"Humour and Incongruity"
John Lippitt's article "Humour and Incongruity" provided many different accounts of how incongruity affects what people perceive as funny. However, the account that I found the most persuasive was the section on Alexander Bain's criticism of the assertion that incongruity is at the root of all humor. He refutes this claim with examples of "many incongruities that may produce anything but a
laugh" (Lippitt 8), which confirms my personal belief that nothing is inherently funny, but that whether or not something is considered funny relies largely on "the context within which [it is] presented... one's attitude thereto" (9), and an individual's personality and past experiences. An example of this phenomenon is meme culture: my generation finds hilarity in modern comedy such as Vines and GIFs because we use them to express ourselves, where other methods may communicate a message to our age group less effectively. However, many baby-boomers are unamused (if not downright confused) by this type of comedy. I would argue that this is partially due to the large age gap in technological savviness, but can also be attributed to my generation's borderline nihilistic views of life, society, government, etc., which play a large role in our collective sense of humor. Age can have a huge effect on how the relief and superiority theories play out as well, which, I would assert, are just varying comedic methods. In the example I included below, the image is from a Vine (which is originally from a Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! sketch) in which the man pictured says "It's Free Real Estate." This suggests that cats tend to claim for themselves any empty boxes that are left lying around. It is undeniably not funny inherently, and can only become so with a good deal of background knowledge. The comment below sums up my view of the variations of people's perceptions of comedy perfectly: "No one is gonna know what the f*ck this means one day."
laugh" (Lippitt 8), which confirms my personal belief that nothing is inherently funny, but that whether or not something is considered funny relies largely on "the context within which [it is] presented... one's attitude thereto" (9), and an individual's personality and past experiences. An example of this phenomenon is meme culture: my generation finds hilarity in modern comedy such as Vines and GIFs because we use them to express ourselves, where other methods may communicate a message to our age group less effectively. However, many baby-boomers are unamused (if not downright confused) by this type of comedy. I would argue that this is partially due to the large age gap in technological savviness, but can also be attributed to my generation's borderline nihilistic views of life, society, government, etc., which play a large role in our collective sense of humor. Age can have a huge effect on how the relief and superiority theories play out as well, which, I would assert, are just varying comedic methods. In the example I included below, the image is from a Vine (which is originally from a Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! sketch) in which the man pictured says "It's Free Real Estate." This suggests that cats tend to claim for themselves any empty boxes that are left lying around. It is undeniably not funny inherently, and can only become so with a good deal of background knowledge. The comment below sums up my view of the variations of people's perceptions of comedy perfectly: "No one is gonna know what the f*ck this means one day."
I always wonder how such a crazy joke, basically offering one particular guy free real estate, blew up into a meme like this. I mean, obviously Tim and Eric humor fits in well with meme culture. Maybe it's the look?
ReplyDeleteIt probably is that look! His facial expression is on the borderline between pseudo-seductive and smug, and I'm sure this hilarious combination contributed to the GIF's instant popularity.
DeleteHe does have some of the best facial expressions. It's funny, Tim and Eric has a reputation as this experimental, avant-garde comedy show. And it is of course. But so much of that works because there's just great old fashioned physical humor alongside it.
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