Explain Away, Supparay!

Irony and Humor in Advanced Capitalism

I’m sure most of the readers have engaged at least once with the recent social media phenomena known as Supparay, the self-proclaimed “voice-over king.” The videos range in topic from abnormal, non-western food prep to unusual items and video game scenarios dubbed over by a young black man who raps, stumbles on, or sometimes even yells innocuous commentary. One video, for example, features three young Asian women cooking a giraffe head with Supparay singing “Oh, they done cook my n***a Jeffery” (referring to the Toys R Us mascot). The video is mind-numbingly mundane but the voice-over provides the entertainment and pulls us in. Supparay is just one example in a plethora of click-bait social media videos in which people make ridiculous food combinations or decisions for comedic relief. But because followers and clicks can be monetized, the content and its popularity, as a reflection of our humor, must be taken seriously. 

Humor is a difficult cultural expression to divorce from its time and place. When we go back and watch Charlie Chaplin videos, we are not laughing nearly as much as people did at the time of Chaplan’s apogee. Yet the interwar period was one of industrial progress and innovation, demonstrated most clearly in “Modern Times,” where mistakes on the assembly line and the absurdity of living in industrial society most resonated with viewers. Contrasting the comedy of Modern Times with a phenomenon like Supparay makes one wonder how humor, as a reflection of our socio-economic conditions, has changed over the years from a cultural tool that responded very clearly to structural changes in social relations and economic conditions, to one of absurdism, driven predominantly by sex and cultural difference. But maybe that’s a wrong reading–maybe Supparay is a reflection of positive structural changes? In this article, I want to explore contemporary humor through a historical context.