February 10, 2012 6:00 pm

VIDEO: ‘Heavy Rain’ and the folks who make ‘Farmville’ as stand up comedy fodder

Matt Hawkins Contributing Writer, Video Games

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Video games are popular these days so I guess it only makes sense that it be part of some routine for some hack funny guy who is one TBS sitcom deal away from total oblivion.

So I used to LOVE late night talk shows, but can’t stomach it anymore. Why? Tech talk. Specifically, tech jokes. I can’t explain it, but something really rubs me the wrong way when any of the late night talk show hosts approach the subject, which is happening a lot lately. Have you seen Letterman fuss around with Twitter these days? It’s comedy death, I tells you. And Jimmy Fallon sucks normally, but his iPhone bits are the worst.

I dunno, I’d rather them just stick with jokes about the news, celebrities, and other stuff that such personalities have used as staples since the dawn of television. It’s cool if they want to lightly touch upon something in a “can you believe the kids are into?!?!” kind of way. Still, given the popularity of games in culture, it’s unavoidable. Hence we have a guy making jokes abut one of my favorite games (not really) Heavy Rain…

Okay, that wasn’t so bad, since it’s similar to the “what in the flying f…” viewpoint that I touched upon. But what about this other guy, addressing Zynga, makers of Farmville…

Okay, so the guy isn’t a real stand-up, just a game developer, trying to be funny while presenting his game. And granted, virtually any kind of presentation that is aimed at a specific audience that you’re not a part of, especially when its vocational, is going to be completely confusing. Still, even those who do know what he’s talking about will be hard pressed to tell if he’s joking or not. For the record: he’s trying to be tongue in cheek.

They say sarcasm is impossible to properly convey online, for obvious reasons. But in real life, if people still can’t tell? Then best to avoid jokes, entirely.