It's all pretty arbitrary this. Very hard to say whether "banter" is funny or not - it's all about context as with any joke. And obviously timing, setting, how it's presented etc..
― Alexandre Dumbass (dog latin), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:20 (twelve years ago) link
like id prefer that peeps i dont know well dont just jokey insult me out of the blue, but id rather they did that than give me a hug or ask about my wife
― Thu'um gang (jjjusten), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:22 (twelve years ago) link
With respect to people who make/perform comedy as a career, I'm generally not a fan of most modular comedy (wherein a tried and true formula or structure is employed with workmanlike efficiency). Which, I guess, means I'm not a fan of most comedy, although I consider myself a huge comedy fan. Sometimes it works (I think How I Met Your Mother continues to be a fine purveyor of the standard multi-camera sitcom template, for example), but it's usually more about desperately clinging to a proven economic model (and therefore pretty much comedic anathema) than a choice per se. The best comedy is in some way surprising or revelatory, but the majority of people making comedy don't seem at all interested in surprising anyone. It really is just commerce, by and large (he said, surprising no one).
― SNEEZED GOING DOWN STEPS, PAIN WHEN PUTTING SOCKS ON (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:23 (twelve years ago) link
distancing humor as defense mechanism/tension release valve (present in and undercutting every horror movie made these days)
hoo boy do i have a list of movies to change your mind on this
Ha. I know all too well that you do! I should have said "most mainstream horror movies". But as a fan of the genre, I know you know what I'm talking about. There's a slew of horror movies that just plain don't work as horror movies because they have one foot out the door of ironic remove.
― SNEEZED GOING DOWN STEPS, PAIN WHEN PUTTING SOCKS ON (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:26 (twelve years ago) link
If you ever need to remind yourself of the "alternative" to snark and banter, it's possibly even worse:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Sincerity
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:27 (twelve years ago) link
My wife coined (I think) the term "fashionably nice" for an attitude we found a lot in the last few years at art-related stuff. I think that probably relates to "New Sincerity."
― simulation and similac (Hurting 2), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:28 (twelve years ago) link
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320441466l/160767.jpg
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:29 (twelve years ago) link
"Fashionably nice" is a great phrase
no yeah i figured haha! i agree though, i almost nominated deadgirl in the comedy poll but i was afraid people might watch it and think i was like the creepiest dude alive (and thats one of the few that do it well!) xpost to mr haircare
― Thu'um gang (jjjusten), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:29 (twelve years ago) link
"For Common Things" came out 12 years ago, btw
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:30 (twelve years ago) link
The next real literary “rebels” in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse and instantiate single-entendre principles. Who treat of plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started. Dead on the page. Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naive, anachronistic. Maybe that’ll be the point. Maybe that’s why they’ll be the next real rebels. Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk disapproval. The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal: shock, disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. Today’s risks are different. The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the “Oh how banal.” To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law. Who knows.
- David Foster Wallace writing in 1993
which is what, two years after the Simpsons started?
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:32 (twelve years ago) link
E Unibus Plurum, iirc? That totally blew my mind when I read it in college (several years after it was written). So DFW predicted, and perhaps helped to create, Jonathan Safran Foer. Thanks?
― simulation and similac (Hurting 2), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:33 (twelve years ago) link
:/
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:33 (twelve years ago) link
i don't even understand the premise of 90% of this thread, unless it's just that people conflate "having a sense of humor" with "being sarcastic all the time"
― some dude, Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:33 (twelve years ago) link
I think "being funny all the time" is kind of more than just "being sarcastic all the time"
― simulation and similac (Hurting 2), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:34 (twelve years ago) link
I have no particular beef with the tyranny of humor, especially when humor bespeaks a kind of humility, but snideness, while occasionally fun, when taken in excess leads to utter dickishness and irrelevance.
― pareilles à celles auxquelles l'étiquette de la cour assujettit (Michael White), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:40 (twelve years ago) link
I feel like this thread taps into something I've been feeling about irreverance as the new dominant cultural mode. Maybe "levity" is a better word, but just basically the idea that nothing should be taken seriously, no statement should be delivered with unflinching authority or certainty, everything has to make fun of itself, etc. I find this most present in advertising, where it seems like even tax prep services and cancer drugs use guitar-playing lolcats to sell.
