You Can Probably Guess The Thing David Tracy Assumed 80% Of You Wouldn’t Recognize: Tales From The Slack

Tales From The Slack Sp Ts
ADVERTISEMENT

You would think I would tire of telling you about David Tracy and his weird, giant pop-culture blind spots. You would think that I would be merely grateful for the fact that David let me come to this wonderful oasis to work and that would stop me from writing about them. You might assume, incorrectly, that the fact that David allows me to have a job where I’m not traveling all the time might compel me to stop pointing this out.

In my defense, David is in Hong Kong now for a wedding and almost certainly sleeping so he cannot possibly defend himself for, like, at least another six hours.

Today’s Slack Tales is a little different because it’s not from the general channel but, rather, from my own personal direct messaging with David. Specifically, David left me a couple of notes on today’s The Morning Dump. I had a subhead that was “Blame Can… California” initially.

Img 1070

This whole “reference” thing is tough. The general rule is: if it’s a reference that most people will get, it’s fine. No action is required. If an author thinks most people will not get the reference, in general, we require the writer to either call it out or provide a link to it. If I say “A real thug is a thug that’s hush” I don’t assume most of you know who KRS-One is, so I need to link to it. If I say “Show me the money” it would be almost insulting to you, my dear readers, if I link to a clip from the film.

So why have a reference at all? It can easily become a game of “look how smart and cool I am” if I start dropping increasingly obscure references. Doing so doesn’t make anyone smarter or enhance the piece, it’s basically just onanism. Or it’s the “Dennis Miller doing Monday Night Football” thing.

I try not to do it too often and, in doing so, I’m often hoping to make a specific point. Or I’m trying to reference something so obscure but so on-point that, even if only one person gets it, it’s gonna make that one person’s day. These are the tradeoffs.

In David’s defense, since he cannot defend himself, just saying “Blame Can…” isn’t perhaps clear enough, so I did amend it to “Blame Canad …” for clarity’s sake.

Img 1071

Here’s another danger. I can make references all day, but my reference set is clearly age-restricted. If I only make Millennial-aged references then I’m necessarily excluding younger readers. I like to think of myself as “young-ish” but there’s a limit to that thinking.

Img 1072

All that being said, I think many people will get this reference. Here’s my guess, by age demographic:

  • Boomer – 60%
  • Gen Z – 90%
  • Millennial – 90%
  • Gen Z – 30%

The reference is to “Blame Canada” from The South Park Movie and, while not everyone saw that film, the song was ubiquitous in 1999 and 2000.

BTW, that Oscar thing is real. Here’s “Blame Canada” as performed by Robin Williams at the 72nd Academy Awards, where it lost to the song that Phil Collins wrote for Tarzan. Img 1073

He persisted! Can you imagine?

Img 1074

Also, this is an excellent reference because in the story Stellantis is blaming California for having to lay people off when, at the same time, the company has the most inventory and the worst sales of any of the large manufacturers in the United States. In the film, the parents of South Park decide to Blame Canada for their inability to raise their own children.

I did a quick test in our Discord and:

Screen Shot 2023 12 08 At 2.00.35 Pm

Seems scientific to me.

Also, this makes me miss Jason more, because Jason is always the tie-breaker.

About the Author

View All My Posts

130 thoughts on “You Can Probably Guess The Thing David Tracy Assumed 80% Of You Wouldn’t Recognize: Tales From The Slack”

  1. I never watched South Park (that particular type of humor is just kinda meh to me), but I absolutely get the Blame Canada reference (and now have it stuck in my head). I will say “Blame Can” was not enough, but “Blame Canad” absolutely is.

    For the statistics: Millennial.

  2. Some people – I’m one of them – simply don’t care much about pop culture. I manage to absorb a lot of it anyway, but maybe David aggressively doesn’t care. If we’re charitable, perhaps time n Europe accounts for it? I don’t know how much of his formative years he spent overseas, if any. I have a friend who is Spanish, viciously smart, just arrived in the US last year, and beyond clueless about American pop culture at even the mot elementary level. I didn’t move to the US until the early 80s and get a pass for anything before then.

