Author: Robert Brockway

Year 4 of 1900🌭 has begun. Can you believe it? We’re no longer plucky young comedy rookies hoping to make an impression on the chief, but seasoned veterans of the Hilarity Wars nursing whiskeys to block out the memories. This is an establishment now. An institution. One more year and we can start growing fat and corrupt, earning our inevitable comeuppance! 

This place could exist nowhere else, and in no other way. Look at this ragtag crew of rough ridin’ motherfuckers.

In year 3 of Hot Dog, Seanbaby wrote an article entirely about his friend’s weird puzzle collection. Imagine pitching a comedy article about going into the basement of a friend’s house and making fun of the pictures on old puzzle boxes. Absolutely nowhere else on the internet would allow him to do this. There’s a contingency in place to blackball you if you even try.

In year 3 of Hot Dog, Lydia Bugg wrote a followup piece on the man driven completely insane by Garfield-themed food. I know it only ran a couple days ago, but it’s fucking crazy! We not only accepted an article about a dude who invented an off-brand Garfield fursona to wage war on Garfield, but a followup about that story like we’re reporting on a town poisoning. The people need to know!

In year 3 of Hot Dog, I brought you Billy Karate. Let’s break down what a bad idea that was: I asked an audience of non-filmmakers to read a screenplay, a format never meant for public consumption, and I asked that they do it for fun, which nobody – including and especially filmmakers – will do, and then I gave it to them five pages at a time over a period of months. Pitch that idea to any other publication and they’ll take your Writing Badge and Normal Gun. But here everybody loved it, it landed me representation. I had to pull it because it may be a movie someday. Impossible, laughable!

In year 3 of Hot Dog, Seanbaby and I teamed up for our first and only piece of SEO friendly, timely content. We wrote about Elden Ring while it was still hot! We dedicated the entire article to making up shit about Elden Ring that sounded like it might be true, but wasn’t. We are full-throatedly spitting in the face of success.

In year 3 of Hot Dog, Tom Reimann discovered his passions, which were the year 1997, and weirdly horny Mormon Doom novelizations. Go sell either of those things to our surviving competitors, all none of them. See if they accept “1997: The article. No? Okay, how about this: a long-forgotten video game tie-in book by a closet Mormon about desperately wanting to fuck, but not fucking – never fucking!”  

In year 3 of Hot Dog, Brendan McGinley realized he couldn’t make fun of wrestler Kevin Nash’s comic book hard enough without actually making a Nash comic of his own. That’s an insane amount of effort to land a few excellent punchlines, and nobody else would ever authorize it. You’d have to explain the idea to lawyers who would hilariously insist you couldn’t violate the Nash IP like that, as though it wouldn’t be twice as funny to be sued by Kevin Nash for this!

In year 3 of Hot Dog, Alex Schmidt discovered that all he wants to write about is Pierce Brosnan movies. You’re hired, we love it, said nobody except us. 

In year 3 of Hot Dog, Sissyneck wrote a piece about visiting the museum of Frank Frazetta, the godfather of van art, and it wound up being a touching exploration of family businesses and failing legacies. Lots of places would accept that article. “And then it’s written borderline illegibly, as though transcribed from the ramblings of an exploding tire injury victim recovering in the back room of a Jiffy Lube” is less likely to be accepted. 

In year 3 of Hot Dog, we added Dennard Dayle to the tubed meat crew, and many respectable publications are proud to host his brilliant, intelligent, viciously funny work. Would they accept his multi-thousand word essay on the 1970s pulp novel about black staff waging war on a country club? That was his first piece for us. “It’s perfect!” We told him. “Never leave us!”

In year 3 of Hot Dog, Jason Pargin, respected and critically acclaimed author, wrote us a substantial column about how you can track exactly when people jack it to YouTube videos.

In year 3 of Hot Dog, we did Anime Week! We don’t talk about Anime Week. We certainly don’t link to it.

In year 3 of Hot Dog, we podcasted for the first time about Mountain Monsters, the reality series about hillbillies fighting bigfeet. Other podcasts wouldn’t even mention that. We dedicated a whole podcast to a single episode, and then did it again. We’ll keep doing it, there’s no accountability! We got Ty Franck, co-creator of The Expanse – one of the biggest original science fiction properties in the world – on our show. So what did we talk to him about? The Grabowski Shuffle, Mike Ditka’s bizarre direct-to-video attempt to ape the Superbowl Shuffle. We got Josh Barnett, former UFC champion, on the podcast: We talked to him about Lone Tiger, an underground martial arts movie about how all wrestlers must murder a hobo to become a pro. We sang the weirdly romantic theme song to him. He loved it.

In year 3 of Hot Dog, our store hosted AI generated comedy shirts whose entire point was how bizarre and incomprehensible they were, and then we gave all the profits to charity. Fuck you, profit! We added a site mascot that we deliberately did nothing with. We didn’t even name him! This was always the plan, because we thought it would be funny. You literally cannot force us into a viable business model. 

You guys got in on it, too: In year 3 of Hot Dog, you motherfuckers ruined Paul Dano’s entire life. We actively encouraged our fanbase to harass a beloved celebrity! To this day, if you search “Sensei Rainbow” on Twitter you’ll find Paul Dano fans responding with bewilderment and betrayal. No corporate lawyers ok’d this – in fact, if you tell a lawyer we did this, we’ll fucking find you. That’s a 1900🌭 Guaranteed Actionable Threat!

What a journey it’s been. And it’s not over, no matter what the haters say – if we had them, which we don’t, because we’re so beloved. The beauty of 1900🌭 is that it’s a place for comedy writers to shine, not beholden to traffic, to metrics, to ad dollars – we are only beholden to you wonderful freaks and I think I’ve just proven you’ll let us get away with anything. We can talk about whatever the fuck we want. For example, I’m going to pause in this recap of the third year of our amazing independent comedy site to write about why I can’t write about Coleman Moore. 

