Dear Luv Doc,
My best friend at work is hilarious … or so I thought. We usually have lunch together and talk about current events, celebrities, politics, and yes, often our co-workers as well because we are around them all the time. My friend (let’s call her Hillary) has a snarky roast for everything. Like … Matthew McConaughey is the uncle who makes you feel his bicep. Or … the Australian Olympic breaker Raygun is actually Elaine from Seinfeld’s cousin. Or … JD Vance doesn’t have a chin, but he does have a beard. Her name is Usha. Or something like … Jeff from accounting can afford a new Corvette but can’t afford to wax his unibrow. (Don’t worry, there is no Jeff.) Anyway, that’s her brand of humor. The other day I was telling a co-worker about how funny Hillary is and she said, “Oh my God! Really? Hillary is so mean! Everything she says is so negative! I can’t stand to be around her.” Needless to say, this threw me for a loop. I thought maybe the co-worker had it out for Hillary or something, but since then I have noticed that almost everything Hillary says is mean or snarky or negative. She is sort of a one-trick pony that way. Now I think that as her friend, I should point this out to her so she knows that not everybody finds her hilarious, but I don’t want to hurt her feelings or rat out my co-worker. How do I get her tone down the negativity a bit?
– Laughing Lunch Buddy
I may not be the best go-to on this topic, as I have been known to engage in negativity for the sake of humor on the regular – both in my personal life and in my writing. I’m sure I have probably left a trail of haters in my wake as well. Comes with the territory. After all, if God blesses you with a talent, it’s a sin to waste it, right? In my case that “blessing” most likely came from being the youngest of four brothers and having to always be ready with a counterpunch … both figuratively and literally. I also am blessed with a last name that brings out the latent roaster in just about everyone. There’s a reason this column is called “The Luv Doc” and not “Hardick’s Sick Roasts.” Yes, that last name is dope as fuck, but who would actually believe it?
I guess it only follows that hurt people hurt people to avoid getting hurt themselves. It’s a survival/defense mechanism that serves astoundingly well … right up until actual adulthood, when it becomes justification to drop thousands of dollars on therapy sessions. Seriously though, a witheringly critical zinger can be delightfully glorious if you’re mindful of your audience. For some … like myself … humorous criticism (let’s call it “roasting”) is a language of love, and I have been careful over the years to surround myself with friends who can not only take the heat, but actually delight in it – as I do. Truly nothing gives me greater joy than getting figuratively burned by a friend by a critical yet humorous observation that cuts straight to the quick. I shit you not. It makes me feel seen. Yes, I am working on that.
Most people, it turns out, really hate being roasted. I mean, they’re perfectly fine with snarkiness when it doesn’t personally affect them – for instance, the celebrity roasts crafted by your friend Hillary – but you start critiquing things like fashion choices, coordination, or someone’s marginal intelligence, and all the sudden you get labeled by the normies as some sort of puppy-strangling ogre. These days, I make an extra effort to read the room lest my verbal barbs do real injury to some thin-skinned soul. It’s never my intent to decimate someone’s fragile ego or undermine their sense of self or competency. I am only trying to amuse the already broken people in the room – even if those people are me and myself. I would like to give your friend similar credit. Just because she might be wickedly hilarious with her sick roasts doesn’t make her a bad person with evil motives, it just makes her flawed in a delightful (though perhaps to only a limited few) way. I would encourage her to actively find positive ways to be funny. I mean hell, Taika Waititi seems to be able to manage it, so can’t others as well? I haven’t personally figured out how, but I am working on it at an exorbitantly expensive rate. Maybe you can save your friend some money.
This article appears in August 30 • 2024.
