Interview with Edward Current

Edward Current is probably the funniest thing I have seen on youtube. I found one of his videos with a random search and then sat and watched all of them in one sitting, and I obviously now check frequently for the latest ones.

With the number of people that have seen his videos now into the millions it appears I am not the only person who is doing this.

The videos parody some of the thinking of the religious right and takes the ideas to their ‘logical’ conclusion.

Not only are they hilarious but the reaction to the videos is almost equally funny as many people seem to be outraged by them because they don’t realise he is joking. Even better, many of those who do realise he is joking are outraged too.

So I decided to email him and see if he would be the first in my series ‘The Unprofessional Interviews’.

Thankfully he said yes and here is what he had to say for himself…

What was the 'genesis' of the character you play in most of your videos?

A few years ago, Huffingtonpost.com started a competition called the Contagious Festival, in which readers were invited to make videos and other Web presentations that would hopefully catch on and go viral. There were two cash awards each month -- one for the video with the most viewers, and another selected by Arianna Huffington and a panel of judges. I won twice -- first for a cartoon called "The Democrats Get Balls," in which I depicted Barack Obama being elected the next U.S. President -- that was in March 2006. You can Google it; it's still on the site.

The second was for "The Atheist Delusion." I had just finished reading Sam Harris's "Letter to a Christian Nation" and thought I'd explore that area. On a message-board discussion somewhere, I saw a creationist calling a normal person "deluded" and concluding the comment with "checkmate!" The irony was so maddening to me, I worked it into the video.

After the Contagious Festival was discontinued, I put "The Atheist Delusion" on YouTube, where I had posted a couple of music videos. People liked my comedy a lot better, though. So I made a few more, using the same character, and started to build an audience. Now I'm kind of stuck with the character, but it looks like I kind of have a niche. And "checkmate!" has become my catch phrase.

Along with your videos the comments are quite funny too. From outraged Christians to outraged atheists a lot of people don't seem to get it. Why do so many people take what you are doing at face value?

It's "Poe's Law" -- you can't make a parody of something that's already ridiculous without people believing that it's real. Plus, my technique is to take things that some Christians might actually say, but expose the ridiculousness of the statements merely by juxtaposing them or providing a certain context. So I'm not really exaggerating the other side's claims all that much, at least on some of my videos. It's more subtle than most satires.

Why do you think there has been such an extraordinary growth in Christian fundamentalism in the USA?

I see it as a positive feedback loop. America has been getting dumber, less rigorous intellectually with a diminishing emphasis on critical thinking and debate. Meanwhile, as things get more decadent and socially liberal, those who are inclined against such trends want to push back harder. It's all about people wanting simple, quick, easy answers to the biggest questions. Americans today want to be spoon-fed. They don't want to bother thinking for themselves, so increasingly they just believe what they're told -- in church every Sunday. It's the mentality of, "God said it, I believe it, that settles it."

What do you think is the scariest thing about these people?

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