Give Me More Stuff!

Written by Seuamuli Des Bentin
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
Self-deprecation as a writing style may not necessarily require the writer to be totally devoid of an Ego, but could also flourish where ones Ego exists but is of minor significance thereby enabling the writer to unflinchingly weather the onslaught of his own self-directed barbs and bear the brunt of his jocular modesty. Self-deprecating humor works better for stand-up comics or comedians and relies heavily for success on the belief, or hope, that your audience will disagree with your self-directed put-downs and applaud you for your biting wit, illuminating intellect and courage at being able to laugh at yourself. Instant feedback is crucial in comedy or humor to accurately gauge the receptiveness, or otherwise, of your audience to your material. Humorous writers do not have such a luxury. Expressing an opinion or commenting on local and global issues and events that you just couldn’t let past without a jab does not have to be delivered in such a fashion of course. There are serious writers who deal with serious matters very seriously. I fall a considerable distance from such an ideal and employ a two-stroke mixture of one part self-deprecating humor to twenty five parts of home-grown sarcasm. And I think it works though it can be a tad smokey at times! The number of people who have read the editions of the half-a-page-of-nonsense posted on the Newsline web page (newslinesamoa.com) suggests that either there are a few readers out there who get their giggle fix from the two-stroke mix, or there are a lot of public servants with access to the net on work computers popping in to check out what the Meauli fiapoko from Magiagi has got to waffle on about each week. Actually, it was a comment from someone about last weeks edition of the half-a-page-of-nonsense (“So is Newsline the only newspaper silly enough to print your stuff?”) which prompted me to examine the deeper meaning of silliness or being silly. Self-deprecating humor can sometimes have an unintentional negative effect on the writer’s associates and those in close proximity. But I was not upset because of the comment implying that I said that Newsline is silly. It probably is and you most definitely are under a cloud of suspicion for reading this. It was just that I was not amused at the reference to this column as “stuff”! “Stuff” is the collective name for things like a laughable forty year old drugs conviction maximum penalty of seven years which nobody thought should be updated as often as they did department vehicles, or the equally ridiculous Somare proposed Mono Sodium Glutamate Pacific Islands Forum sub-group which almost diverted the attention from the orchestrated Tongan “Dictator’s welcome” for an increasingly suspect Fijian strongman and our own case of Hamlet spitting against the wind regarding the Nivea television advertisements. “Stuff” like the Right Hand Drive nuclear reactor meltdown which the yellow Church of Scientology tents effectively cooled leaving a radioactive cloud feeding rumors and speculation about locally assembled Chinese vehicles and payback time! If I could borrow from “Gus C” in his letter to the editor a couple of days ago, “Seki a “stuff”. Oso ai maso. So is it “stuff” or self-deprecating humor that makes people read this column? I’m not sure. But I would certainly wish that all those hits on the weekly half-a-page-of-nonsense posted on the Newsline web page could equate to dollars so I could make some money from this! But if you log on next week and there is no sign of the “Power To The People” column, then it is quite likely that Pio did not take kindly to me suggesting that according to individual taste and opinion, his newspaper was probably silly. Have a nice one folks! Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Write comment Name Email Title Comment

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