Neo Quinn
I'm talking about Dave Barry
Neo Quinn
Dave Barry was a comedy writer mainly active in the 80s and 90s
Neo Quinn
who was HUGELY influential on my young mind and sense of humor
Neo Quinn
I suspect I have more Barryisms in my head than I'm consciously aware of
Neo Quinn
but in hindsight he was also
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a weird guy
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I'll sum it up through three bits I remember
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in descending order
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1. Video games
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As an older guy, Dave Barry never really got video games, but
Neo Quinn
he wrote a whole essay once about how video games are extremely important for society
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because
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- Kids understand them but adults don't, which gives kids unknowable power
Neo Quinn
- They bring communities together, citing a time when his neighbor summoned his son because his neighbor's son couldn't get his man past the horse
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2. Gender essentialism
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A LOT of Davy Barry's work was about 'men be like this and women be like that'
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in a very 90s comedy sort of way
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and none of it aged well
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an example that sums it up in short was the idea of
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"Men are hardwired to want to make kids, women are hardwired to want to have kids"
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a lot of this brain poison infected me for a very long time
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and I wish it hadn't because it sucks
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3. The Fucking Beach Story
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this kind of ties into the gender essentialism stuff but it burns into my memory
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because it says way more about dave barry than it does about men
Neo Quinn
It goes something approximately like
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If you're a married woman, some day you'll see your husband ogling a girl half your age on the beach
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and you'll think, is this what he wants? does he want me to be some floozy with the body of a 19 year old?
Neo Quinn
no, he does not.
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(I must emphasize for the next line that I am paraphrasing someone else's words)
Neo Quinn
He wishes you had the body of a 16 year old.
𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗡𝗲𝘄𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿!
𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗡𝗲𝘄𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿!
HOW IN GOD'S NAME DID THAT STORY END WORSE THAN I WAS IMAGINING
nerDIE
D-Dave
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even as a young idiot I was like
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"this seems like a weird thing to say"
✨kaylin✨
oh geez, I remember reading a lot of Dave Barry's stuff
Neo Quinn
he wrote a fiction book that wasn't bad and that I have definitely referenced in writing before
Neo Quinn
for tower of valor players, the epilogue line for Dr. Talos was a reference to Dave Barry's Big Trouble
✨kaylin✨
I was just about to bring up that book! Though, admittedly, the only thing I remember about it is the hallucinogenic toad
Neo Quinn
("Nobody asked what happened to Caesar Talos)
Neo Quinn
"
Ji-snow
I remember Dave Barry, that stuff was weird. Didn't read much of it, but sometimes my dad would have them.
NekoIncardine
I just remember his hyperfixation on 3.5 gallon toilets, honestly
NekoIncardine
I read a fair bit of his stuff and yeaaaah so much of it does NOT hold up.
NekoIncardine
Though one of his genuinely funnier bits was "I cannot tell you which brands of 1.6-gallon-flush toilet actually work, but you can go to THIS business at THIS specific address and ask them"
NekoIncardine
Because he sorta forgot he was nationally syndicated. So he just casually referenced a specific business in Miami
Like a Phoenix
man i remember his books
Like a Phoenix
still own some of them
Like a Phoenix
his computer book was one of my first introductions to porn
....Farlem.
I feel like Dave Barry is not nearly as bad as other 90s Nerd Icons that people put on pedestals still (scott adams) but he absolutely has a deed to the pipeline of getting there
bluecanary
i loved dave barry articles as a kid and i took apart all my favorite funny lines of his until i could figure out why they were funny and then i stopped reading them because i had eaten his powers
✨kaylin✨
bluecanary
: an excellent plan
DISCIPLINE 𓌏
I remember one of his lines about people packed into a subway like drops of water bursting to escape