Why South Park is overrated and unfunny

The Comedy Central show and its biggest cash cow South Park is one of the most famous and popular shows of all time. It has amassed a great following and has been a phenomenon for decades. Starting in the late ’90s, the show has made headlines for its vulgar humor and controversial topics. Critics loved it, audiences loved it, and parents and teachers hated it. It redefined how adult animation could be and followed the footsteps of earlier adult-themed shows like The Simpsons and has a petty (abet imaginary) rivalry with Family Guy.

I loved South Park growing up. I would watch some episodes on the South Park Studios website before it became a subscription thing when I was a teenager, and it never failed at making me laugh.

But there was a problem that I was concerned about even when I was a regular fan. The South Park fanbase and two creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone tend to spite the Family Guy fan community and the creator Seth MacFarlane. I loved Family Guy and South Park, but I was never a fan of the imaginary rivalry that the South Park side pushed.

As I grew older into my twenties, my sense of humor has changed, and I became more disgusted by South Park than enamoured by it. The final nail in the coffin was when I saw a YouTube video of a Howard Stern podcast with Seth MacFarlane interviewing with Stern and expresses annoyance with Trey and Matt’s constant belittlement of him and his show. Specifically, himself. The comments section was littered with South Park fans mocking Seth and throwing mud at him, calling him a “snowflake” or “Manbaby”. I didn’t appreciate that someone was simply expressing his displeasure and was made fun of for that.

That is when I realized that South Park was never funny and is grossly overrated. The show has made fame by trolling people and using crap jokes to shame public figures. Its “humor” is simply middle school level of shock comedy. I wasn’t kidding to say that when I turned 20, I stopped finding South Park funny. The constant swearing and potty humor is something that a 14-year-old would find funny, not someone 20 and up. The sad fact is that many people aged 20 and above still watch the show and gush over it as the pinnacle of adult humor.

The show has warped a lot of people’s perceptions of satire. Satire is being subtle and sharp, not gross and explicit. The series has also ruined adult animation. How? Because a lot of other shows wanting to make adult-themed content went on to copy South Park’s formula, and they failed miserably because there were too many copycats that your average casual person would simply think, adult humor means fart, fecal, cussing, sexual, and cultural taboo jokes that are essentially teenage boy humor.

I prefer Family Guy over South Park’s pretentiousness and elitist attitude of what constitutes adult humor. Some people complain that Family Guy’s cutaway gags are annoying, but I disagree; I enjoy those gags, and I think they make the show great. Unlike South Park, Family Guy isn’t trying to be a model for adult humor. It is simply finding its niche and entertaining people, not trying too hard to be a rock star of a show.

I simply hope that some genius would make another adult-themed show one day. Instead of relying on gross juvenile humor, make it more like a dramedy that focuses on the human condition and makes a point without being explicitly offensive. I don’t mind offensive humor if it has substance. Something that South Park lacks.