A good insult is a demonstration of power.
A bad insult is a demonstration of powerlessness.
This is true whether youre punching up or down.
(I recommend you punch up.)
Pick your audience
Is your goal making your enemy feel bad, orlookbad?
Those require different strategies.
For the first you gotta study your enemys values and self-image.
Same applies online or on the job.
I was working 10-hour days and tookgreatoffense to his claim, instead of delivering any number of obvious retorts.
You might be tempted to insult his greed and wealth.
But do you really think hed feel bad if you affirmed that he loves to make money?
Youd probably draw a lot more blood by finding his financial failures, and insulting him about those.
Show how hes lost by his own terms.If youre playing to an audience, you have more options.
If theyre already on your side, theyll probably join you in all kinds of attacks.
His colleagueDavid Thorpeknew the shoes were bad, and led a crowd inbrutally roasting the shoes.
Shoes look like a mad doctor turned a pimp inside out.
Man these shoes are like…what if the Black Hole Sun video was by a ska band?
These are straight up from a porno about a clown.
Pull together a wide range of imagery about your enemy.Vary the structure of your insults.
The insults in shows likeVeepandSuccessionare so good because they take different cadences and tones.
Many start like compliments or suggestions, and sound nothing like an insult until the end.
Those are like pulling your fist back before you swing it.
Thorpe interspersed his creative insults with simple reiterations: The shoes are a little much, Jon.
Anyway, great shoes, enjoy.
Find comparisons
Thorpes roasts almost entirely ran on comparisons to more famous signifiers.
Those people need to be generally accepted as mockable.
TV Tropes keeps a list ofacceptable targetsas gauged by public opinion.
Cliched examples include Nickelback, the Trumps, orThe Big Bang Theory.
It works great on new audiences, because you dont need to know Pete to see the resemblance.
Dont get overwrought
The more creative youre getting, the easier you might slip up.
Years ago, I wrote a bad blog post, and commenters were roasting it.
I retorted that they were misreading it.
I didnt want to tell them learn to read because it didnt quite fit.
So I came up with Learn to parse.
That, of course, is lame as hell, something that kid from theyou frickin fricks!
videowould say.Id just made things much worse for myself.
If your insults become illegible, overwrought, or sloppy, youll lose.
And thats not the only way you’re free to self-own here.
Dont give your enemy an opportunity for a perfect rejoinder.
So: Dont lob an insult that could be lobbed back at you.
Dont use an insult that makes you look jealous.
Dont even remind your enemy of anything they could use against you.Dooppo researchon yourself.
What could your enemy use against you?
What are your failures, what are your vanities?
What will you say when your enemy uses these against you?
Of all the things wrong with that howling pile of hate, they chose that hes fat.
If a guy is a total clown, you could call him a clown.
Have fun out there kids!
