Please explain (anyone, not necessarily Prof. Kerr). I've watched it twice, and other than the obsession with the Supreme Court and the "Paul Clement won't return my calls" gag, I just don't get it. Perhaps I'm only a journeyman Supreme Court geek...
Lots of jokes can be explained, though I'll admit that not all of them can.
If you can't explain the actual joke, can you tell me in what way it's funny? Is it, for example,
* funny because you're laughing at Goldstein for promoting himself while feigning humility?
* funny because you're laughing with Goldstein for being a hopeless Supreme Court geek by having an iPhone full of professional-looking photos of Supreme Court justices and Supreme Court bar types?
* funny because it's a takeoff on an actual iPhone commercial that I simply haven't seen?
* funny in a cute way?
* funny in a vomit-inducing way?
* funny in a geek porn way?
I'm more confused than anything, but if it's truly inexplicable then I'll let it rest.
Most (or at least many) geeks would be more concerned about having Paul Clement return one's call than the hottie met at the bar last night. After all, there are many attractive people. There is only one Solicitor General.
Unless you have much more game than I, at some point you have sat around obsessing over whether a given person was going to return your call. So it's funny in the sense that, instead of "stalking" some hottie, he's tripping because Clement hasn't returned his call.
I don't know if the video is funny or not, but in my mind, it's masterful marketing. I posted about the video on my site, MyShingle.com and was just interviewed about use of lawyer videos, such as Goldstein's and others for Lawyers Weekly (granted, it's not the NY Times, but it does have a fairly high circulation rate among solo and small firm lawyers). And when the next coveted high tech copyright or First Amendment/school blogger case or high tech patent or antitrust case heads for the USSC, will you all still be laughing when the case goes to Goldstein?
Doesn't TG get pretty much every SCOTUS case these days? It seems like it, anyway.
I didn't think the skit was that funny, but the idea definitely had potential. If a few of the story lines were developed a bit more, some of the lines were adjusted, and the timing were slightly improved: GOLD. Perhaps Akin Gump would be interested in hiring a comedy writer to its staff.
Au contraire, mon vieux. As Henri Bergson writes in his seminal Le rire (1901),
Il suffira, pour s’en convaincre, de remarquer qu’un personnage comique est généralement comique dans l’exacte mesure où il s’ignore lui-même. Le comique est inconscient. Comme s’il usait à rebours de l’anneau de Gygès, il se rend invisible à lui-même en devenant visible à tout le monde.
Heck, I am so not a SC geek (didn't know who Goldstein is, only vaguely recognized Clement's name), and I still thought it was very funny and very well done.
There are three times when you laugh at a joke:
Once, when you hear it.
Once, when it's explained to you.
And, once, when you understand it.
You are correct, it was funny.
If you can't explain the actual joke, can you tell me in what way it's funny? Is it, for example,
* funny because you're laughing at Goldstein for promoting himself while feigning humility?
* funny because you're laughing with Goldstein for being a hopeless Supreme Court geek by having an iPhone full of professional-looking photos of Supreme Court justices and Supreme Court bar types?
* funny because it's a takeoff on an actual iPhone commercial that I simply haven't seen?
* funny in a cute way?
* funny in a vomit-inducing way?
* funny in a geek porn way?
I'm more confused than anything, but if it's truly inexplicable then I'll let it rest.
Unless you have much more game than I, at some point you have sat around obsessing over whether a given person was going to return your call. So it's funny in the sense that, instead of "stalking" some hottie, he's tripping because Clement hasn't returned his call.
To me, that's hilarious. To you, it might not be.
Many things in life are like that.
I didn't think the skit was that funny, but the idea definitely had potential. If a few of the story lines were developed a bit more, some of the lines were adjusted, and the timing were slightly improved: GOLD. Perhaps Akin Gump would be interested in hiring a comedy writer to its staff.
All in all, it was a cute spoof.