• Join The Fed
• Advertise with The Fed

• About Us
• Contact

In This Issue

• Cartoons Infiltrate MLB
• Portrait of the Bullshit Artist as a Young Man
• Jon Lajoie Bares All
• The Binding of Isaac: Raw and Uncensored
• MTA Fare Hike Massacres Millions
• Thanksgiving Day From Hell!
• Douches: A Historical Who's Who
• Spin-Off Shows the Fed Would Watch
• World’s Developing Regions Receive Additional Shipment of Bullshit
• The Netherlands Corner
• Mandelatitis
• Planned Parenthood
• They Watch
• The Staff of the Federalist

Time Out New York

iStardom

The "viral video" of musical comedy on Youtube is like the Superman of comic books: beloved, unstoppable, and always willing to save you from the bad guys (or writing papers, in our case).

The Lonely Island brought us such classics as "Dick in a Box," "Jizz in My Pants," and the ubiquitous club-banger, "I'm On a Boat," while The Flight of the Conchords told us it was "Business Time" with the epic rap battle "Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros." While it seems that for every brilliant viral video there are a million preteen vlogs, those gems are always worth the sifting through the YouTube clutter.

Jon Lajoie's "Show Me Your Genitals" just might be that sort of video.

While some may call the French-Canadian comedian a misogynist or simply an asshole, others (and hopefully most) recognize his comedic talent and appreciate his satirical tone. Lajoie (pronounced "La-jwa") admits that as a child, he "was never the comedy dude" but more "the creepy kid in the corner watching everyone else," but he still avidly watched TV comedy. Lajoie was a fan of Kids in the Hall and its "crazy, innovative, absurd" sense of humor-descriptions that can certainly be used to describe Lajoie's own work as well.

His first acting experience, however, was not on television but in church, where "people would watch me and laugh...but we were talking about Jesssuuus." After sporadic theater work in high school, Lajoie took the plunge by enrolling in Dawson College in Montreal for acting. From there, he scored a role on the French-Canadian soap opera L'Auberge du Chien Noir in 2002, playing an English Canadian. "I was never going to find another show where they needed an English guy on a French show," Lajoie said, also noting that actors in Montreal more often did Quaker oatmeal commercials than meaningful acting. Still, "as an artist and creator, it wasn't that fulfilling."

But 2007 was a life-changing year for Lajoie. He began posting comedy shorts on Youtube, which then developed into comedic songs. It was his second song, "Everyday Normal Guy," a thug life parody, that skyrocketed him to YouTube stardom; the song currently has over 11 million views. "The Normal Guy character is definitely close to the ‘real Jon,'' said Lajoie, referring to his rap alter ego with sexual inadequacies and poor self-esteem. "I basically wanted to put my life, or the life of an everyman, into a hardcore gangsta setting."

Lajoie's videos range from commercials for Rape Glasses to songs about being really, really high. "Sometimes I'll just do a straight up parody of something, but when I'm really being myself, the things I really like the most are the ones that didn't get the most views, like ‘Life Lessons with Jon Lajoie.'" Life Lessons, which now has over a million views, is similar to Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey from SNL. The wisdom we can learn from Lajoie ranges from, "My father once told me, ‘Jon, be strong. Strength will help you break things,'" to "My grandmother once told me, ‘Jon, if you want to be successful in life, forget about it because you're a retard.' I'm not sure what she meant by that, but I'm pretty sure it's good advice."

The next year also yielded success for Lajoie in the form of "Show Me Your Genitals," the desperate plea to women everywhere that garnered the comedian over 19 million views (one million alone probably from me showing all of my friends, laughing and singing along). "Women are only good for three things," enumerates the clueless rapper, "cooking, cleaning, and vaginas."

While it may seem like an unabashedly misogynistic message, Lajoie insists that the song is satire and that he shares little in common with the song's character. "I just found it funny," said Lajoie, "that it's socially acceptable to be sexist as long as it's within the context of a song.  Some of the songs out there are absolutely ridiculous and no one seems to mind because it's a song, so I decided to take a slightly more literal angle."

However, it is that literal angle that has gotten Lajoie in trouble with some viewers. "I've received emails," said Lajoie, "thanking me for ‘finally writing a song for how I feel about women.' Sometimes, I really hope people understand what I'm doing...I always feel terrible when I'm misunderstood. Like when I get mail from fifteen-year-old girls, asking me why I hate women. I don't! I really like you."

Not everyone misses the joke, however. Lajoie has been contacted by feminist groups who laud him for his original approach to the subject, while one of the Kids in the Hall told him he had "a bright future." Tom Waits even introduced him to the record company Epitaph Records.

In terms of his fame, despite the attention Lajoie gets at shows from drunk girls, ("One time a girl asked me to sign her box, and I didn't get it; I thought she had a box of something. Then she started to lift up her skirt and I was like, ‘oh no, I'll sign your breasts, but not your box.'") he is kept in his place by his huge family. "They keep me grounded," Lajoie said. "If ever I start getting a big head, they'll beat the shit out of me.  My older brother travels around with me and acts as my tour manager. Even my parents, who are quite conservative, have been extremely supportive even though they hate hearing their son use the ‘f' word."

Looking to the future, Lajoie will continue to post new videos on YouTube, while also starring in the "The League," a new semi-scripted comedy about a fantasy football league created by Jeff Schaffer (one of the executive producers of both Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm). Apparently the producer approached him with a character already written for him: "they hired me to be the weird stoner dude who plays guitar and plays gigs at old folks' homes."