I can’t take it anymore. It needs to stop and I’m going to be the one who stops it. Ninja humor and its entire offspring (I’m looking in your direction, pirates) just needs to be put to bed forever. Don’t get me wrong, I get it. Ninjas are fast and they kill things without their prey even realizing it until it’s too late, but guess what, that stops getting funny after seven years. Now before you get all up in arms about killing me for attacking such an essential element to college humor, let me explain myself in the form of an overly long, opinionated, and pompous editorial.
Alright kids, step into my time machine, it’s
It’s 1999, you’re between the ages of eleven and fifteen and you have recently discovered the wonderful and constantly changing world of the internet meme. Your then best friend “BigSurf2004” sends you the following message on AIM: “lol man chek this!!!1.” You click, and oh my God, it’s Real Ultimate Power. You see all of those ninjas flipping out and playing guitar while that wonderful midi of “Big Pimpin’” blasts out of your speakers and all of those warm childhood memories of playing with your Ninja Turtles come rushing back and suddenly, ninjas don’t have to be amphibians to be awesome. Ninjas are the coolest, funniest things in the world. God bless you, internet. Alright, back into the time machine, don’t push.
So you’re in college now and you’re surrounded by all of these people who are in the same age bracket as you with similar backgrounds and interests. One day you are with your friends and somebody does something with remarkable quickness, and you remark “Man, you’re like a NINJA, all HI-YA and killing stuff,” everyone laughs and joins in because they all saw Real Ultimate Power seven years ago and played with Ninja Turtles as kids too. Then you start talking about ninjas killing things, who they can and cannot kill, if Chuck Norris is a ninja or not, and if ninjas feel the effects of alcohol. Everyone loves ninjas; they are a force that brings college kids of all types together out of support for their black garbed heroes. There are ninja parties, ninja concerts, ninja shirts, ninja clubs, ninja facebook groups, and anything that is remotely discrete or quick suddenly becomes a ninja. Then you realize that making other things ninjas makes them just as, if not even more awesome. Pirate ninjas, Viking ninjas, ninja groundhogs, ninja cats, ninja emo kids; it didn’t matter, if you put “ninja” before or after another noun it automatically became awesome. I took part in this ninja fueled thrill ride as well. I once made an incredibly poor Photoshop of an owl dressed as a ninja and thought I was the funniest person on the planet. But that was in 2002 and that part of me is dead and gone as it should be in all of you as well.
One thing that I’ve noticed in my three years of higher education is that college kids will take something and suck the life out of it until there is nothing left but a grayed, shriveled corpse begging to be put out of its misery, and usually, they do die from overexposure, as they should. But ninjas, for some reason, won’t go away. “That’s because ninjas are unkillable!” you say, and my reply to you, good sir, is to shut up. It isn’t 1987, and it isn’t 1999. Ninjas are old hat, and there is nothing clever about them anymore. Please, please stop. And this is not just for my sake, but for yours as well. I know it may be hard, it will be like putting down your beloved aged pet, but in the end, your favorite martial artists will appreciate you for it, and it will make you a better person as well. Let ninjas take their place in internet meme Heaven (or Hell) with the Numa Numa kid, Strongbad, All Your Base, End of the World, and Rejected. Send them home. And come Halloween when ninjas come up to your door asking for candy (or in JMU’s case, alcohol), just say no, and then punch them hard in the face.
1 comment:
bitch much?
a couple points, man. First, I'd say about 99% of the people here in 2006 (in case you and your time machine need a reference point) that find "ninja humor" funny don't do some because some lingering remnant of 80's nostalgia guilts them into laughing. We laugh because the subject matter is ridiculous. It's surreal. Doggone it, it's SILLY.
I know the cultural elite have spoken and declared certain fads and jokes outdated and therefore worthless (as well as the people who laugh at them), but here's the kicker: most of us don't really care. We laugh BECAUSE these things are outdated and ridiculous and annoy your average humor elitist.
so there you have it--my bitchin' response. Hi-YA!
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