Before you do anything else, watch this video for Coleman’s pop ballad, “Origami.” 

We’ve trained you to think source material is optional in our articles, it’s not here. You have to watch that whole video to understand anything that’s going to follow. 

Okay, you saw that, right? I’m serious. Don’t continue until you do. 

What you saw was an insufferable hipster sucked into a cult recruiter’s Myst clone. 

He dances like this.

And I don’t think you’re supposed to laugh at it. 

The video is full of self-indulgent, pretentious tropes like Coleman singing woundedly straight to camera with a third eye painted on his face.

An old man replaces him to sing the next line, because that’s like saying something, anything, about youth. Or maybe time. Elder abuse? Whichever gets you the most handjobs in the green room. 

The lyrics are terrible, but they’re not over the top bad. You see what he’s getting at. It’s almost an elegant way to say “you undo me” – but just clumsy enough to be hilarious.

So here’s the catch. You decide, right now: Is this a joke?

Is this a very well executed parody, or is this a genuine effort by a parody of a human being? You commit to your decision this second. Joke or real?

I thought it was sincere, and that it was extremely funny in its oblivious earnestness. This is the realest art Coleman Moore could make, and he’d literally never understand the words out of your mouth if you did anything less than praise it.

The comments prove my point.

Or wait, holy shit is that comment a parody? What’s with the fake-out at the end? Why would you fake-out a compliment in a comment? Is he false flag attacking his own video? I am losing my grip on reality and it was never firm.

All right, now that you have your decisions recorded, watch Coleman Moore’s video for “Precum.”

Right from the title it’s a joke. It’s somehow the same vibe, but executed to a degree that has to be parody. Here’s a shot from that as he makes goofy precumming faces while he sings the chorus. 

Here’s that chorus:

“I did not make a move / but I got precum all over from cuddling all night with you / these unintended spoon feels / honey I can hardly deal / dark stains, party jeans / your face, a memory…”

So is that a joke? Probably yes. Maybe yes. I’m not sure anymore. Here’s where it gets crazy. If that’s a joke, does that mean “Origami” is now a joke? Is the whole thing a bit, or is he wildly veering between sincerity and parody with absolutely no cues to distinguish between the two? Because that is also a completely insane thing to do.

I know what’ll help. Here’s his bio on Bandcamp.

That doesn’t help at all!

Here’s another wrinkle: If it’s all a joke, it’s one he’s been making for five straight years. 

To an audience of 88. 

He has 88 subscribers. Start a YouTube channel right now, tomorrow you’ll have 75 bots subscribed. This guy is creating music videos with decent execution and reasonably high production values for an audience of 13 real people and four of them are me. These videos have 500 views and 400 of them are also me. If it’s a joke, he’s been doing it for five god damn years with nobody, not a single person, ever getting the punchline until right now.

Maybe! 

Jesus. That kind of unrewarded dedication is too crazy to contemplate. It speaks of a supernatural madness. That’s Lovecraft shit. So it can’t be a joke, right? 

Right. I have changed stances. You might have, too.

Now here’s a documentary about Coleman Moore that he filmed himself. It’s only 15 minutes and you’re committed now, just watch it. No really, it’s vital. You can be the 335th view in three years.

All done? Good. This is a good use of your time.

In the film, Coleman meets and pitches himself to a prospective agent… who dresses like John Waters making fun of Chuck Norris, and walks like a necromancer animated his skeleton but not the rest of him. He moves like his bones are steering his flesh. 

They grab a mall pretzel together.

Here’s how Jack Skellington trapped in a meat prison sits down.

Here’s one of their conversations.

AGENT: “You got that shirt-open mentality. And I um, wanted to ask you. Don’t your torso get cold?” 

COLEMAN: “Yeah my belly button. It activates.”

AGENT: “It activates your belly button?”

COLEMAN: “Yeah. It tingles.”

That conversation is immediately followed by one about how Coleman is a serious person at heart, and he wishes that being playful came more naturally to him, but there’s nothing goofy about his art. This deadpan conversation about Coleman’s feelings on art and sincerity right after the bellybutton activation shit serves as a perfect setup/punchline… if this is all a Best in Show style gag. If not, it’s pure psychopathy.

So, vibe check. What do you think now? Is this real, is it a joke? Is it somehow both? Is it crazier if it’s both, or neither? Do terms like “sincerity” and “parody” even apply to whatever this is? It’s a comedy mystery that’s haunted my brain for months and I have no idea what the answer is. 

I can’t write about it because if it’s all real, this is just a quirky queer boy doing art the best he can and I don’t want to publicly mock that, even if his leprechaun dance gives me giggles every single time I see it. But if it’s a joke, then it’s a savage and cutting one that deserves more attention. It’s completely surreal and executed brilliantly, a high-budget effort spanning five years to an audience of exactly nobody.

Except me.

And even I’m still a maybe!

This is impossible to write… 

For anyplace but 1900🌭. And even then only as an aside to show you the kinds of things your patronage allows me to get away with. 

So thanks for making this beautiful, bizarre, lawless portal to comedy Valhalla possible. And for telling all your friends about it constantly, which we assume you’re doing. Because if there’s one thing year 3 proved, it’s that we’ll never let success, profit, or job security get in the way of a good joke. That’s why you love us, that’s why we deserve to be loved by you, and it’s also why we will die in the gutter if you don’t keep getting people to sign up for this. We’ll never do it! 

And thanks for sticking around for year 4: the year we finally rally our 2000+ Hot Dog army to attack and invade a small coastal American city!