It’s no secret that I loathe pundits. However, today I’m going to have a bit of fun with the concept; we’ll go down to the basement laboratory and create a heinous monstrosity. Yes, I shall create (dun dun dun!) The FrankenPundit: cue the lightning strikes and maniacal laughter! I’m going to take all of the most potent ingredients from the world’s leading pundits and combine them to form a villainous being, as if I’m Dr. Gero creating Cell (RIP Akira Toriyama). The pitchfork wielding crowds and the judgy AI bot will accuse me of the Strawman fallacy. However, it’s not a Strawman if I’m not misrepresenting any particular argument or marketed characteristic. Nice try…
We’ll start in the world of fictional pundits for a moment; the ideal pundit will have the professionalism of Statler and Waldorf. For those unfamiliar, Statler and Waldorf are the two Muppets who sit in the balcony seats of every show and make incredibly snide comments while laughing loudly at the performers expense. Their entire shtick is how unbelievably callous they are and their commentary rarely adds anything in the way of constructive criticism. They exist only to tear down. Like real-life pundits, their resume outside of punditry is rather short and unimpressive, and their material wasn’t exactly a knee-slapper either.
The ideal pundit will also have the temperament of Stephen A. Smith. The failed college basketball prospect is known to be outlandishly boisterous in his critiques. Seriously, it’s even been an SNL punchline. This cartoonish level of manufactured outrage is by design, it is meant to hold as many eyeballs’ captive as possible (for as long as possible). We live in the era of anger-tainment now, thus the pundit needs to shepherd the herd. Having an unstable temperament (whether real or otherwise) is a crucial tool to have; humans love playing monkey see, monkey do.
Speaking of anger-tainment, a pundit should be able to both embolden their core fan base and be absolutely revolting to outsiders. One of the most skilled at this in the world of punditry today is none other than Alex Jones. Jones is a known provocateur who became notorious for claiming that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax, along with many other boisterous claims since. To be clear, I am not defending Jones nor do I agree with his claims. However, only a fool denies Jones’ expertise in using inflammatory language and rage-inducing statements as a selling point. Stephen A. Smith could only dream of having a following to the size and fervor of Alex Jones.
The wise philosopher Aristotle once stated that “it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”, However, we are talking about pundits, not philosophers or educated minds, so let’s discard this ancient guidance and spew nothing but heavy-handed slants. In this regard, the ideal armchair quarterback needs to have the objectivity of John Oliver. The failed comedian from the UK is known for constantly denouncing hardline Republican stances yet has been deafeningly mum on far-left extremism. Seriously, he’s even tried to sway the Supreme Court. Imitating his level of objectivity is a great way for the newcomer pundit to land paid television gigs.
While Oliver specializes in looking backwards (seriously, his catch phrase is Black and Brown communities are disproportionately impacted), many try their hand at predicting the future. However, the gift of FutureSense is rare and requires doing some due diligence (a foreign concept to all of pundit-kind). Thus, the prospective pundit (read: someone who made a terrible choice in life) needs to fly by the seat of their pants like the balding redhead himself, Jim Cramer. Cramer’s ability to not look before he leaps and to have zero skin in the game are both assets to the aspiring pundit. Predictably, Cramer has been off the mark more times than not, so much so that betting against him hasn’t been a bad idea. Cramer’s model of spew first, ask questions never is a valued asset in the realm of backseat driving.
Of course, in the career field of punditry, if one could even call it that (since it’s not a real job), one will be wrong quite often. It takes a man with true backbone to own past failures and to use those lessons to instill a healthy dose of humility. However, pundits are invertebrates thus the true pundit dodges their failures like Floyd Mayweather dodges haymakers. So-called NFL Draft expert Mel Kiper Jr. is the truest example of a pundit who has never been the Man in the Arena, is wrong a shockingly high number of times, and shrugs off his past mistakes while learning absolutely nothing from them. A pundit who can blatantly slither away from any career repercussions from being this bad at their job is something to both behold and openly mock at the same time.
Lastly, the Cell-like monstrosity of a pundit wouldn’t be complete without a short or non-existent resume in the claimed area of expertise. This FrankenPundit will have the boxing career of Max Kellerman, the election history of Tucker Carlson, and so on. “But Dan” an eventual protestor will spout, “Jim Cramer used to run a hedge fund and had a decent return”. While that may be true, that is far less impressive when you consider that any idiot could have done that in the 90’s. The pundit is a talker, not a doer…
A jester in a suit is still a jester…
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