By Thomas Dougherty
Standing outside The Comedy Cabaret in Northeast Philadelphia is a young man who goes by the name “Sprinkles,” but his real name is John Coleman. His nickname conjures a mental image that is quickly destroyed by the reality of his stalwart appearance.
Coleman is covered in sleeves and tattoos that start at his wrist and extend up his shoulders and across his chest, and his is wearing a embroidered black wool cap, despite the hot and muggy weather. Pants smudged with grease and a donning a death metal T-shirt that reads “Pig Destroyer,” Coleman wears a grizzly five-inch red beard that hides his cherubic face. He flashes a wry half smile as a fresh plume of dark smoke formed around his visage from his newly lit cigarette
A half hour has passed since the show started. Coleman patiently waits for a “more brutally honest” comic to be called to the stage.
“Don’t go in yet, bro,” he warns an acquaintance entering the club. “This first one is garbage; total hack shit.”
Coleman is among the growing number of fans of a burgeoning genre of comedy called cringe humor. If one were to ask 50 fans of cringe humor about what exactly cringe comedy entails, one might receive 50 different answers. But, the common thread running through the answers would be honesty. In most instances, this means honesty at the expense of good taste, morality, religion, and anything else people hold dear.
Looking at the history of cringe comedy is similar to looking at the history of who invented punk rock. It started out of disgust for the mainstream, and over the years many people have contributed to the evolution of the genre, but no one single person can be credited with its genesis. This doesn’t stop people from trying to trace its progenitor.
“Richard Pryor is definitely one of the pioneers of this genre. He was the first to really open up about his fucked-up life. You know no one was talking about that shit in those days. It was all ‘take my wife, please,'” says Patrick Milligan of Cringehumor.net.
