The Tyranny of Humour

The thing is, that most people who crash over the line don't even realise they've done it, and just keep up with the "you can't handle my banter, maaaan" line.

That that terror of ~doing it wrong~ and offending the other person for real is probably a good thing.

i mean, that's why it's a bonding tactic, cuz it's actually a way of reaffirming one's closeness to one's friends - like, if the assumption is that you genuinely care about this person, they'll know you don't "mean it" when you take the piss out of them - they know you don't actually think badly of them. of course this is a massively double-edged thing b/c it's easy to end up in a relationship which is so predicated on this sort of cruel humour that it gets a bit unhealthy and genuinely damaging.

That's the thing, though. I never know when other people are doing it to be affectionate, I find it v v difficult. Because I live in a world where people I thought loved me do suddenly just up and change their minds and decide that they hate me the next, and the sort of things that people say in banter, they are the sort of things that "former friends" eventually do come out with one day. The fear that that "banter" is what they have *really* been thinking all along.

God, I'm neurotic, I'm sorry, I shouldn't bring this sort of stuff up.

This has opened a trapdoor I didn't really need to open today.

The thing is, that most people who crash over the line don't even realise they've done it, and just keep up with the "you can't handle my banter, maaaan" line.

i don't think this is actually true if it's kept within close friendships (ime, anyway) - this happens when, as you say, it's a means of reaffirming insiderness vs outsiderness.

in a close friendship it's almost like the point is to test the boundaries. eg, some people i meet up with occasionally, inc two dudes who have been v good friends for years and years - i was catching up, asking one of them why he'd come back to the UK, it turned out he was gonna marry his fiancée...but she dumped him. and his friend was kind of jokingly taking the piss out of that, it was quite weird but seemed quite natural for them.

adrian chiles & roy keane = tyranny of humour vs humour of tyranny

chiles is 'insouciant' 'irreverent' and all that shite, never not facetious

this compulsive funniness is really getting on my nerves lately in the office. it's like EVERYONE is the "joke guy" now. You can't actually complete a coherent thought without a hamfisted, awkwardly dropped laugline from someone.

Hate it when that happens. Also hate it when you hear about some guy long before you meet him, about how hilarious he is and then he turns out to be one of those guys.

Funny is better than not funny, regardless of haters

Yeah but 'funny' != funny.

cf Goodfellas

Funny > Not funny but keeps it to self >>>>> Not funny but trying to be

yeah, that.

this thread gives me nightmares

pat funn

>>>>>>>>>>> being forever serious

i keep meaning to come back to this, feel it more than ever all around the place, don't know if this is the sourness of middle age or if the whole culture is in its end of civ death throes coming out as perpetual frivolity

humour

this is a really good thread NV. i remember it from when i was a lurker. i am of two minds about this: humor is central to how i communicate, but i think that i use it to establish "distance" from people at least as much as i do to "connect" with them. in terms of art, there is plenty of stuff i love that is devoid of humor -- i think the earnestness of "in the aeroplane over the sea" was super risky, bordering on brave, and the films of terrence malick don't seem especially humorous to me -- but my favorite works of art, the ones i feel closest to, are almost invariably funny ones (ulysses, the short stories of gogol, bob dylan's music, even the jazz i like best has a "lightness" to it that corresponds to humor, and my favorite jazz records are mingus ones with crazy, satirical titles.)

i think humor makes people feel safe because it is a way to communicate indirectly, to say things without exposing how one "really" feels, or if one does communicate honestly, it gives them an out. maybe people, in general, don't really want to connect on a truly intimate level?

these are all just loosely sketched thoughts.

thought for sure this thread was revived because of http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?showall=true&bookmarkedmessageid=4300963&boardid=77&threadid=67478

i think that link doesn't work, it just takes me to the site homepage

you're absolutely right. moving on

It's a link to 77

xp oh shi

i don't understand

but that's ok

77 is the invite-only board that only those invited can see.

keep meaning to come back to this, feel it more than ever all around the place, don't know if this is the sourness of middle age or if the whole culture is in its end of civ death throes coming out as perpetual frivolity

― we're up all night to get relegated (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, May 1, 2013 5:17 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think also as you get older an increasing amount of humor comes to seem familiar and tired, like there are a limited number of forms and types of jokey comments a person can make, and more and more of them come to seem obvious and cliched with experience.

Damn I didnt know their was a shadow world of the ilx elite

You need Vic Serotonin to give you a tour of the Saudade Event site.

Yeah see I don't understand what any of that is. Feel scared, like maybe this is a cult that lures people in with the promise of impassioned yet fairminded debates about pop music.

Nobody promised fairminded

ilx is really into puns

You need Vic Serotonin to give you a tour of the Saudade Event site.

:)

though i kind of hate all his "presenting" shit

Treeship, if you have ever seen the old BBC series The Prisoner with Patrick McGoohan, then you will have a fair idea of life in the ilx commune. 77 is just a place where the all-powerful ilx Guardians can go to relax and have a gin and tonic before resuming their onerous duties.

crambs

hm... that board seems awesome. i think i am going to have dreams about it.

cramps
Don't pick it up

Oops. Completely messed up the execution of a dumb joke that probably only made sense to me and even then only barely. Ah Humour, Ah The Tyranny!

the more cryptic the pun, the more impressive, as it makes the people who don't get it feel embarrassed. that's what humor's all about

I believe that is a particular sub genre of humor, the screen name, or more precisely, the rejected screen name.

today i went to the local bagel shop and some gross dudes out front were making lewd comments about all the women who walked past. i didn't understand all of the things they were saying, which made me feel like i was in middle school all over again.. left out of an adult conversation. it wasn't a great feeling, but then i realized that i didn't really want to know what they were saying, and felt better.

77 is the invite-only board that only those invited can see.

just want to point out that this is wrong. you have to ASK for an invite. it's de-indexed from google, so it's not open unless you ask to access it. there's a thread dedicating to asking for access.

how seasoned/accomplished a poster do you need to be before it is appropriate to ask for an invite?

level 5

the tyranny of invisible levels

Exclusive pic of an ilx moderator unwinding in the 77 board's member's only lounge:

http://buildaclubhouse.com/images/cushion-clubhouse.jpeg

hate to ruin the mystique but it's not like at some point you get a private message saying "you have been chosen, prepare to witness and perhaps even contribute to the greatest threads of all time". it's more like if you want to look in there, you'll get to see (even more of) me talking about sweaty balls or whatever.

speaking of the greatest threads of all time, this is a good one. i don't have anything useful to say, but i often think of what it might be like to be born in a different time and location, and instead of spending my days trying to think of semi-humorous ways to refer to a secret borad on the internet because it's awkward to talk about without at least trying to make a joke, maybe i'd be slowly walking on a stone path imagining the many faces of imagined solemn gods with folded hands

for me to poop on

dammit i didn't even do that correctly