  3. I admit that, despite having been a South Park watcher, I didn’t get the reference until you added letters. But damn, did I enjoy that Robin Williams performance. Especially the Fosse-style bow at the end!

  4. When I was starting out my career, 1 of my co-workers would tape the episodes and about 10 of us would watch them in the conference room on the VCR at lunch the day after they aired. There was an episode in the second season where Cartman thought he was a Vietnamese prostitute. The president of the company (who was Vietnamese) heard all the laughing and walked in right as Cartman uttered the line, “Sucky sucky? Five dorra!
    Me so horny! Me love you long time!”. Nobody got in trouble, but we all decided not to watch South Park at work after that. I think when a show has been around for almost 25 years, you can reference it freely. And yes, I get the reference.

    1. South Park has definitely reached an age where it can be freely referenced much like The Simpsons. But these references should also be aged references. Once South Park went to the continuing story line they lost me, so a reference to the new streaming specials would not land with me, or I suspect most people.

    1. What does this mean? You provided a link to the article. Are you complaining that you can’t access it, or complaining that it isn’t the content you want?

    2. Wow, I DID see this movie in the theater, memory overwrote most of that experience, but I almost passed out from laughter when T&P song spontaneously erupted. Then again with the pokemon dog shit taco scene.

    1. Bear in mind that many pop culture references are NOT international. For example, I’m an Australian space cadet (born late may ’61, for those who want an obscure reference).

      I got the short version of the “Blame Canada” reference, but Dennis Miller ? Never heard of her.

  9. I think that the real question is who is the second person in the Autopian staff poll who didn’t get the reference? I normally expect this site to adhere to higher levels of journalistic integrity than concealing this kind of critical information.

      1. But if I start reading the Discord, too, I’ll never get anything done! I already spend too much time here. BTW, so happy to see your byline here. I definitely missed your writing after you left Herbland

  10. I am truly curious how and why DT has so many massive blindspots to popular culture.

    That is such a well known thing; it was everywhere for several years and, as stated, was performed at the Oscars…

    Like I have a friend who was raised in a pretty weird cult and they are familiar with South Park. My old roommate who was not allowed to watch TV until he left home would get that reference…

  12. I get the reference, and usually use it at least once a month. It usually comes out at work when people won’t admit their mistakes, so blame Canada!

  13. I actually get the reference, but that is very rare for me. I don’t even understand what the title of this column is referencing – what the hell is a “slack” and why are there tales from it?

  14. Story Time:

    Mrs 10001010 and I (she’d hate it if she knew she was being referred to that way) saw the South Park movie at the theater. It was a mid-day showing a couple days after it had come out so the theater was half empty. Anyhow, right before the lights drop this little old lady and like 5 or 6 elementary aged kids come in and sit in the front row. Old lady pulls a bunch of yarn out of her purse and starts knitting (crocheting? I don’t know the difference) and the little monsters take seats next to her. She kept her nose in her yarn the whole time and didn’t watch the movie at all and must have had her hearing aids out because she didn’t even look up during Uncle Fucker. Anyways, since the SP movie is basically a musical and they were all sitting on the front row where there’s like 10′ of empty concrete in front of them all the kids were out of their seats and dancing around during Blame Canada and Uncle Fucker and the rest. It’s like super meta that the exact thing the movie was about was happening right there in front of us in the theater.

    So, long story short, yes David, anybody who hasn’t been living underneath a rusty XJ gets the reference. I hate you guys, I’m going home 🙂

    1. That’s freakin awesome. Our block’s Cool Mom used to take a bunch of us kids to the drive in her microbes Friday nights and we would do that kind of stuff. I’m glad the weirdness continues
      (early-mid 70s. Likely got paid so our parents could have a night out)

  15. “Blame Can…” by itself, and out of context, could be missed by many, but “Blame Canada” in its entirety? Hell no, people know THAT. And poor David missed a HELLUVA good movie; in fact, i just might need to rewatch it soon, i love a good musical. /GenXer

  18. I never watched the movie, I haven’t seen South Park in a solid 20+ years, and I instantly got the reference and got a sensible chuckle from it.

  20. Boomer – 60%

    Gen Z – 90%

    Millennial – 90%

    Gen Z – 30%

    Wow, 120% of Gen Z! 😉

    I think the Boomer estimate might be a little too high, but after my dad had heart surgery he named his medical pillow “Stewie” after the FG character, so who knows.

