The Tyranny of Humour

Oh god

Attempting to assess humour by reference to morality is like gauging direction by reference to flavour

If you have to filter humour by agreement with your own personal whatever first then youre a bad person

The punching up/punching down framework works if you view humor simply as a rhetorical tool, but it's really much broader than that. It's an entire dimension of communication. Irony for instance can be used tactfully to "make a point" but it's also just out most naturalized way of minding the gap between language and reality. It's a distancing mechanism.

Laurie Anderson was saying "ethics is the aesthetics of the future" in the 80s, but she also spelled it "few... ture" to imply that this would be so mainly inside a bubble of privilege.

When I studied aesthetics as a young philosophy major (same time frame), we spent a lot of time on humor. The language of punch up/punch down had not yet been invented, but we did speak in terms of inversion of power structures as a source of humor. Interestingly, inversion of power structures was regarded as a subset of surprise. You're surprised to see the duck inside the refrigerator, that's why the joke is funny. You're surprised to see the bum triumphing over the millionaire, that's why those situations are funny. Or so the theory went.

One reason I quit standup comedy (aside from it being very hard and I wasn't particularly good at it, or willing to work at getting better) was what I thought of as "the tyranny of laughter." Unlike other performance types, you really can't argue if most of the audience doesn't laugh, "I was good." There is no evaluative base on which to stand there; success = laughter. (Aside from the expense, I've been to a comedy club 4 or fewer times in the last 20 years bcz I don't enjoy the standup aesthetic.)

There's a good John Cleese interview clip out there somewhere where he basically links ceasing to be funny with giving up and succumbing to a kind of total cynicism about the world

And he would know. Not half, Jesus Christ.

Was too slow off the mark with Oculus Lump I see, dammit.

More re: punching up vs. down.

I think in "comedy" (broadly considered as an institution with implicit "rules" and as an industry that responds to market forces) the battle is largely over. There are holdouts in bunkers still punching down. Here are three suggested flavors:

1. Retro throwbacks, like those Japanese WWII dudes on islands who hadn't gotten word that the Emperor has surrendered.

2. Contrarians who want specifically to play up how "daring" they are, ostentatiously barbecuing a sacred cow specifically in order to be called "daring."

3. Meta-satirists specifically deciding to act as though punching down were still allowed largely to show that know it isn't.

If Rodney Dangerfield or whoever is still out there saying "wow, bitches sure do take a long time to get ready, amirite"? That's type 1. Eddie Murphy's "gay police" routine was seen as risque but allowable in the 80s. Andrew Dice Clay's "There was an old woman who had so many kids HER UTERUS FELL OUT" was seen as raunchy but within the bounds of comedic discourse.

When Anthony Jeselnik says something like "my girlfriend doesn't have pubic hair.... YET" in 2015, he's either in category 2 or 3. I don't know which, and I think he wants you to wonder which one it is.

here is my argument against attempting to be funny on the internet.

it is extremely hard to be funny without being cruel. most of the available targets for making fun of on the internet these days are, well, probably insane. or at the very least deranged. this doesn't mean they're not responsible for their words and actions, but humor is fleeting, and the results of merciless ridicule of profoundly damaged human beings are lasting. which is to say that humor is a very bad way of holding people responsible for their words and actions.

even when someone is fully worthy of all the scorn and contempt you can possibly dish out against them, the larger point of such scorn and contempt, beyond an immediate selfish self-satisfaction, is elusive. let us take, for instance, donald trump. this is someone who is, to the extent that we can judge other human beings, a very, very, very, very bad person. and because of this, we call him "orange". yes, very funny. ha ha. this probably genocidal egotist's skin color is a shade of orange.

possibly it is to stave off the existential depression caused by the knowledge that a good portion of the world's population thinks that the world should be led by either trump or by some local equivalent. but i don't think it's very effective at that, either.

i think it's okay (and occasionally funny) to make fun of donald trump

the best argument against attempting to funny is that most people aren't

sure i don't have a strongly entrenched interest in telling people what to or not to say on the internet unless it involves rape threats, but i kind of feel like i can safely leave that important job up to other people.

most people aren't musicians, either. doesn't mean nobody should take up the guitar.

What's funny about attacking Trump's skin color or hand size is not that he can help it. It's that he's simultaneously a rude asshole, and incredibly thin-skinned. He has utterly no compunction about insulting someone else's disability, looks, gender, race, etc., so he's declared himself fair game. He's a billionaire whose every utterance gets outsized attention. So any punches at him are punches up.

It's also intended to goad him into responding, in which case - what's the phrase? - you're living "rent-free inside his head."

i guess on this topic a little variety is necessary. hearing people constantly repeat that donald trump is an objectively bad human being gets pretty tiresome after a while, and it's just as ineffective as humor on its intended audience. anything that allows people to keep making the necessary point that donald trump is an objectively bad human being is okay in my book.

I'd guess you'd find a lot of comedians who agree with the "punching up/punching down" thing.

"Making fun of" taken as equalling all of being funny is a ridiculous position even were all of the rest inarguable

During a recent performance review at work, I was told I have a "reputation problem", because people don't know if I'm being serious or be funny or really anything. I feel like I use humor a lot, but I'm incapable of smiling or laughing at my own joke after delivery, so people just sit there and wonder. Because of this reputation problem, I've been weaning myself off of using humor. I'm sure next review I'll learn that I'm always too serious and should lighten up.