well i think with advertising i think it's mainly that everyone realizes now on some level that advertising is bullshit so it's pretty much impossible to do "sincere" advertising anymore
― congratulations (n/a), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:41 (twelve years ago) link
irony is pretty much our primary tool as a feeling species and eventually when all of us who grew up in the 1990s are finally dead people will remember that the word doesn't mean "making fun of stuff" but refers to an attunement to the failure of expectations that is at root deeply humble, and that since probability and not physics is on some level the mother of the sciences lacking or failing to develop this sense is like never understanding that objects move when you push them, i.e., you won't ever have any idea what's going on
― the "intenterface" (difficult listening hour), Thursday, March 1, 2012 9:08 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
this is p great
― goole, Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:43 (twelve years ago) link
2) is there not also a simultaneous culture of sincerity / drama happening all around us? aren't "reality tv shows" full of SERIOUS (OVERBLOWN) HUMAN DISAGREEMENT and wrangling on important issues? what about the "i'm okay, you're okay" culture of daytime talk shows (oprah, etc)? emo music? livejournal? what about the fever pitch of international political wrangling and post 9/11 malaise?
― the late great, Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:46 (twelve years ago) link
Although I do like a lot of stuff that I guess would fall under the heading of New Sincerity, there's also a lot of douchey flotsam that tends to wash up on that shore.
I just re-read "E Unibus Pluram" recently. It's a fantastic essay and really germaine to the discussion in this thread. As is a lot of stuff DFW discusses in Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself.
― SNEEZED GOING DOWN STEPS, PAIN WHEN PUTTING SOCKS ON (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:48 (twelve years ago) link
xpost -- I feel like this is something slightly different from the irony/sincerity issue that has already been so heavily dissected. It's more of a pervasive unseriousness in everything that I'm talking about.
― simulation and similac (Hurting 2), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:50 (twelve years ago) link
Hazlitt: "Humour is the describing the ludicrous as i tis in itself; wit is the exposing it, by comparing or contrasting it with something else. Humour is, as it were, the growth of nature and accident; wit is the product of art and fancy."
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 1 March 2012 17:59 (twelve years ago) link
well i dunno, maybe some of you are just surrounded by assholes?
i have a lot of trouble seeing this as a worldwide cultural phenomenon, it reads a lot more like "OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD" or whatever
― the late great, Thursday, 1 March 2012 18:46 (twelve years ago) link
Tbf, the cloud was blocking the light
― pareilles à celles auxquelles l'étiquette de la cour assujettit (Michael White), Thursday, 1 March 2012 18:47 (twelve years ago) link
"comedy industrial complex" was pretty funny
― rayuela, Thursday, 1 March 2012 18:47 (twelve years ago) link
When I'm writing something it comes naturally to me to insert maybe a little bit of humour. But often I read back something after it's published and just think "what was I doing?!". Humour is an effective tool but a dark art. One shouldn't wield it unless one knows what they're doing.
― Alexandre Dumbass (dog latin), Thursday, March 1, 2012 7:04 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
This is so, so otm.
I've been thinking a lot about the original post, especially that line from the young people that "a light and humorous tone is more important than anything" .... something about that notion is just so depressing to me.
So many people I know, especially coworkers, treat 'seriousness' as a negative. Like you can't dispense good news without being funny and up and light and breezy and it's just so FAKE. They seem to cling to this notion that 'happiness' is some kind of permanent emotion that they can attain by only reading things that make them laugh, and instead, in my opinion, avoiding seriousness of any kind, especially in writing, turns you into a moron. How on earth can anyone engage with 'lightness'.
Just... ugh! And i'm a happy, laughing person in general, I love humour, I love standup comedy (sorry lex)...but only where it fits. I don't want to laugh all the time.
Any my rhetorical question to the young people, isn't there any consideration for establishing an original voice with which to dispense your information, rather than using the same voice that 10,0000 bajillion blogs are already using? And using it allll the time just dilutes the message.
Kinda feel like this is not what everyone else is talking about though, plus I'm kind of flailing around anyway so as you were...
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 1 March 2012 18:48 (twelve years ago) link
i tend to use humor in most situations that have no particular gravity or need for seriousness. IRL, that's maybe half the time. on ILX, that's pretty much all the time.
― some dude, Thursday, 1 March 2012 18:48 (twelve years ago) link
xp
nah it is part of what i was getting at inbetween yelling at clouds
― FPocalypto! (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 1 March 2012 18:49 (twelve years ago) link
i'm only intermittenly jokey in my professional writing, and i used to be even more dry when i started out. one of the first places i wrote for had a habit of inserting terrible jokes into my pieces, which i really hated in a way that i generally don't resent other forms of editorial intervention, like if there's anything you should retain of a writer's style it should be their tone, their sense of humor or level of seriousness.
