Seven ways to deliver devastating banter
Using the principles of ‘Total War’ to make fun of your friends
The application of ‘banter’ in the modern world is fraught by contextual and unspoken rules about what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Unspoken knowledge is referred to as ‘common decency’ or ‘common sense’ which is rather a misnomer owing to the general lack of it amongst the population. What we can say generally about ‘banter’ is the more elaborate the set-up, the greater the effort involved or more hurtful the banter — the better it is.
These generalities suffice for a preliminary understanding of what makes ‘good banter’ but as this progresses to ‘ultimate banter’ — the highest form of ‘banter’ — we must push these limits. Yet in pushing the limit, many observers and participants will come up against a ‘line’. If ‘banter’ goes beyond this ‘line’, it becomes classed as bullying or worse — ‘shit banter’. ‘Shit banter’ is of course the real social sin. Being accused of having ‘shit-banter’ by your friendship group is demoralising and damaging. Naturally, these effects are far worse than any emotional damage caused to the ‘victim’ of said ‘shit-banter’.
If we are to avoid such a scenario but still push for ‘ultimate banter’ we need to develop a more nuanced understanding. In searching for this understanding we can look at another popular but much maligned human activity — War. A fitting comparison as many similarities can be drawn between ‘war’ and ‘banter’ — namely, the adversarial nature, the one-upmanship inherent in both and the acceptable types of behavior falling within ‘proportional’ limits. In the context of war the equivalent of ‘shit-banter’ (or bullying) would be anything that breaks the Geneva Convention, a code that governs what is acceptable during periods of largely inhumane behaviour.
The ‘ultimate banter’, however would be the equivalent of ‘Total War’. ‘Total War’ walks the line of the codified acceptable limits, or even flouts them — the ideal vision for ‘ultimate banter’. After all, the nation states that perpetrate the disgraceful loss of life, targeting of civilians and wanton destruction associated with ‘Total War’ still mange to be accepted — even lauded — on an international stage amongst their peers. If you are in any doubt see Saudi Arabia’s close allegiances with the UK and America despite atrocities against Yemen, NATO support for Turkey despite its war against the Kurds, China and North Korea’s relationships despite constant dickery etc. If we can understand how these states balance their acts of ‘total war’ without becoming pariahs… maybe, just maybe, we have a hope of implementing ‘ultimate banter’.
The Hallmarks of Total War and Ultimate Banter
Principles of ‘Total War’ provide a perfect prism to understand the nature of ‘banter’ and provide guidance to the ‘banterer’ about how they may inflict maximum ‘banter’ on the ‘banteree’. Let’s make this real by taking historical examples of ‘Total War’ and lived examples of ‘ultimate banter’ to shine a light on how we may avoid falling foul of the Geneva Convention/’shit-banter’.
Strategic Bombing: How to Exploit Soft Targets with Banter
A particular hallmark of ‘Total War’ is (a further misnomer) strategic bombing. It is called ‘strategic’ in the sense that the strategy is to launch demoralising and devastating whole scale destruction of civilian and economic targets that reduces the enemies equivalent to fighting back making capitulation preferable to continue fighting. This differs from ‘tactical bombing’ in that ‘strategic’ is delivered over a long period and takes targets that are not of immediate value. An obvious historical example would be the Nazi bombing of English cities — the Blitz — and the British pursuit of civilian targets in Pro-German Bulgaria during WW2.
The banter equivalent of this would be the continued targeting of soft or easy targets over a prolonged period of time. This is very desirable given that a hallmark of good banter is the sustained effort behind it and hurtful nature. Yet if you were to pursue soft or easy targets how would you avoid going ‘too far over the line’? One way to do so would be to incrementally increase banter so as to slowly normalise it over time. If we take the Syrian Government's continued bombing of population centres, it would be initially shocking, but now we turn on the news and we appear to have got used to the idea of Homs being a pile of rubble.
A banter example — say you created, from a piece of wood, a character named ‘Frank’. ‘Frank’ is a used to prop open doors, decorate your house etc… you even pay ‘Frank’ with spare change you find lying around, making him gainfully employed. This physical object of banter is to make light of a close friend and housemate’s joblessness — the joke being there is a bit of wood contributing more to society than they are. Harsh? Undoubtedly. But over time, when you begin to further personify ‘Frank’ — taking him out on the town, spending his wages on beer to get loaded at the weekend, you have conversations with him in front of aforementioned house mate and friend about his work — You normalise such a level of banter. It becomes ‘strategic’ in the sense that ‘Frank’s’ ongoing presence is indiscriminate to your friend’s feelings. Through your tenacity in relentlessly pursuing a soft target, you have created ‘ultimate banter’.
