People have developed a new way of having fun in recent years: telling jokes created by Cem Yılmaz. After reading this sentence, someone who has never watched Cem Yılmaz on stage will think he is some kind of Temel. That's the interesting part. Cem Yılmaz is not a funny fictional character -- he's real. But he is different in two main ways from others who say funny things: unlike them, he performs under the spotlight, and he is much funnier than they are. Maybe that's why people, including myself, tend to re-tell his jokes rather than making up new ones.

As Cem Yılmaz gains all this popularity, you wonder how come we don't see many people underrating him, because it's usually a "must" for someone to be hated when he or she becomes popular. If the celebrity is a beautiful woman, ordinary women hate her because they think she looks beautiful only because of all those creams and light tricks (as if no one could be more beautiful than them without using tricks). You could never expect them to accept the fact that they can't reach a certain level of beauty simply by "painting" themselves. If we're talking about a charismatic male celebrity, then we'll find lots of guys making fun of him. It's the truth; we guys love to humiliate anyone who is more successful than ourselves about anything -- doing lessons, singing songs, dating girls, etc. -- as long as he's not around.

But the person we are talking about here is a complete exception: people never remember him as a very short guy when they hear his name. The circumference of his belt (which is a huge number) is also not the first thing people remember when they think of Cem Yılmaz. Why's that? There are two possible causes: First, he has always given people who tried to humiliate him the answer they deserved. People might be afraid of making the "CMYLMZ Almighty" use his chain saw. But let's think more logically… There's another possible cause, which is that you can't humiliate someone who doesn't care about it. Cem Yılmaz has never tried to seem more handsome or clever than he really is. He doesn't even try to hide the fact that he's very rich although ordinary people think it's a bad thing to reveal wealth. He wears pants that make him look even shorter. He is just himself, he doesn't try to be more, he teaches people that a funny man doesn't have to be just a clown.

Hey, did you notice? I've discovered a supreme secret of the universe! But it doesn't feel that great to reveal the meaning of life on a burning summer day, since vacation is leaving us faster than it should. And Cem is still more popular than I am. But there's no need to be negative, I'm still taller than him. So…who cares about popularity?

İsmail Postalcıoğlu (POLS/II)