I Am Not an Alpha Male
Josh Johnson on the End of Evolution
“I don’t think I believe in evolution anymore,” jokes Josh Johnson in his stand-up act on Conan in September of 2017. By this, he doesn’t mean he believes evolution never happened, but that we’re probably done evolving because we’re out of necessity.
Johnson is the first to admit he wouldn’t be alive this long had he been born ten years prior. He makes himself out to be a weak, helpless guy that relies on the convenience of the world. But aren’t we all that guy? He continues this by exaggerating on how we, as Americans, don’t know how to grow or kill our own food.
“I don’t know how to grow food, and that’s been fine the whole time. In fact, everywhere I go the food was nice enough to kill itself before I got there, be seasoned, and not have a face.”
If our society were to devolve, would any of us know how to survive?
Devolution is a biological concept about how species can de-evolve, or revert to previous, primitive states. Johnson, however, makes his claims about societal devolution. This idea depicts the regressing of societies, by means of reverting technology in means of producing food, goods, and jobs.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba faced shortages in many supplies, especially oil. Consequently, the Cuban government decided to take away oil from the food production industry. They could not produce nearly enough food for their citizens and their country was near famine. The Cuban government took initiative to break up state farms and make them more local. Every college in Cuba then began to teach agriculture in their classes. It became more convenient and less expensive to grow your own food. The number of malnourished citizens drastically decreased, and Cuba’s overall population increased.
Cubans utilize every free space they can find when it comes to agriculture. They grow gardens on rooftops and all over urban centers. 60% of Cuba’s vegetables are grown in urban gardens.
Since America is much more developed and reliant on big industries, it is questionable whether Americans could survive devolution. The main difference between America and Cuba is how adaptable the Cubans were because their country is less developed than ours. If Americans were asked to start growing our own food, a majority of the population wouldn’t be able to survive.
“I’m not an alpha male. I not even a beta. I’m like three before omega.”
The term “alpha male” wasn’t seen in writing until the 1960’s, however, the idea was introduced Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, in 1932. The work is a dystopian novel where humans are artificially created. Before insemination, the sperms are separated into 5 categories: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. The Alpha category has the fittest embryos who will become the leaders of the society. It is thought that this idea of “alpha embryos” is where the idea of alpha humans was first originated.
Many of Johnson’s jokes are self-deprecating about his appearance and demeanor. He is constantly picking at his own height and lack of ability to do manly things. Being only 5'6", he says he’s just short enough that if he were in a fight with his girlfriend, no one would be worried. It’s with this way of self-deprecation that Johnson tells his jokes which makes them so successful with his audience.
Self-deprecation is very common in the comedy world. Louis CK is widely famous for his tendencies to make fun of himself in half of his jokes. He makes fun of his weight and losses at life constantly. Johnson makes it unique, however, because he relates his shortcomings to actual reasons he wouldn’t survive without our technology.
This entire stand-up routine is controlled by self-deprecation. He is constantly bashing not only on his lack of manliness but also how awful humankind would be if we weren’t so advanced. We rely endlessly on the convenience of our lives. We don’t have to do any of the dirty work to survive. No harvesting food, no killing predators, no nothing. If we were to devolve, we wouldn’t be able to do the basics to keep our selves alive.
Johnson seems to think that if we want to continue to evolve as humans, we have to rely on women. He doesn’t say this as a feministic stance, but more as a stab on how women are chasing after weak men. He complains about women going after the guy going to art school who, in nature, would not be picked to reproduce with. He even admits he wouldn’t be one of the firsts for mating.
“If we’re gonna evolve as humans, then it’s really up to women… because we’re the only species where the females mate with the weak.”
This tendency of women picking weak men Johnson compares to how animals in nature would never do that. He gives the example of how a female deer would never chase after a male deer with broken legs. “They aren’t like ‘But I love him!’ They let it die. They let it die every time.” He leads into how because of this, humans would be screwed if we were to devolve. If we can’t even follow the basic rules of reproducing in nature and survival of the fittest, how could we live in nature at all?
So here we have Johnson, a short, weak guy with a rich comedic timing. In nature, he should make a poor mate, but in regards to his previous joke, he would probably make an ideal mate.
This joke of him not winning at survival of the fittest exemplifies his reoccurring use of self-deprecating humor. One of the jokes he makes in the act is when he had a possum crawl up his leg and latch to his belt. His friend had to fight the possum off of him, so Johnson jokes how he almost died.
It’s here that Johnson further insinuates how unmanly he truly is and his lack of survival skills. With every joke he tells, he discreetly involves how he could not survive if we were not as advanced as we are. His jokes about this are a hit with the audience because we can relate to them so much. There’s no way we could survive in the wild with how reliant we are on our advanced technologies and convenient way of living.
“I had to return a jar of pickles to Trader Joe’s because I couldn’t open it.”
Sources
Heinberg, R. (2007, February). The Green Devolution. https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/the-green-devolution-food-energy-the-fate-of-industrial-agriculture
Is the human race evolving or devolving? (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-human-race-evolvin/
Park, H. (2010). Cuba’s Response to Energy Crisis.
Singal, J. (n.d.). How America Became Infatuated With a Cartoonish Idea of ‘Alpha Males’. Retrieved from http://nymag.com/betamale/2016/05/the-rise-of-the-alpha-beta-male.html
