the comics who continued to use fuck, soon became less appealing to audiences and then unappealing, the least funny of the comics. There was no question by this time, with rappers and comedians blatantly beginning to tidy up their vocabularies, that the demise of fuck was upon us. The people were making it clear: they were not just tiring of the word, they were telling artists that they needed to do more than lean on the creative crutch that is fuck. For fuck, the writing was on the wall. Amongst themselves, the fucks were talking.
“Now what the fuck are we supposed to do?”
“Fucked if I know.”
All fucks were nervous, all were concerned. The fucks knew that a cultural shift of this magnitude would result, more or less, in their immediate extinction. There was confusion and fear. Lots of questions. The union would be no help on this one. There were jobs, families. The future.
“Fuck. Fuuuuuck. Bro, this fucking sucks.”
“And like, zero fucking warning, bro.”
“And that German fuck. He didn’t fucking help. That German fucker fucking fucked us.”
“Not only him, fucking him and a whole fucking movement.”
The “German fuck” was Dr. Kalba Brenin, the German linguist and film critic. Dr. Brenin engaged the fuck catastrophe innocently enough. He had commented on his podcast that a limited series he had been watching and was intending to review used fuck so often that he stopped watching after two of eight episodes. A highly touted series about sexy young corporate lawyers dispatched to the world’s largest cities to ply their trade and defend and sustain capitalism, Dr. Brenin became frustrated by the “near constant” use of fuck that would commence in any scene that “required dramatic acting.” Rolling his eyes and ultimately laughing at fuck-choked so-called dramatic scene after fuck-choked so-called dramatic scene—the excessive fucks turning the drama into unintended comedy—instead of a review Dr. Brenin wrote his now infamous essay, A Welcome Overstayed, in which he called for fuck to be banned from all recorded entertainment—not for reasons of censorship of profanity—but “for the sake of preserving what human beings have for five millennia called art.”
In his essay, Dr. Brenin transcribes an exchange from the show.
“Becca should be told this case is now a fucking homicide.”
“Becca’s in the Andes, mountain climbing, off the grid, how the fuck am I supposed to get in touch with her?”
“Well she’s fucking president of this firm, you fucking better find a way.”
“Fuck you, Tristan.”
“Fuck you, too, Emma. And fuck Becca.”
Exeunt Tristan.
Dr. Brenin was relentless in his criticism.
“Fuck is anti-art. Fuck is an art killer. Writers, as of now, you must remove fuck from your lexicon. Distance yourself. Save yourself while there’s still time. It’s over.” [...]
In his essay, Dr. Brenin transcribes an exchange from the show.
“Becca should be told this case is now a fucking homicide.”
“Becca’s in the Andes, mountain climbing, off the grid, how the fuck am I supposed to get in touch with her?”
“Well she’s fucking president of this firm, you fucking better find a way.”
“Fuck you, Tristan.”
“Fuck you, too, Emma. And fuck Becca.”
Exeunt Tristan.
Dr. Brenin was relentless in his criticism.
“Fuck is anti-art. Fuck is an art killer. Writers, as of now, you must remove fuck from your lexicon. Distance yourself. Save yourself while there’s still time. It’s over.” [...]
For the linguists and pop culture scholars who attempted to explain the decline of fuck, the similarities to tattoos were often cited, that the way in which tattoos had lost their edge, their cred, their cool, should have been seen by fuck as a cautionary tale.
Tattoos had gone from ships-at-sea and prisons and cheap boarding rooms to spas and moms and pretty junior bank tellers with full sleeves. The tattoo was defanged. The tattoo had been corporatized, commercialized and, of special concern to men, feminized, as tattoos had become, near the final stages of the tattoo era and the rise of the tattoo removal era, more popular with women than men. Once the lone province of the hairy forearm, the tattoo had spread all over the body, a metastatic migration that could only result in homogenization. Fuck was on a similar trajectory. The word had become homogenous. It was as if once the film and television industries were finally permitted to say fuck, after years of censorship, fuck was all they wanted to say and now, after decades of relentless and unforgiving fuckery the people were tired, they had heard enough, they didn’t want to hear it anymore.
by Brutus Macdonald, Substack | Read more:
Image: George Carlin via: "the seven words you can't say on tv".