― some dude, Thursday, 1 March 2012 18:50 (twelve years ago) link
Does one insert humor into sentences or does it happen naturally? genuinely curious
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 1 March 2012 18:50 (twelve years ago) link
So many people I know, especially coworkers, treat 'seriousness' as a negative
i just ... i don't have this problem! and i work with teenagers!
― the late great, Thursday, 1 March 2012 18:52 (twelve years ago) link
I'll introduce you to my workplace, late great
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 1 March 2012 18:53 (twelve years ago) link
and i'll introduce you to mine!!
― the late great, Thursday, 1 March 2012 18:53 (twelve years ago) link
:D
ILX work exchange program wd be excellent
― FPocalypto! (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 1 March 2012 18:54 (twelve years ago) link
there are just so many counterexamples to everything on this thread!
― the late great, Thursday, 1 March 2012 18:54 (twelve years ago) link
i think i phrased the initial fuzzy thoughts as tentatively as i cd. i'm all for counter-examples, a few have occurred to me since i started. and i was thinking more of the sphere of public discourse than human interaction in general, i think.
― FPocalypto! (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 1 March 2012 18:56 (twelve years ago) link
Too many coworkers treat humor as a negative.
I've noticed a verrrrry slight shift change in the college students I work with or see: they'll use "hating" or "haters" if you insult a star, athlete, or other Beloved Person. There's a real scorn for what they call "negativity."
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 1 March 2012 18:56 (twelve years ago) link
i think there's a big UK/US divide here
― lex pretend, Thursday, 1 March 2012 18:57 (twelve years ago) link
although, y'know, gawker, so maybe not, idk
Feed them shit, Alfred, and see whether they look askance at 'hating' that.
― pareilles à celles auxquelles l'étiquette de la cour assujettit (Michael White), Thursday, 1 March 2012 18:58 (twelve years ago) link
even in the sphere of public discourse, i find it hard to defend the claim that today's culture is somewhat "lighter" or less serious than that of the past.
it does seem like there's a big US/UK divide ... is it because in the past you guys basically only had paternalistic high-minded quality public programming on TV & radio and now you have the same wasteland of for-profit TV as the US?
― the late great, Thursday, 1 March 2012 19:00 (twelve years ago) link
so you're saying modern Yoo Kay culture has made them sour
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 1 March 2012 19:02 (twelve years ago) link
my entire life philosophy boils down to "take things as seriously as you have to, but be as honest as painfully possible" so I don't really see the sincerity/humorous divide, either
on the other hand, irony/sarcasm for its own sake is really, really annoying
― Vaseline MEN AMAZING JOURNEY (DJP), Thursday, 1 March 2012 19:27 (twelve years ago) link
Ta-Nehisi Coates Rules, The Thread
FYI
― Morning becomes apopleptic (Michael White), Thursday, 1 March 2012 19:30 (twelve years ago) link
Not a bad philosophy, Dan. Personally, I find it hard to take pretty much anything too seriously (even the things I'm generally quite serious about), and I see everything within the broad span of human endeavor as a source of both awe and guffaws, depending on the perspective one employs at a given time. And I think the best and most admirable humor has a healthy balance of both.
― SNEEZED GOING DOWN STEPS, PAIN WHEN PUTTING SOCKS ON (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 1 March 2012 19:45 (twelve years ago) link
Seriousness should be reserved for subjects and situations where its application makes a material difference to your own life or the lives of people you come into contact with. However, this shouldn't be used as a license to treat everything else with frivolity. There is a middle ground, you know.
Also, anyone who cannot and does not aim humor at themselves should be disbarred from aiming it at anyone else.
(Now I will go back and read the whole thread.)
― Aimless, Thursday, 1 March 2012 19:58 (twelve years ago) link
Earnestness/sincerity are perfectly fine in many ways, but as personality traits aren't they v close to the bottom of the list of 'positives' you'd ideally be looking for in ppl you've to spend time with?
No. When I married my wife she had very little idea of humor and was nearly incapable of saying anything funny, including not knowing how to tell a programmatic joke with a punchline. But I can make her laugh. We are still married after 28 years.
Her quality of earnestness is valuable to me, because it makes her extremely trustworthy and perservering. When things go wrong, she is deeply committed to finding out how to make them go right again. That has helped immeasurably over the decades.
Humor is a leaven in one's character, to keep it from too much density and heaviness of spirit, but humor as the basis of one's character can be a disaster, if there is no graivty to offset it.
― Aimless, Thursday, 1 March 2012 20:14 (twelve years ago) link
I feel this way sometimes. We can't shut up, so we make stupid jokes. Maybe if we had religion we could be solemn over that. Otherwise the only occasions are funerals.
― Träumerei, Thursday, 1 March 2012 20:37 (twelve years ago) link