An Open Letter To Celebrities Who Will Not Stop Doing Kanye Jokes
Dear Celebrities Who Will Not Stop Doing Kanye Jokes,
During last night's Emmys, three separate references were made to Kanye West's interruption of Taylor Swift at last week's MTV Video Music Awards. That is actually fewer than one might have expected, but it is still at least three references too many. At least most of them were just spoken allusions to the nontroversey, but the worst was Justin Timberlake's self-satisfied improvisation:
Yuck. With his smirkface and his rude jokes. You know a joke is successful when it gets no laughs and you feel compelled to follow it up with "no, but seriously." The worst.
But he is not the only one! All kinds of you guys are doing this.
There was the aforementioned Jack White interruption of a film's presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival this weekend:
And here's Jimmy Kimmel pulling a "Kanye" at a Killers concert (huh?):
Here's the thing, Celebrities Who Will Not Stop Doing Kanye Jokes, we all have the Internet. We've all seen the Kanye meme. It's old news! Do you know what you look like when you grab the microphone out of someone's hand and do a lame, half-hearted Kanye West impersonation? You look like someone's embarrassing uncle at a wedding. You look like Jay Leno.
Cut it out. It's over. Have one of your assistants write you some new material. Have your pilates instructor vet your stuff first to see if it works. Have your stylist sew needles into your tuxedos that poke you every time you make a terrible joke. Make a prostitute tell you to fucking stop it.
Sincerely,
The People You Have Clearly Stopped Trying to Impress
Posted by Gabe at 1:45 PM in An Open Letter, Backlashes, Bad Idea Jeans
Tags: Internet Memes | Jack White | Jimmy Kimmel | Kanye West | MTV Video Music Awards | Taylor Swift
Hold up Gabe, I'm happy for you, and I'mma let you finish, b...
::gunshot::
Score = 43
I largely blame Taylor Swift.
for:
1. Letting go of the mic to Ka-Razy Kanye
2. Sucking
3. Sucking hard enough to win an MTV award
Score = -9
And Kimmel's version was the worst.
Not Funny at all.
Score = 0
Jimmy Kimmel, a new hope for Jay Leno fans, emerges.
Score = 8
Damn kids, get off my video lawn! -Gabe, 2009
Score = 17
This is one dead horse I don't mind seeing the continued beating of. It's payback and every time it gets mentioned it's like Kanye is getting his nose rubbed in dog shit.
Score = -5
Except that for Kanye, dogshit = attention = sweet ambrosia.
Score = 16
Gabe, please leave video hosting to the pro's. Thank you, Al Gore
Score = 7
Raisins, imma let you finish, but Gabe had one of the best video hostings of all time!
Score = -1
And you know who wins after all this? Kanye. Good job, jerks.
Score = 7
I am at odds with this situation. Despite that Kanye is a very talented producer (PRODUCER), I like how this is turning out to be the one thing that he will really be remembered for, especially after his claims to be written in future history books and the Bible.
But at the same time, when CNN is reporting what the president said on the matter, it's passed being funny. It's just stupid.
And I hate how Justin Timberlake believes himself to be funny. That guy is a douche.
Score = 9
imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. at least that's how Kanye will look at this: everyone wants to be just like me!!
Score = 3
must every one of these be made in the fake black voice?
Score = 36
In defense of everyone who is still doing the joke there really is no other way to do it. If you're going to say "I'ma" you gotta go full jive turkey.
Score = 15
It reminds me of when my junior year (99% white) English class read A Raisin in the Sun out loud in groups. A large number of people read it out loud in exaggerated southern accents even though everyone in the play is from Chicago. Oops!
Score = 16
In New Jersey, we pronounce it "Urghaburghh" [we're a noisy bunch].
Score = 1
I remember the sweetness of a week ago when this was all so funny.
Score = 18
i feel personally embarrassed watching these videos. its like seeing friends from college and they wont stop telling stories about the time you vomited on a police officer when you were 19. that story was less fun than we pretended at the time and is definitely less fun than that now.
Score = 17
i really wish justin timberlake would just go away. but that would mean that someone was listening to me. and that would also mean that they'd get rid of jay leno and ne-yo. but they're still here. and this is just a stupid comment on a blog. so meh!
Score = 3
I only watched the Jack White one, and even on mute, it's painful. The way he runs away instead of defiantly strolling offstage is awful. If you're gonna do it, fucking DO IT.
Score = 5
Wait, Jack White has a sense of humor? And does little topical skits at film festivals? I think I'm missing something.
Score = 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8ZUsFkrNQE
Score = 0
It's only a matter of time before there's the "I'mma let you finish" application for iPhones that allows you to put people on hold. Either that or the end of days, whatever comes first.
Score = 19
I really can't stand watching justin timberlake do anything, not because i hate him, or that he's a bad guy or deserves it, but he's sort of a reflection of the particular cultural aesthetic fuelled by my generation, and that's a tough mirror to look into.
Score = 14
I have a feeling Seth McFarlane has already rewritten this seasons's opening of Family Man to have at least one Kanye joke in it.
"Ugh, let's see here, what won't they expect? Baby Stewie interrupts the opening credits by saying that the Simpsons had one of the best opening credits of all time? Genius. Funny stuff written."
Score = 23
The sad thing is that scenario you just came up with in ten seconds for a blog comment is surely a million times better than what the Family Guy writers will actually come up with. Basically, we need to get paid for these comments is what I'm saying.
