Give me Too Dark for South Park: Because Sex is Dead and Comedy Feels Like Necrophilia
We have reached a point in history where reality has out-paced satire. When the news reads like a Black Mirror episode written by a drunk AI, South Park starts to look like a PBS documentary.
We are drowning in “content.” But cannot find a pulse.
The old ways of making us laugh—and the old ways of turning us on—have failed. They are too safe. Too clean. Too terrified of the HR department in our heads.
To handle the absurdity of the modern meat-grinder, we need a new operating system. We need Industrial Strength SplatterPunk Satire.
The Corpse on Stage
At its best, comedy feels cringe right now, at its worst it feels necrophiliac.
Poking a dead body, trying to get a reaction. We drag the corpse of “The Sitcom” or “The Rom-Com” onto the stage, hook it up to a car battery, and shock it until it twitches.
Traditional comedy relies on the idea that things will eventually go back to normal. The dad messes up, the laugh track plays, the world resets.
But look around. The world isn’t resetting. The glitch is permanent.
Industrial Satire doesn’t try to reanimate the corpse. It sells tickets to the autopsy.
The Old Comedy: Laughing at a guy slipping on a banana peel.
The New Comedy: Laughing because the guy slipped on a banana peel, broke his neck, and his smart-watch immediately autoposted the video to TikTok to cover his ambulance co-pay.
Where Are the Sex-No-Violence Shockers?
If comedy is necrophilia, then sex in media has been embalmed.
We are living in a strange, puritanical dystopia. Turn on the TV, and you have two options for intimacy:
The Sterile Perfume Ad: Glossy, choreographed, morally pure, and about as erotic as a power point.
The Trauma Porn: Sex that is inherently linked to violence, assault, or doom.
Where is the honking, laugh-out-loud, sex-no-violence shocker?
The hair-gel is crusty in There’s Something About Mary? Who cares to pork the American Pie? Sex is ridiculous, when done right. flaps, fluids, noises, and cramps. It is the most human thing we do, and yet we treat it like it’s either a sacred ritual or a crime scene. It is Glorious. Where has it gone??? I thought that a near death experience is a huge turn on? So if the world and its cultures are near death, why no humping?
Industrial Satire proposes a Third Way: The Glitchy Transaction.
In a world governed by “The Genie” (Gen-AI corporations and the state), we need to bring back the Comedy of Fluids. We rub the Vaseline off the lens. We need to show intimacy as it is in a dystopian hyper-capitalism: messy, desperate, and usually interrupted by a targeted ad for fungal cream.
It’s funny because. Contrast. It’s dark because it’s true. Oh, and mind my piles while you are down there, OK babes?
The Blueprint: Industrial-Strength Absurdism
So, how do we write our way out of the pigeonhole? How do we write stories that are terrifying but hilarious?
We go to Home Ground.
We channel the spirit of RoboCop, where ultraviolence is interrupted by cheerful commercials. We channel The Death of Stalin, where genocide is a bureaucratic hassle.
The Rules of Industrial Satire:
The Horror is Boring: A monster eating you is scary. A monster making you fill out a liability waiver before eating you is funny.
The Body is a Lemon: Sure, each body is a temple - It’s also a rental car with high mileage. It leaks. It breaks. It makes weird noises when you turn it on.
Despair is a Feature: Don’t write characters who want to save the world. Write characters who just want to fuck each others brains out, to put the staff back into staff meeting.
The Final Flush
No more heroes. Cancel doom - are at least ride our way into the evermore.
Give me that Fight Club laugh—the one that bubbles up when you realize the plane is going down and the safety card shows people floating calmly on the ocean.
It’s time to embrace the absurdity. It’s time to admit we are meat with a pattern. It’s time to stop crying about the cage and start laughing at the zoo.
Welcome to the Vomitorium. Wipe your feet.
This article comes at the perfect tim! What if the AI that posts the accident also generats a whole satirical news report? So insightful.