I was too young when I first saw an episode of Whitest Kids You Know. I couldn’t have been much older than 9 or 10. My father, a comedian, didn’t mind that my sister and I watched this really inappropriate stuff. Hell, he usually was the one watching it and we’d just be there taking it all in. I feel like that turned out mostly OK. I never really got in trouble because of watching this stuff. My sister and I could tell that this was inappropriate stuff and not alright for polite company. I think it developed my sense of humor and part of my political beliefs. For I am a huge believer in comedy. Offensive comedy.
I’m no expert on this sort of philosophical definition stuff, but to me, comedy is at its root is about making someone laugh. It could be just a single person. Obviously, that lends everything to being comedy. Yes, but because something can be comedy to someone, that doesn’t make it alright. If you get your yucks from murdering people, obviously, that’s not alright to do.
We see a lot of discourse about comedy today revolving around offensive humor. The offensive humor in question is typical when you make a joke about a person or group of people by using a stereotype about their identity. Like all black people love chicken. Many would say that’s a problematic joke. I say if it makes someone laugh but they can separate the stereotype from reality, that’s fine. A lot of comedy comes from the absurd. In fact, that’s my favorite kind usually.
The absurd is funny. I love racist jokes. I’m also black. Yes. We exist… I also am extremely progressive. I’ve only voted Democratic in my life. I’m a Bernie supporter. I’m a few bad jobs away from a communist revolution. I want equality and I’ll only ever fight for that. While I’ll only ever work for the equality of everyone, I can still find this stuff funny because, to me, inequality and the endorsement of it is absurd, and the absurd is funny to me. This leads me back to Whitest Kids You Know and specifically the whitest kid, Trevor Moore.
Trevor Moore’s passing hit me hard. Like I said, I grew up watching his stuff. Luckily, most of the Whitest Kids You Know content was on youtube. For years after the show was off the air, I’d check out the old skits on youtube. I’d also show them to my friends. I remember when I first showed Whitest Kids to my girlfriend. She instantly loved them. We watched a ton of skits in a row and we would fall off the bed laughing so hard. The Whitest Kids had a way of using super offensive humor. They would do race humor. They would also do jokes on rape and really horrible stuff, but they always did it in a way of showing how absurd it was. One example is from one of their best bits. The specific part is when Trevor Moore, freshly orphaned, is just posing with a black man in the park. A cop comes up and says “Hey kid! What are you doing?” And Trevor replies “Hanging out with black people”. The cop replies with “Where are your parents?”. Trevor says “They’re dead”, claps, and disappears. The scene changes to an out of character Trevor Moore who then explains how they filmed that last scene. He describes how he was filmed on a bluescreen, off location while the black actor was filmed miles away. He ends with the line “I was never in harm’s way for a moment. Isn’t technology wonderful?”.
This still kills me to this day. The absurdity of it all. The cop seeing Trevor’s character hanging out with a black person and thinking it’s a problem. The reality break where still, this concept is deemed absurd. This is my humor. I love it, and I’m sad that someone so integral to that bit and countless other bits I’ve adored is now gone.
The Whitest Kids came back during the pandemic to do a youtube channel where they played DnD, did a news show, and did breakdowns of their old bits. I had been following most of it and loving it. What some might not know is that Trevor himself, before they got into their current stuff on the channel, did 3 episodes of a show called the quarantine show. These are the earliest videos on the channel. They’re goofy, fun little talk shows that start every episode with a bit revolving around Trevor’s dog. They then go into an interview portion with all the other members of Whitest Kids appearing at least once. I love these goofy little shows. There’s a reason there are only 3 episodes. They didn’t perform well compared to the stuff they started to do after, and the time sync was obviously much more than them just sitting down and all talking over zoom. These are some of Trevor’s last creative works though and they’re a great example of his wack absurdist humor. I will cherish them along with everything else he did.
Trevor Moore made people laugh and he wasn’t afraid to do it in ways that went too far. He was an inspiration and a positive influence to the world. He made people laugh and is there anything better than that? He is a huge loss to me personally. My dad was a comedian and one of the things I miss most about him was his jokes. Funny people make life more fun. They take the life around us and try to make joy from it. Trevor was obviously great at this and he will be missed by everyone he’s ever made laugh. Rest in peace Trevor Moore.
Bernard Lamar Rice 