Siege population centres: How to kick’em when they are down
The blockade or sieging of population centres is a common tactic in war - a way of avoiding a loss of resources or weakening an enemy before an assault. In ‘Total War’ however, sieging towns and cities gets turned up a few notches with the siege extending over time and being undertaken with a complete disregard for civilian life. Take, for example, Leningrad during WW2 where the North German Army Group cut supplies off to Russia’s second largest city (now known as Saint Petersburg). The siege lasted 879 days (2 years, 4 months, 2 weeks and 5 days), resulting in over 1million people losing their lives and survivors having to resort to cannibalism. Whilst the siege was eventually broken, it had an extremely demoralising effect of the civilian population and Russian war effort… so what can we learn from this in our search for ‘ultimate banter’?
I suggest that the main learning here is how kicking a hurt and isolated banteree when they are on the ground can be classed as ‘ultimate banter’ avoiding crossing ‘the line’. Consider this example — a friend of mine introduced his friend from home, lets call him Spork, to another group of friends at University. In this scenario Spork is already vulnerable, he is a surrounded by unfamiliar banterers. Over the course of the evening he is subjected to sustained and increasing levels of ‘banter’ — he is encouraged to steal things from bars to appear cool, told to jump off short walls leading to smashing his face in and then finally, when taken home for medical treatment, is covered in ketchup and led to believe that he is bleeding considerably when he wakes up inebriated. What made this acceptable and indeed ‘ultimate banter’ was that it was promoted as propaganda that Spork would do the same to anyone else — he deserved it. This was the justification for the German treatment of Russian civilians at Leningrad — Russians of course being seen as capable of greater atrocity against their own civilians and soldiers let alone others. Furthermore he was being ‘looked after’ during his ‘siege’. The latter argument is very close to Russia giving ‘humanitarian aid’ (consisting of heavy artillery and soldiers capable of using it) to besieged towns in Crimea. Kind of proving the Nazis right come to think of it…
We learn from this that ‘ultimate banter’ should involve treating the ‘banteree’ with a high degree of contempt and then justifying the actions taken by declaring ‘they’d do it to you’ or have the audacity to claim you are actually helping them. Both fool proof ways to dodge the damaging accusation of ‘shit banter’.
Scorched earth: How to deprive resources and expose their ‘poor chat’
Can we use the accusation of ‘shit banter’ in a way that is advantageous to us? Thankfully yes; the scorched earth strategy of ‘Total War’ has the answer. Scorched earth is pretty much what it says on the tin — if an army retreats they ‘burn’ or take all resources in the retreating path depriving civilians but more importantly, the advancing army of the things they need to survive. A classic example can be seen during the Gulf War with Iraqi forces driven out of Kuwait, setting fire to the oil wells. Scorched earth can also be used aggressively such as Sherman’s ‘March to the Sea’ in the American Civil War, where resources were liberally foraged from the local populace so as to damage the ability of the confederates to mount a counter-offensive — and also leading to the destruction of industry and starvation of the local populace.
Deploying these two types of Scorched Earth tactics in ‘banter’ is the equivalent of ruthlessly undermining efforts to make banter out of obvious topics or recasting your adversaries’ banter as weak by owning it — calling out the ‘shit-banter’. Take the example of a person who — for the sake of argument — has committed the holy trinity of vomiting, pissing and shitting their bed, an event which is rife with potential for banter. To avoid this banter that person can tell his friends in confidence of how traumatic the event was, aggressively undermining efforts to ‘banter’ about it through the deployment of your hurt feelings. If your friends do not take the bait, the only option left is to call any mention of the event as ‘poor chat’ effectively burning this as a resource by creating a public stigma around the banter. What we learn from this is that even on the back foot, ‘Total War’ can teach us how to maturely cope with the abuse.
Tonnage War : How to break a ‘banteree’
A less well known aspect of ‘Total War is Tonnage War — the principle first developed by Karl Donitz, a German U-Boat commander who recognised that:
“The shipping of the enemy powers is one great whole. It is therefore in this connection immaterial where a ship is sunk — it must still in the final analysis be replaced by a new ship.”
By this he meant that if the U-boats kept sinking enemy trading vessels during WW2 it will eventually completely cripple the Allies. There is after all a finite number of ships (the one great whole) and a finite rate at which they can be replaced. Effectively attrition war but on the supply lines providing food for civilians.
In applying this to ‘ultimate banter’ what we can learn is the potential of continually pursuing one form of ‘banter’ or a single topic of ‘banter’ which, over time becomes better as it has an increasingly detrimental impact on the banteree. As an example of such banter — on a group holiday at the british seaside a friend goes surfing with his wet suit on. The rest of the group eagerly awaits for him at the top of the beach by his clothes. As the surfer gets out of the seas, soaking wet, and walks up to change his clothes at the top of the beach — his friends banter him by pushing him into the sand. The friend must now walk all the way back to the sea so he can clean the sand of his wetsuit. And repeat. And repeat. And then repeat another 8 or so times. Hilarious.
The single act in of itself could not be classed as ‘ultimate banter’ yet in repetition and with the slow breakdown of the ‘banteree’s’ will, it is elevated to a higher form.
