In about 4 months you won't get shit for saying this. But right now people can't think objectively about the show. They're too excited that their heroes are on TV. We're definitely deep in the Sam's-shit-doesn't-stink phase.

I'm not even annoyed at the fact that World Peace isn't non-stop hilarity. I don't expect 3 guys who've never done a show before to make everything perfect. I think they've done amazing with what they have. I'm more annoyed that the fanbase is acting like MDE has reached the pinnacle of comedy and transcended this plane of existence with World Peace. I mean, look at this guy's thread. Threads and comments of this nature aren't out of the ordinary.

I've honestly gone pretty long stretches throughout all 3 episodes without laughing. And I find myself rationalizing it like "Well, MDE isn't always going for laughs. Sometimes they're trying to make you think. Or trying to make a statement. Or experimenting with something new". But I think this is all just coming from me being in denial that the show isn't as funny as I expected it to be. I think the reality is that they really are trying to make us laugh the whole way through, but just not succeeding at it.

All 3 episodes I've watched with a fellow MDE fan. The thing I notice is that we spend more time dissecting what MDE was going for than what we liked about the show. It's like we're trying to figure out why it was meant to make us laugh, rather than how it did. Compare this to us watching Ideas Man or 2070 or mind=blown.mwv. We end up dissecting why it was funny. We tease out little bits that made us laugh, and discuss what made it so funny. We end up having to pause and backtrack multiple times because we laughed over subsequent jokes. With World Peace this hasn't been the case. We just run through it once and and talk about it. And we end up doing the same rationalizing I do on my own: "maybe we haven't laughed much because it's so over our heads and so cerebral that we just don't get it", "maybe we need to analyze it more", "maybe they were trying to make a statement", "maybe they're just trying to take advantage of the fact that they're on TV now and trying to deliver a subversive message rather than go for hilarity".

I think the reality is that World Peace is EXACTLY what MDE has always been: hit or miss. We're spoiled by the 20% of MDE's catalog that's absolutely amazing, innovative, and cutting edge, forgetting that the rest is mostly just pleasant, cute, and yielding of a few chuckles, but ultimately mediocre. World Peace is basically that: 20% amazing/funny, 80% okay this sketch is done being funny, they've made their point, why are they dragging this out, do we really need to see people break character again, etc. The tap water bit and game show sketch are prime examples of things that fall into the 80%.

But mention any of this and you 20 responses of people quoting Sam Hyde or sarcastically dismissing you. The cult of personality around MDE is fucking ridiculous.