That sucks dude. I hate when workplaces try to micromanage people's personalities.

I have the opposite problem with you, Jeff. I assume (or used to) that 99% of your gruff remarks are in jest, but I learned that I'm often wrong. To me, you're constantly hilarious.

I feel like I use humor a lot, but I'm incapable of smiling or laughing at my own joke after delivery, so people just sit there and wonder.

― Jeff, Wednesday, June 15, 2016 9:32 AM (26 minutes ago)

I do think this particular humor style can be alienating and have tried to wean myself off it. Not saying anything about you, Jeff, but some years ago I decided that I was using it in a rather arrogant manner, setting up jokes as tests for others to pass or fail.

Arah fuck ppl too at the same time yknow?

deadpan is not appreciated by the masses in some parts of the world

it has its time and place unfortunately

one thing i've been doing at work lately is every time i hear a horrible joke (almost every joke) i do a purposefully forced "HHHHEH" (a single HEH), pause and look at them seriously. no one gets it and i just move on

but people still love that benny hill/mr bean stuff so

people loved Benny Hill stuff in the 1920s when other comics did it

people have and always will love slapstick is what i'm saying

Unlike other performance types, you really can't argue if most of the audience doesn't laugh, "I was good."

On the other hand, there are comics who routinely leave huge audiences helpless with laughter about whom one can say, fully justifiably, that they are really bad.

As noted above, there are a lot of ways to get an easy laugh. You can do it just by being nasty and having good timing. Sometimes people laugh out of discomfort or surprise.

that's a criticism of the audience as well tho

xp

Michael O'Donoghue "provoking laughter is the lowest form of comedy" etc

Continual repeated jump towards "nasty" itt makes me v sad for yis that have been so horrifically scarred by humour in yr lives

IME there's an uncanny valley, where you can't tell if a potentially down-punchy joke is meant at face value or not. Is it

A. Intended to make you sympathetic with the joker (hey, loosen up, it's just a damn JOKE), or

B. Intended to express sympathy with the target (i.e., jokes intended to show how the joke is ACTUALLY on the person who is so horrible as to have racist/sexist/ableist views in the first place).

I used to know a guy whose fave joke was "Do you know why there are so many battered women in America?" (dramatic pause) "Because they just don't fuckin' LISTEN!" Now that's a pretty down-punchy joke. I don't like it much.

If Rodney Dangerfield or whoever is still out there saying "wow, bitches sure do take a long time to get ready, amirite"?

I would like to point out for the record that Dangerfield never did this, the butt of his jokes was *always* Rodney.

many xxposts

Sorry, that was sloppy, I should have come up with a better standin for the category "old white out-of-touch comedian." I would welcome suggestions for who would fill that bill more accurately.

Don Rickles

louis ck

Continual repeated jump towards "nasty" itt makes me v sad for yis that have been so horrifically scarred by humour in yr lives

― Daithi Bowsie (darraghmac)

oh, no, it's not that. it's just that i am a mean, nasty, and vicious person, and in the past i let a lot of that come out through my "jokes".

Wd have a pint with

everyone had at least one laugh at the special ed kids in school as a kid, but I'd like to think we're better than that as adults.

or when someone falls on the street -- you can laugh or you can see if they're ok. We all have the potential to laugh, but it's not the best impulse to cultivate.

well idk depends on who fell. was it Dick Cheney?

everyone had at least one laugh at the special ed kids in school as a kid, but I'd like to think we're better than that as adults.

True about my own childhood, but I am not sure it's still true. I have one special ed kid and one "normal" kid, and I observe them and their peers quite closely. Contemporary kids (at least the ones I encounter) are pretty tolerant of diversity and difference, if not totally woke. When naming the children, I remember shying away from names that would have gotten a person beaten up on the playground in my day, and my wife was like "yeah kids don't do that anymore, because they're all like Sheldon and Atticus and Marley."

They've imbibed a LOT of Sesame Street-style "it's okay to be different" messaging. So did we, of course, but now it seems to have taken.

Just speaking from my own neighborhood, I find that to be true from observation on the playground. For example there's a kid maybe 9 years old or so there a lot who seems to have some kind of emotional issue that leads him to have sort of breakdowns that are out of proportion to the situation, crying or screaming over small things, and the other kids who play with him are very patient with him.

I remember shying away from names that would have gotten a person beaten up on the playground in my day

my wife refused to entertain the notion of naming our son Buck for precisely this reason

a friend of mine once ran into (and I mean ran) a glass door. I will never regret laughing. (he ended up fine.)

What socioracialdemographic did he belong to

Avian-American, sounds like

i like the idea that you can use the most hateful, demeaning language you can imagine at somebody and it has no moral content as long as you're joking

i mean i assume that's your position d unless you think there's some nuance we're missing

we could extend it from hateful and demeaning to actual threats? i'm just not sure saying "joeks" empties every kind of speech from any other meaning

Wd have a pint with

― Daithi Bowsie (darraghmac)

ok, but you're buying.

a friend of mine once ran into (and I mean ran) a glass door.

Have done this. What's worse, it was at a petrol station and had a big black and yellow warning stripe across it to prevent people being dumb enough to run into it. Have also gone through a screen door hard enough to punch holes in it with my teeth.