Collective punishment: How to deprive a banteree of strong allies
Collective punishment in a ‘Total War’ context means taking reprisals out on the general civilian population perhaps in the context of insurrection or guerrilla warfare, to deter support. Would you join the fight against the invading forces knowing that your family, their friends and their families may suffer punishment? This was the option given to the French by the Germans who invaded as part of their ‘reprisal’ policy. The Maillé Massacre was in response to some small ambushes two days earlier enacted by the SS who killed 124 of the 500 residents of the commune of Maillé including 48 children and people who pretended to be dead. This was justified (by the Nazis) as the town may have helped the saboteurs.
In applying this in our theorem of ultimate banter consider this — Dave is a popular person in a after school club who ‘banters’ others. Whilst mildy amusing in his banter his main asset is that he has allies who elevate the perceived quality of his banter by virtue of laughing along and hanging around with Dave. Dave however eventually faces ‘banter’ over being a virgin. Whilst Dave is popular, the banterer learns to exploit this weak point and isolate Dave by calling other ‘virgins’ and people who hang out with Dave, ‘Daves’. Eventually, ‘Dave’ becomes synonymous with an insult amongst the social group. Calling someone a ‘Dave’ is elevated to ‘ultimate banter’ owing to and despite its cruelty and ingenuity in toppling a member of a social group but denying them access to supporters.
Forced labour: How to create banter allies from enemies
But what if you could use your ‘banteree’s’ allies directly against them? That would surely lead to a more ultimate form of ‘banter’. The use of POWs or civillians as forced labour would be catergorised under ‘Total War’. During WW2, Japan used its defeated and captured enemies to build their railways — often in barbaric conditions. In modern times, Islamic State ‘convert’ POWs to their cause to learn more about their enemies. Not only does this fuel your war effort but it also harms your enemy. Win-win.
The banter equivalent would be to recruit external friends of your ‘banteree’, perhaps friends from school or family members, to provide ammunition for your war effort. Easy to imagine scenario where you are being driven home with your friend by your friend’s mother. You strike up conversation slowly discovering what your friend was like as a child, embarrassing stories and maybe nicknames… All this leads to your friend never hearing the end of how his nickname was ‘Smudge’ or he used play naked in his wellies with his siblings.
As in the case of forced labour, the ‘ultimate’ part isn’t the resources or banter but the false pretense under which it was obtained. This can be elevated further by making a big fuss about how you are now close with the friends or family of your ‘banteree’ — watch them squirm as they realise how unsafe they now are from your ‘banter’.
No quarter: How to defend ultimate banter using context
Lastly, and by far the most important principle of ‘Total War’ is giving no quarter. This means, when you have beat your opponent and they ask you for mercy — you give them none and continue your relentless march of war. The SS of Nazi Germany were told to give ‘no quarter’ during their Blitz-Kreig, terrifying opponents and furthering their war effort. However, this did not make the Nazi’s popular — they were in fact roundly condemned for this approach to warfare.
If we were to apply it to banter, giving no quarter can take you way beyond ‘the line’ in terms of banter but is also a quickest way of getting to the ‘ultimate banter’. What we need to learn is how to keep your ‘Blitz-Kreig’ as perceived as acceptable banter. If we look at the modern examples of giving ‘no quarter’ to already defeated terrorists in the actions of America in Guantanamo Bay and extra-judicial torture sites, we see a way around it. Cleverly, the War on Terror is recast as ongoing and without rules — everything is on the table. Taking this back to banter — an example would be a group of friends who regularly hold each other down and punch each other in the genitalia — for banter. While this may seem horrific at first glance, due to it being able to happen to anyone at any time (much like the threat of terrorism), the banter is actually very close to ‘ultimate’ having moved social norms.
A similar way ‘no quarter’ banter can be justified is seem in the historic dropping of atomic bombs on two civilian populations in Japan by America, to secure a surrender and an end to the war in the Pacific. Let us be clear here — one bomb was probably excessive but two… well… Yet it is generally accepted that this is understandable and even appropriate in the prospect of further destruction. If we apply this to banter — say you have a friend who you know has gone through a painful break up which regrettably (for him) he has associated with Skinny Love by Bon Ivor. Now is it appropriate to play this song loudly in his presence to make him cry? Of course it isn’t. But, if the stakes are higher — say he is now celebrating his anniversary with his new girlfriend and they are making love — is it appropriate to put a speaker system against his bedroom door and play Bon Ivor’s Skinny Love as loud as possible? Yes, it is. The yield for that severe act of ‘banter’ has justified it in the context.
Conclusion
Whilst we have covered much ground in ascertaining how we may progress to a higher, better form of ‘banter’ by examining acts of Total War, the final principle of ‘no quarter’ must surely amount to the ‘golden rule’. Being able to defend your use of what would be called by outsiders as ‘excessive’ or ‘shit banter’ through reframing the context around these acts gives us all hope. Hope that we can live in a society which will eventually become more accepting, progressive even, in the way we as individuals begin to tolerate greater acts of unpleasantness towards each other. Much like we tolerate the acts of ‘Total War’ around us.
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