The ingredients of a good zinger

No, faceless KFC executive, I'm not some pissed-off, lone-wolf former employee/slave of the Colonel about to reveal the secrets to the greatest foodstuff since sliced bread. Hell, you should be thanking me profusely for not suing you to kingdom come after your totally euphemistically-titled "burger" The Double made me as sick as a dog, and then some. And then I had to go for my driver's test the following day while, in the words of Jacko (the Aussie one), "me brain hurt", a mountain of mucous was stuck in my nose and an avalanche of tissues was needed to get a snowball's worth of snot out (TMI?). I passed (but luckily didn't pass out), probably because the fella from VicRoads fell asleep for some portion of the journey.

This is, however, tangential to the main argument of my article. Very tangential.

It seems to me that the art of telling a good "zinger" - or one-liner, quip, whatever takes your fancy - is slowly dying, like the gentle art of making enemies (some may think me very proficient in this); I am of course referring to the Whistler book and not the Faith No More song. No, in all seriousness (ha!), I think it is time to expound upon a new philosophy, one that will expand upon the New Hedonism and even the Aestheticism that my muse for this blog helped to develop: Zingerism, anybody? (Let's hope that any of the Jewish faith of the Hebrew nation doesn't derive this to create Zionist Zingerism; Aestheticist Zingerism sounds marginally better, if only because it would take in the A-Z of philosophy.)

What am I on about? I want to deconstruct what it means not to tell a good joke but the way in which its humour is magnified. This is done by making a nicely-timed comment, here referred to as a "zinger" and signified by exclaiming "Zing!" at the appropriate moment, that emphasises or highlights the humour of the moment. A zinger is best approximated when considering the moments after somebody tells a joke. The Zingerite (Zingeree?) applies his or her philosophy by seasoning the joke with a bit of a wisenheimer comment. The point here is to be as rude and as crude as the Zingerite can possibly be - innuendo of the sexual nature always goes a treat and if the Zingerite can insult either the host or the joke-teller - or both - then their zinger is highly rated

What, then, is the key to creating the perfect zinger? A solid reference to pop culture - and pop politics - is always handy. Clearly, the current hipster generation, judging by the stereotypes being shared around like some venereal disease, has a treasure trove of useless facts just like some golden treasure chest full of loose leaf paper waiting to be opened for a purpose such as this.

What is the purpose? It is to make yourself believe you are utterly and uselessly intelligent, and that's before the alcohol (and/or drugs) kicks in. In a word then, it is entirely and shamelessly a self-indulgent party trick, much more purposeful and "fun" than, y'know, getting water into a glass from a plate without anyone touching the plate.   

Apart from being a mediocre burger (alright, yes, I admit I do have a secret addiction to it), a zinger can be used to make an already-good party great with witty banter seasoning the conversation. Adherents to this new philosophy of Zingerism, with the muse of this blog as its figurehead, will be the first to realise the joy that the zinger - the after-joke, not the burger - provides.