My Favorite New Word: Buffoonification

Last updated on: June 2, 2017 at 12:46 pm by Anne Kennedy

My Favorite New Word: Buffoonification 2017-06-02T12:46:39-04:00 Anne Kennedy

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Since inventing that clever new word–Buffoonification–a week or something ago, I’ve had it stuck in my head and have been applying it indiscriminately to everything. It is akin to my favorite word for the lengthy and insane election period which was Beclown, which seemed really to fit every possible situation in the political realm. When paired with Dumpster Fire, or the even better Dumpster Fire of the Vanities, it really helped to make the days fly by.

Buffoon is really just a variant of Beclown. As far as I am concerned the two can be used interchangeably. You could even have Beclownification but I rather like Buffoonification for the difficult twists it produces in the mouth. You have to really think about it as you say it. It does not trip lightly off the tongue.

In the interest of educating myself, and not appearing to be dumber than I really am, I looked Buffoon up on the interwebs for a few minutes and discovered that it comes from Latin, otherwise known as Italian–Buffa, to jest, and Buffare, to puff. The puffing could be blowing some joke out of proportion, or it could be the actual puffing of the cheeks such as a jester would do to make people laugh.

Over time, of course, the Buffoon didn’t have to be a paid, professional clown. It could be anybody doing anything foolish enough to draw a laugh from assembled onlookers, whether in person or from afar. Here is a helpful etymology of its modern usage.

‘We still use “buffoon” and “buffoonery” in those senses, but modern usage of both terms has taken an interesting twist. While a “buffoon” was once known for making stupid or tasteless jokes, the modern “buffoon” is often a person whose transparently absurd posturing makes him (or, less frequently, her) the object of public ridicule and derisive jokes. Similarly, “buffoonery,” once a synonym for broad, vulgar humor, has come to mean self-important nonsense spouted, often in front of microphones, by a buffoon. Interestingly, given the roots of “buffoon,” this modern sense of “buffoon” fits quite nicely with the adjective “puffed-up,” meaning (according to the Oxford English Dictionary) “Inflated or swollen with vanity, pride, etc.; having an inflated sense of one’s importance or worth; pompous, overweening.”’

It strikes me, in retrospect, as a moment of divine genius to apply this word, Buffoonification, to the modern enlightened view of Sex and Gender. In the first place, sex, the activity itself, has come to inhabit an over important place in ordinary culture. It is the Most Important Thing, more important that just about every other activity a person could engage in. It dominates every sphere it unreasonably can. And because of its puffing overweening cultural place, it means that the other kind of sex, the kind that you are based on your chromosomes and DNA, also occupies rather too large a portion of the psyche. Your sex, and then your gender, are Who You Are and are the Most Important Thing About You. Never mind that human beings used to be complex, multifaceted, layered, interesting. Now it’s all about sex, bab….sorry, sorry, won’t try on purpose to be ‘tasteless.’

The trouble with sex being the only and most important thing about a person is that eventually, since the whole culture’s posture becomes one of making sure everyone feels happy about who they are, in that one realm at least, because it’s the most important one, every story has to become about self actualization and self fulfillment. There isn’t any other kind of story. You have to discover who you are and what or who you like. It turns everyone into consumers, I think, and makes life boring and stupid. This is why, as I’ve said too many times to count, I hate watching movies.

Anyway, this hyper inflated over serious focus on one facet of human life, and a rather ridiculous one at that, is best described as Buffoonification. The lines are drawn too bright. The clothes are silly and garish. The smiles are insincere and ridiculous. The outrage is vain and hyper. The swoons are too dramatic. And the very idea of the self, and even of the gendered self, is a caricature rather than an elegantly conceived of and fascinating form.

This being so, I’m going to start a series which will appear at random and without warning: The Buffoonification of Everything–novels, history documentaries, parenting, cookery, religion. Occasionally I will rise up and fling a match into the already smoldering dumpster-fire of the vanities.

And to kick us off, here is something completely stupid. Only click if you are able to keep your eyes from sinning and your mind from committing lust. So I guess maybe don’t click. There’s a practically naked female in the middle of the ‘article’. But basically, if you’re a lady, and you’re, you know, ‘stressed out’ you can go for a ‘massage’ that is apparently totally legit, except that if a man did it he would be essentially paying for sex. For a woman, though, it’s fine. To which I say, No. Don’t do that. Don’t go pretend that that kind of ‘massage’ is anything other than what it obviously is. That’s a ridiculous claim, and it should be laughed out of polite company, if indeed there is any such thing any more. The whole idea is classic Buffoonification. To take something nefarious and bad (paying for sex) and treating it like it is very important, special, new, serious, and necessary, to puff it up and pretend that it is something other than it is, is Buffoonery.

So there you are. Buffoonification. If you liked Beclown, you’ll love the wide open vistas this opens up to you! I hope you enjoy using it as much as I have.

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