Twitter screenshot
When somebody bursts on the scene, like Sarah Cooper did this Spring, we tend to think that she’s come out of nowhere.
As I raved in June, her Tik Tok videos (and now her YouTube videos) have altered the political landscape, by using Donald Trump’s very own words to show his inanity.
Calling her masterpieces “lip synching” doesn’t do them justice.
She’s entertained millions of us with them, and we imagine that, perhaps, bored to tears in quarantine, she magically reached down into her soul and discovered this lightning bolt of talent.
Like it had been hiding in there, silent, all these years… who knew she had this in her?
Well, anybody had really known Ms. Cooper, as it turns out.
Like a lot of “overnight successes,” she’d been practicing and honing her craft for years.
Not that I was enough of a Cooper-phile to have known her earlier work.
But I do make the most of my free time, and I was able to research her earlier work – on the Internet, one thing often leads to another.
And boy, is it good.
As she told The New Yorker last year, Sarah wanted to study theater, but her parents asked her to choose something more productive, so she got degrees in economics and digital design.
She landed a job at Google, but all the while she was doing two things that would help her immensely in the future – observing the goofiness of the corporate world, and doing stand-up comedy.
Lucky for us.
As early as 2014, she was posting a series of sketches on YouTube: “Your First Blackish Girlfriend,” “Nodding Strategies for Your Next Meeting,” the excellent and biting “Racist Ads on the Internet,” “How to Cry on Cue,” and my favorite, “How to Dance at Your Office Holiday Dance Party.”
Anybody who’s ever worked in an office knows the futility, the mind-numbing bizarreness, the favoritism, and the sexism that is everyday life there. (There’s a reason that The Office is still one of the most beloved shows on TV.)
Sarah’s watchful eye boiled it down and distilled it to its ridiculous essence – just as she does with Donald Trump’s nonsensical words.
By 2017, she had expanded her writing, acting, and production skills enough to produce a three-episode YouTube series called The Bubble.
My favorite is the first episode, “Crushing It.” (It’s about three minutes, and worth every second.)
She meets a guy, on a blind date, and tries, doggedly, to determine what he does for work. He just tells her, smugly, “I crush it.”
That’s all he gives her – then he insists on ordering lunch for her.
Sigh… I can’t imagine how hard it is to be a woman these days, putting us with us jerks…
All the while, Sarah was writing her tongue-in-cheek “self-help” books: 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings, and How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men’s Feelings.
The Tricks to Appear Smart book is now a daily calendar for 2021, too.
The good news is, Sarah is talking with Hollywood types now, about a developing a new TV show.
(Actually, she happily describes it as “taking meetings,” which means she’s really getting somewhere in the business world,”)
The show is about a young black woman, who “falls up” into a better job.
“There are already enough shows and movies about white men who ‘fall up’ into a job,” she told NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.
(From Twitter)
The other good news is, Sarah has been joined on the Internet by another hilarious, talented woman named Blaire Erskine.
They’re not technically working together – Blaire’s Tik Tok videos are more aimed at the proud anti-maskers and “Karens” who refuse to believe in the Coronavirus.
But together, they (and other young satirists) are forming a “Dumbledore’s Army,” fighting against the lunacy in today’s world, and to try to restore order to it.
The catalyst for Ms. Erskine was the video of an angry young “freedom-fighter” who loudly protested a mask requirement at Costco.
The man, Dan Maples, strode belligerently into a Florida Costco, wearing a shirt that proudly proclaimed, “Running the World Since 1776”.
When asked to don a mask, he responded by screaming, “I feel threatened!!”
It’s terrifying, as his eyes glow with rage, and he charges the employee, and then the man recording him.
Blaire decided to come to his defense.
She posted a “response video”: “I’m Dan Maples’ wife, and I have some things to say…”
In a sweet Southern accent, she says, “I see a lot of people talking about how wearing a mask is just like wearing a condom… and to that, I say, Please don’t say ‘condom’ while my seven year old is in the room!”
From there, it goes wonderfully off the rails… Aw, heck… just let her tell you.
That kicked off a series of “I have some things to say…” videos.
There were too many easy targets!!!
Next came the woman who went berserk at a dentist’s office.
Then she was upset that Walmart was requiring masks.
“First, they take away the live lobster tanks, now they take away our freedom… What’s next? They’re gonna tell me I can’t smell a gun before I buy it? Try it… try it and see what happens.”
Then, of course, she took her children to Disney World!!!
(Her children’s names, in various videos, and on t-shirts: Jaxxon, Hydroxychloroquine, Remdesivir, Azythromycin, Oakland Cemetery, Ashley Madison Dotcom, and Richard Petty Driving Experience.)
From there, she was Florida governor Ron DeSantis’ nanny:
(No, not his kids’ nanny… the nanny for Ron…)
Then she was Georgia governor Brain Kemp’s daughter:
Perhaps the scariest one was her “MAGA Teen” video, where she’s held hostage by her parents, who force her to record a pro-Trump hip-hop video.
(“OK, Mom…. I’m doing the part where Dr. Fauci created the virus…”)
Then there’s this short, sweet, sad ode to the difference between 2015 and 2020:
Blaire is bit more of an outright crusader than Sarah, and she’s more directly outspoken about the things that bother her.
She doesn’t have a Patreon account, but she does ask that fans donate to their local food bank, at https://www.feedingamerica.org/find-your-local-foodbank.
She’s been looking for justice for Breonna Taylor for some time, and isn’t afraid to speak seriously about it. She knows her stuff, and isn’t afraid to let it rip.
But mostly, Blaire’s videos are so full of glee and mischief that’s it’s impossible not to laugh out loud, in spite of yourself.
Similar to Sarah, Blaire has been preparing for this for years.
She writes articles for a site called The List, and she produced, wrote, and acted in an Amazon Prime show, Sides (about life as actor in Atlanta).
But now this gal simply has to become a household name, as much as Sarah.
She is so convincing as a, um, simple, Southern belle that some people don’t get the joke.
In her impression of an anti-mask “Karen” who was kicked off an airplane (as the rest of the irritated passengers applauded), she claimed that people were cheering her, for being “a hero”.
(“We weren’t even supposed to be on that flight! But we went to our original flight, and we saw that was at Gate 5G, and we were like, unh unh… no way!”)
A few folks thought she really was the disgraced woman, and they helpfully pointed out that they weren’t cheering for her.
I guess it proves that Trump supporters haven’t cornered the market on cluelessness.
One of the many things I love about these women comics is how they bond together.
Sarah, Blaire, and other comics like Maria de Cotis are so supportive of each other, promoting each other’s videos, and Tweeting out encouragement.
If we somehow manage to make it through this nightmare, I suspect we will owe a huge debt of gratitude to Sarah, Blaire, and their band of mischief-making marauders.
Daddy Gibs 