For those of you who think New Yorker humor is inscrutable, cartoon editor Robert Mankoff’s recent post on Nipplegate could generally put the ROFL in anyone’s MAO.
For those who missed the origin of Nipplegate, it started when the above cartoon by Mick Stevens posted in the New Yorkers Facebook page apparently activated some kind of nipple-sensing guidelines and led to the page being temporarily taken down. Mankoff surmised that the huge, sexualized nipples in this cartoon had transgressed against Facebook’s nudity guidelines, below.
Mankoff had a bit of fun with the cartoon, and has Stevens draw a parody revision, which both Gawker and New York Magazine thought was an actual redraw, leading to perhaps the most condescending explanation of a joke ever:
Mick redrew the cartoon not for Facebook but especially for the blog post. The purpose was humor by way of ridicule. Adding clothing not only renders the cartoon humorless but meaningless as well.
Nipplegate has truly taught us much.
There’s a theory that you can replace any New Yorker cartoon’s caption with “Christ, what an asshole.” and have it retain its humor. This one certainly fits!
When a similar thing happened to a much smaller time east coast cartoonist, one of the cartoonists in the Philadelphia scene tried to get banned by posting a drawing of breasts every day. She gave up after like 30 days, though, because nothing ever happened.
I think you have to have a certain profile for Fbook to spot your nip-slip.
Is that why Kelly was doing that?
Haha, I continue to love America’s FEAR of…THE NIPPLE!!!
As long as we can always bathe into seing men’s nipples, I’m ok with America fear of the nipples.
Brings to mind the Seinfeld episode about the obscure New Yorker cartoon. The show was funny, and I got the jokes.
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