    (After people have the chest-opening type of heart surgery, the sternum needs time to heal. That healing can be interrupted by coughing, sneezing, etc. so patients are generally given pillows they can clutch to their chests to minimize disruption. There was one in the Amazon wish list that Torch’s better half set up.)

  21. I’d love to see this question asked on an Autopian Twitter poll. Anything digital is going to skew younger…and even if the Zoomer heathens haven’t seen South Park, they know the meme.

    Also, why is David the one who’s the decider on if enough people will get a pop culture reference? Is 99% of pop culture a massive blindspot for him? Like we’re talking worse visibility than a 5th gen Camaro.

    1. “Also, why is David the one who’s the decider on if enough people will get a pop culture reference?”

      I ask myself this every time one of these comes up.

        1. Out of everyone’s great talents at this site, the ability to take a joke might be one of the best. No one is too self-serious or important, making them relatable and us love them all the more.

      2. Ooof. I walked into that one. I meant to imply the web in general skews younger than the general public but yeah, Twitter’s age floor seems to be millennials. If only Facebook hadn’t botched Threads so badly…

        1. Honestly, let FB botch Threads, too. Facebook made Instagram suck and I have no doubt they’ll ruin Threads, too. Whatever comes next really shouldn’t be led by Musk or Zucc.

  22. Blame Canada is probably the only thing I remember from the South Park movie! Regardless, David is mistaken. For anything that’s been in production for over 25 years, it’s clearly known across generations!

  24. Holy Cow, I’m constantly amazed at David’s lack of cultural exposure. I have only occasionally watched South Park, but I definitely got the joke.
    From a 2019 article in The Hollywood Reporter (and I bet these numbers haven’t decreased significantly, since it’s just been renewed for a 27th season):

    “The 30 billion minutes of viewing on Comedy Central likely puts South Park in the upper echelons of viewing. Netflix users watched 32.6 billion minutes of Friends and 52 billion minutes of The Office in 2018.”
    “For season 23, South Park averaged 1.4 million viewers per episode, including three days of delayed viewing. It averaged a 1.29 rating among adults 18-49 (within Comedy Central’s coverage area) and a 1.9 among men under 35.”

    Of course, David probably wouldn’t get a Friends or The Office reference, either.

    (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/south-park-viewers-watched-30-billion-minutes-show-2019-1263298/)

    1. I’m now thinking about someone yelling “pivot!” at David when something is definitely stuck and just having him look confused and actually try to pivot.

      1. Literally LOL’ed at that.

        Seriously, David’s opinions about cultural references should hereafter be summarily ignored. His influence over these decisions is just a bad omen for the site. I mean, I’m not superstitious, but I’m a little stitious…

      2. I never watched Friends, but I still get the “pivot” reference. Some things are just in the culture … for the rest of us … not for David. He’s special.

        1. Yeah, I never cared for Friends when it was on (did watch Seinfeld and Frasier, though, so not like I’m anti-NBC or anything), but have seen some reruns and clips here and there over the years to at least understand the main references.

      1. Anecdotal, but I caught my very prim and proper Silent Generation(by 6 months or so) mother quietly singing “Kyle’s Mom Is A Bitch” a few years ago. When I gave her a hard time about it, she said, “but it’s so catchy”, and I couldn’t argue with that.

        1. She’s certainly not wrong. My girlfriend’s parents are also Silent Generation, and they occasionally shock me with which goofy bits of contemporary pop culture they get and enjoy.

          1. So I tried to be clever, but YouTube inexplicably has no (English-language) clips of Bart and Lisa at the Smashing Pumpkins concert.

            Which is fitting. I guess. Whatever.

    7. Those other gens can ignore us all they want but the fact remains that we grew up with real ass METAL transformers instead of that cheap plastic crap that didn’t even transform that came out afterwards. We had Knight Rider, Airwolf, Greatest American Hero, and A-Team on TV during the week and Dungeons and Dragons and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends on Saturdays.

      What did they have? Car 54 before us and How I Met Your Mother after us, pfft!

Leave a Reply