I had a childhood just like every other sob story people write about: my father was abusive, my parents divorced, and my mom was too busy to pay attention to me. I have to give credit where it’s due, however, because I’ve since learned through years of snooping that my father threw my mom, my sister, and I out because he found out she was trying to leave him. With only the clothes on our backs and the rest shoved in trash bags, my mom scooped us both up and moved us into a nice, little town house when I was four. My memories of that house consisted of being downstairs in the living room, either sitting on my mother’s red, suede couch or on the chicken wire carpet floor, watching a copious amount of television. Although I haven’t lived there in 6 years, I can remember the uncomfortable fabric vividly, the source of many rug-burn scars on my back. I watched anything marketed to kids: Nickelodeon, Noggin, Disney, Disney Jr., PBS Kids, Cartoon Network, Fox Kids. If it could make me laugh, I watched it. I later learned, however, that laughter couldn’t solve everything.
Even though it kept me company, my friendship with the television stunted my social growth, and perpetuated the social anxiety and awkwardness that follows me to this day. I learned to use black humor and controversy to tell people the truth of my life—my crumbling relationship with my father, my struggles with making friends in my neighborhood and school, and being bullied were all the ingredients for depression, which I still grapple with today. To my knowledge, none of the shows I used to watch contained jokes about drinking, sex, suicide, and other similarly wholesome topics, but having my older sister around exposed me to the wonders of MTV and VH1. I watched Jersey Shore and Tru Life through the slit of her bedroom door, or, on the unexpected occasion when we weren’t at each other’s throats and could spend time together. These shows gave me a taste of what I thought adulthood was, and I teased these topics into casual conversation. When I didn’t know how to communicate my feelings, I lashed out the only way I knew how—well, other than threatening my life. I tried to shock the people around me, hoping that they’d reach out a hand to help me. But the kids around me didn’t get my jokes, and my teachers reprimanded me for being inappropriate. When someone did understand, I became addicted to the laughter, even though my jokes were a cry for help—self-deprecating jokes about my weight, intelligence, and personality were just the beginning; I believed my bullies, my suicide jokes became attempts, and sarcasm was a way to diss whoever I deemed deserving. The humor I possessed at way too young of an age was rooted in the trauma I experienced—but it was severely underdeveloped.
That is, until one summer, when I grew bored with Fosters Home and Ed, Edd, and Eddy, and I found myself lazily pressing the clicker looking for something new. A man with a round and wrinkled face and thick-rimmed, bulky eyeglasses deceived me into thinking he was friendly, but when he opened his mouth, a loud, abrasive voice compelled me to turn the volume down, even though I was home alone. I swooned, and began frantically searching for this man’s name in the TV Guide: Danny DeVito. He dropped his monster condom for his magnum dong. This was the first Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode I’ve ever seen, and the beginning of the real age of corruption.
***
Comedy Central, FXX, Adult Swim, ABC, MTV, VH1—they consumed my every hour, especially during my transition from my old chicken-wire carpet to a new, dull one in our new house. I cursed my mother for making me move right before middle school, as I thought I was finally making friends who I could connect with. I turned to every comedian I could find, the more controversial the better. I researched the jokes I didn’t understand until they were funny. I watched Stewart and Colbert every night because they made the news interesting. South Park taught me satire, and how to think critically of society. My love for learning soon surpassed my addiction to laughter, and I became interested in researching and watching everything, not wanting a single joke, reference, or allusion to go over my head. I started to catch innuendos and subliminal messages in cartoons. To some, I was the one who told them about the time Rocko from Rocko’s Modern Life played a phone sex operator in one episode. I idealized the instability of Charlie from Always Sunny, and emulated his sporadic behavior. Whenever I did stupid, impulsive things, I’d scream “Wild card, bitches!” Despite my idiotic tendency to try and be my favorite characters from TV, I took a rather intelligent approach to my consumption of media, analyzing every book, TV show, and movie under a mental microscope to make sure that I wouldn’t be caught up in pop culture. To be one of those people comedians made fun of was one of my biggest fears. (Of course, this led me to being one of those girls who thought they were special because they watched Daria instead of The Jersey Shore, an archetype that I now try to thoroughly avoid.) Still, watching as much television as I did taught me that comedy can be just as complex and sophisticated as any other art form. From “Who’s on First?” to the early days of Rage Quit comics, I found it all to be on par with the minds of Virgil and Sophocles.
Around this time, I was warming up to the teachers in my new school district. They paid closer attention to me than my previous teachers, and praised me for my matter-of-fact demeanor. Although I never did their homework, I was one of the only kids who showed interest in their lessons and I was able to hold my own in conversations outside of class (usually while I was serving detention with them). It’s funny how easily a joke I told in my younger years could be modified to be intelligent instead of dirty or morbid. I cannot tell you how many South Park jokes I turned into witty critics my teachers were amused by. I remember turning to the episode “It’s a Jersey Thing” as reference to why New Jersey was the worst state, something my fourth-grade teacher, a New Jersey native, did not appreciate. My knowledge of current events and pop culture seemed to grant me respect, but there was still a hurting, immature child underneath my façade, using comedy to cope with life—I had just found ways for them to listen to me. However, when the façade broke and I begged for help, they avoided eye contact. All of it built up to multiple breakdowns until one last referral my eighth grade year had me screaming in the principal’s office that I didn’t want to live anymore. On the way to the hospital, the EMT sparked a conversation with me. After explaining what happened, my history, and my truth, all they could muster as a response was a very meek, “You’re very mature for your age.”
Underneath, it felt as though the adults in my life put me on a pedestal, not because of my maturity, but because of the ridiculous juxtaposition of a funny little black girl with opinions and jokes on politics and society—but the truth was, the only reason why I knew as much as I did was because of the hardships I experienced. That doesn’t make people laugh. I concluded that when society fails others, it makes people feel shameful about their comfortable lives, so they turn a blind eye. No one ever thinks to look at those who seem fine, like those who make others laugh. I wonder if that’s how Robin Williams felt before he took his life—it’s what I thought of before I tried to take mine, a couple of months before he succeeded.
***
Nevertheless, my understanding of adults started to evolve from the narrow scope of what I saw on television. My truth no longer seemed as dramatic as it felt during my youth. No longer did I need people’s attention to thrive, because I learned healthier ways to cope on my own. TV and I remain great friends, but I have made healthier friendships with actual human people. I broke up with solitude. I used to think I was the only kid in the world going through what I was going through, but I found more peers who felt as I did, all with entirely different backgrounds and cultures, many with lives worse than mine, but all with the same dissatisfaction of those who ignored their pain during their youth in favor of being able to fit in or be a wallflower. Suddenly, the other weirdos and I formed our own collective and I became a lot less worried about what the other kids would say. I was able to be myself, crude humor and all, with people to laugh with.
Often, we internalize the belief that we should keep our hurtful truths in the shadows. But in learning how to embrace our truths instead, we confront our past in healthy ways, and become genuinely, not cynically, able to laugh. Humor teaches us to appreciate the bad times, because they make the good times so much better. Ignoring the truth creates an internal struggle, but embracing it teaches us to love ourselves for who we truly are. I still struggle to differentiate self-deprecating humor from being able to make fun of myself, but now, many people love me enough to not let me put myself down. I feel truly happy when I’m laughing with them.
