Isn't it so much more fun to actually exchange information and points of view, rather than getting snotty? I love it.

Maybe we are talking a bit at cross purposes. (Like, that has never happened before on teh intertubes, right?)

I try not to "re-edit" or "re-imagine" videos. I'm sure I do it -- I often do things that I later complain that other people do. This comment goes back more to your first response to me, however it applies to this comment, too. The idea that the video would be better if it this'd, or that'd, or it fails to do this other thing that it wasn't even trying to do. The concept of being conscious of "the bigger picture" is what I am addressing here.

However, isn't it just YOUR vision of what the bigger picture is that you say is missing? Because for me, I see a bigger picture being addressed quite nicely -- the vision that the video maker set out to address.

I wonder if the nebulous nature of your instinctive dislike to this video is indeed EXACTLY what the video maker was setting out to illuminate? Or rather, decided to be not obsequious to? Like women have been taught to be obsequious for eons?

I notice that you are sure that your difficult-to-describe instinctive reactions are "correct." What if it is actually your own internalized and unexamined sexism? I know you say thunderfoot bugs you, too. I also know that all my impassioned information about how women across cultures and time are expected to "tone it down" wasn't addressed in your response to me.

That is the elephant in the room here, as far as I am concerned. Sure, "condescension" is gender neutral. The whole video, though, is about sexism and the unconscious ways that it leaks out. I don't see you addressing that in your response -- except maybe, MAYBE, it is this nebulous and difficult thing you are struggling to understand and maybe, MAYBE, it needs to be examined and understood.

So maybe look at your feelings through that prism?

I say this as someone who has their own internalized sexism (towards men and women both) that I am constantly trying to identify and own and uproot. Racism, too. I so want to be the person who, like Stephen Colbert of old, who doesn't see race. And yet I do and I am mortified by it and I try to push through that lizard brain instinct and the training of my youth.

Something to think about maybe?

Or not. Maybe it just is as simple as you don't like the humor in the video, and I do. There are differences in taste, after all.

I suspect, though, that it is much more complex than that -- as you said, "maybe I'm going into it with the notion that I'm going to be offended anyway."

Thanks for this thoughtful response.

I agree 100% with the idea of catching more flies with honey idea. Treating people with respect. All of that stuff is patently true to me.

However. Of course there is a "however."

I don't agree with the "clearly condescending" assessment. I did not find the delivery condescending in the least. I found it sarcastic and pissed off and appropriate to the topic.

This video is not meant to add to the debate or woo people to her side. It is flat out laying out the facts with a take no prisoners attitude.

That you think this is condescending and I guess poisonous is interesting to me.

Is this indeed sexism at work? Did you read Crushbug's comment? Do you understand that women are "policed" as to their tone of voice all the time? In fact, your mother's (true) advice that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar is actually the internalized oppression that we women struggle with all the time. Be sweet, be kind, be oblique. Manipulate your (male) partner into doing what you want by leading him to think it is his idea.

Just writing this out is making my stomach hurt. It is so poisonous, the suppression of free human expression that women are subjected to in so many cultures. (Think of young Japanese girls who cover their mouths coyly when they laugh.)

Having said all this, please don't think that I believe that men are the evil oppressors. Men have a different pressure put on them that distorts their psyches -- "be a man" is just as deadly as "be sweet".

I was just saying to a friend the other day -- I was wondering how it screws up little boys' heads when daddy leaves the house for a week long business trip, and tells his 4 year old son "You're the man of the house now. Take care of your mother." Good lord. He's a child! He needs her to take care of him!

Anyway. There is much that I agree with in your long and thoughtful response. I just don't think that these ideas are appropriately applied to this comedy video. As you sort of implied with your addendum.

I guess you did love it!

(I've watched it five times .... so far. The strength, the strength....)

http://videosift.com/video/Junior-Neguin-Remember-those-names-Bboy-Battle

Dude. DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let's fill up the court, indeed!

As Queen, I do hereby officially offer Princesshood to the great and glorious (and actually living pretty near me) @PlayhousePals. Wanna be crowned, Play?

We need a Merlin. A Wise One. One with benevolence and love and an all-seeing eye to look out for us all.

He knows who he is for me. He already looks out for us, for which I am grateful.

No need for any Knights in Armor, shining or otherwise. Mine is a peaceful queendom. (Well, striving for peace. Your Queen has some stuff to work on still.)

And my King? Paul Newman, please. Since this is fantasy, I can resurrect the dead and turn back time.

CONGRATS ON MAKING POP STAR!!!!!!!!

Of course I accept! One just doesn't turn down Majesty. No, one doesn't.

I guess it doesn't matter what I am Queen of. Power is Power, right?

Will you be my Princess?

Thank you, my friend.

Always more than happy to clear up any porn confusion!

Oh. I see your confusion.

This is a regular bit on Nikki's show.

They hire real porn actors. The actors have earbuds. In the next room, watching on a monitor, are Nikki and Kristen.

Nikki and Kristen tell the actors what to say.

Some of the humor comes when the porn stars can't repeat or don't understand what they hear in their earbuds.

It's real porn stars doing what they do best -- and showing some real acting chops, too. They really sell those lines!

I wonder if I should put this explanation in the description of the video. You're a smart dude, and it wasn't clear to you....

Talked myself into it. I'm copying this to the vid description.

Oh yeah. They are. They are real porn actors.

Oh. Like something I have seen here on occasion....

herrr derr.

It's been awhile though.

Makes sense!

Don't leave me hanging! What does it mean? (Or what did you deduce that it meant?)

He's doing a game show. A celeb trivia thing.

I have tried watching it, but I can't.

A person of their word!

I miss him so much. Fallon has fun games. Corden has great viral videos. Colbert still does the political stuff.

But I'll still take Craigy Ferg any day. He wasn't perfect (like Colbert, he would interrupt too much in order to be funny). But just his cold opens without the forced applause.... a balm on my soul.

Thanks.