Score = 12
Where's the beef, Gabe? Leave Britney alone! No soup for you. Don't have a cow, man!
--all the celebrities over here (and/or my Uncle Arnie)
(and: bill o'reilly flip-out. also dramatic chipmunk impression. also also: pull my finger.)
Score = 17
are your ears biased? that obviously wasn't funny...but it got laughs. so to say "you know a joke goes over well when no one laughs" is pretty stupid. especially when they laughed HARDER the second time. Dumb scenario. Dumber post. Kanye Wins. Again, and again, and again.
Score = -11
I loved the Justin Timberlake one just for Tina. Her face was expressing what we all were thinking.
Score = 13
I think she was actually attempting to do a Taylor Swift impersonation: the hands are the give away.
Score = 2
In other news: Tina Fey keeps getting better-looking as she gets older.
Score = 12
I heard laughter...
At least he isn't complaining about it on the internet. (or commenting on that complaint)
You should have got up there and shown him how its done Gabe!... err... now this is awkward for both of us because you weren't invited.
Score = -3
The Timberlake one perplexes me. What was he interrupting? If you're going to do the stupid joke, at least do it properly...or not do the stupid joke. THE CHOICE IS YOURS!
Score = 2
You know how to end all of this once and for all? Kanye must make the joke at his own expense.
Score = 4
He did that last time he was SNL to make for all the other baby bitchfits he threw for not being recognized as The Greatest, and it wasn't funny. So I vote that he doesn't try and we all move on to the next meme: a YouTube video of a cat farting on a baby or something.
Score = 6
Yeah but for the most part people had stopped making jokes about his ridiculousness, no?
Score = 0
I can't care about Kanye West long enough to come up with a thought-out answer, so you're probably right.
Score = 0
But I still think a cat farting on a baby would be hilarious and endearing
Score = 3
The internets probably agree.
Score = 0
"He really just said that..."
Score = 16
I put a Kanye meme in my dad's 58th birthday card and he laughed. We can all stop beating the dead meme now.
Score = 10
This never should have happened. A rift in "Space-Time" has opened and now the tubes from the videogum comment feed are spilling out into "real life". Not even celebrities can escape the need to retell the same inside jokes over and over in an attempt to be funnier then the last person who quoted it!
Score = 2
I knew the meme had gotten out of hand when I briefly considered making a "yo Patrick Swayze..." joke and then decided it would be in poor taste, only to find that "Yo Patrick Swayze I" was the number one trending topic on twitter and then have the joke repeated to me literally six or seven times on the internet and in real life within the next 24 hours.
Score = 6
yeah, multiple people in my facebook feed posted terribly botched versions of it all day.
when it's an unfunny joke, poorly executed, that riffs on an immediately overplayed meme, that's multiple layers of fail.
Score = 0
Ow. The Jack White one hurt my heart.
Score = 1
ORIGINALITY FAIL
Score = 0
Why should people stop? If anything, this proves Kanye is good at least at one thing: providing comedy gold. Jack White's spoof was hilarious. Justin Timberlake's, eh not so much. He copped out. But this will never die, and it shouldn't, to serve Kanye as a reminder of how much of a douche he is. I want people to do this at high school graduations, interrupt the valedictorian mid-speech and do the "Yo, I'mma let you finish...." joke. Hell, I want this to be done at funerals, during eulogies.
Score = -2
Look how Justin shrugs like "am I supposed to be doing the bit now?" as he approaches the microphone. I only watched maybe 15 scattered minutes of the Emmy's last night, but everything I saw seemed like a total clusterfuck, and Justin's apparent onstage ambivalence over going through with a joke that even he had to know was godawful just puts a cherry on the dogshit sundae. What a horrible, horrible show.
Score = 0
I thought Jack White's impersonation was cool. And it's not old news, it's barely been a week.
Score = -3
Jimmy Kimmel = Jay Leno
They are the worst. Gabe, please acknowledge how bad Jimmy Kimmel is -- he is just like Jay Leno except somehow even more smug and misogynistic.
Score = 4
You know, it's one thing to mock someone through taking about 5 seconds to type some text on a jpeg. It's another to go and ACTUALLY DO THE THING that you were mocking them for in the first place (Jack White). You're just maximizing the douchebaggery.
Score = 1
But I just printed 10,000 bumper stickers saying:
Yo, I'mma let you drive, but this car ahead of you needs to go first.
Score = 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl4suPG-XbE
Score = 0
Is being an interrupting cow less embarrassing than being a gay fish?
Score = 0
Knock Knock
Who's there?
I'mma
I'mma wh...
I'mma Letyoufinish
Score = 4
the killers TERRIBLE psych furs cover just might be the REAL EMBARRASSMENT here. also, the bad kanye jokes.
Score = 1
So everything pop culture is immediately irrelevant after you write your fan fiction about it? There are grandmothers and grandfathers out there who are slow to catch on to this shit but still like obvious jokes as much as the rest of us. Have some respect.
Score = 1
Well, if it makes your Grandpa feel any better, I think Product's totally willing to bring the funny to his funeral.
Score = 1
The Kimmel post was distracting to an ex-goth like me. After 2 seconds of Jimmy's "oops I pooped my pants" we were left to watch 2 minutes of some video blogger, obviously enamored with The Killers lead singer, as we try to figure out if indeed he is actually singing Pretty in Pink with Richard Butler, who we may or may not occasionally see at the righthand side of the frame. Spoiler alert not included.
Score = 0