You do not need The A.V. Club to tell you that we live in a post-truth world, in which people assimilate their own realities and selves from carefully self-selected sources, constructing a vast lie that lets them endure the agony of existence. Every person you meet is just floating through life in an armor made of delusions; the “secret” of The Secret is that literally everything you perceive is there because you have willed it to be. The same is true for everyone in existence. Nothing is static; nothing is real.
To wit: Larry The Cable Guy is just using a funny voice.
Currently making the rounds on Reddit is this video of the actor flitting between accents, describing himself as a “linguist chameleon” and alternately emulating his cousins in Wisconsin, the “horse people” of northeast Kansas, the “country people” of northern Florida, and ultimately George Lopez hanging out with “his Mexican buddies,” because why not. It is either inimitable proof of the talent of Dan Whitney, the actor behind Larry The Cable Guy, or additional evidence that he is a patronizing market construction appealing to the same commodified version of Americana as twangy mass-produced truck-pop and those peeing Calvin decals.
And while many readers out there may already be aware of Whitney’s propensity to drop character—and, um, read The A.V. Club—it is worth reminding everyone, now and all the time, to trust no one. We are all made of lies. We are all Larry The Cable Guy, each in our own way.