tagged w/ Comic Theory
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I have at times in my life been strangely obsessed with that which makes us laugh.
In college I wrote a ninety page thesis on the way that people use humor in their daily lives. I just found a box of books from that era, so I've rekindled my interest with this ongoing series in humor studies.
Today we will be discussing appropriate incongruity as it is understood in Elliott Oring's 2003 book Engaging Humor.
"the perception of an appropriate relationship between categories that would ordinarily be regarded as incongruous."
Previous adventures in Humor Studies: Can a landscape be funny?I have at times in my life been strangely obsessed with that which makes us laugh.... more
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In college I did a lot of research in humor studies. In this video I give an introduction to humor studies, and I read from Laughter by Henri Bergson.
"The first point to which attention should be called is that the comic does not exist outside the pale of what is strictly human. A landscape may be beautiful, charming and sublime, or insignificant and ugly; it will never be laughable. You may laugh at an animal, but only because you have detected in it some human attitude or expression. You may laugh at a hat, but what you are making fun of, in this case, is not the piece of felt or straw, but the shape that men have given it,--the human caprice whose mould it has assumed."
-Bergson, Laughter, Chapter 1, Section I
Are there other topics in Humor Studies that you're interested in? Maybe I have a book about it.
Bibliography:
- Henri Bergson - Laughter
- The International Society for Humor Studies
- Local Monarchs of Davis
In college I did a lot of research in humor studies. In this video I give an... more
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Whenever anyone asks me to recall a great joke, I find myself struggling. I can usually only remember terrible knock knock jokes. A new study by Professor Robert Provine suggests that the best jokes are the ones that subvert our expectations. We're so busy LOLing, we can't remember exactly how the joke went.
Can you still remember the funniest jokes?Whenever anyone asks me to recall a great joke, I find myself struggling. I can... more
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Jokes are universally funny, according to an evolutionary theorist, because they all fit into eight patterns no matter what civilization, culture or personal taste they are born out of. Alastair Clarke studied more than 20,000 examples of humour spanning the last seven centuries and found that our brains subconsciously seeks out these patterns that make us laugh.
"Sometimes a single pattern is the cause but just as often combinations of two or three are recognized simultaneously," he said.
The eight categories are:
- "positive repetition" (a la Little Britain's "Only gay in the village" catchphrase
- "scale" like the oversized features on caricatures
- "qualification" (the familiar said in an unfamiliar way, like Inspector Clouseau's accent in the Pink Panther)
- "qualitative recontextualisation" (when something you know well is changed, like laughing at your friend's new ridiculous hair do)
- "application" (words with double meaning)
- "completion" (the audience has to guess at, imagine or complete a phrase or scenario)
- "division" (the joke is broken up and told by different people)
- "opposition" (irony and sarcasm)
Did he hit it right? Or are there other categories you think jokes might fall in?Jokes are universally funny, according to an evolutionary theorist, because they all... more
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Try explaining why you think LOLcats is funny to somebody who doesn't speak your language. Unless you have the pictures in front of you, you'll be at a loss for words.
LOLcats is inexplicably hilarious. Images of cute animals with surreal captions in a fake language, doesn't scream comedy, but some how we laugh.
Mammals are instinctually driven towards cute things. Large eyes and round bellies, make mothers want to care for their young. These urges have been used in marketing to sell products. Evolutionary biologist Stephen J Gould has suggested that over time Mickey Mouse has been drawn with cuter features, to increase his popularity.
I think the success of LOLcats has to do with the cuteness of its subjects. Never before in human history has cuteness been so accessible. This internet meme is successful because it draws from the depths of our primordial genetics.
The captions are strange enough that we can identify them as jokes. This acknowledgment compounded with our primordial relationship to the images makes us laugh out loud.
(Familiar cute stuff + mediocre jokes = inherent LOLability.)
Are LOLCats even funny to you? Are there other things that you find inexplicably hilarious? Respond below!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
More on Cuteness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cute
Cuteness according to Disney
http://geesebot.tumblr.com/post/87464001/cuteness-according-to-disney-via-9gagTry explaining why you think LOLcats is funny to somebody who doesn't speak your... more
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