Starker on 12/8/2022 at 20:42
Quote Posted by Tocky
Jim Breuer has gone downhill. Wayyyy down hill. It's not just that he isn't funny but now he is pandering to the sort of people who think science is stupid. Seriously. The sort who failed science. That is his audience. And they are laughing like this is funny. Forgive me if I only learned this recently but it disheartens me that he is that low. Sucking up to the ignorant. I get that he doesn't have to be actually funny and do any work if he just says what they want to hear but goodgod this is awful.
I enjoy comedy from a pretty broad swath of sources, whether it's German political Kabarett, Russian KVN, Japanese manzai, British satire, US slapstick, you name it... While humour can be pretty subjective, one thing I've noticed over the years is that these days the right-wing comedians in the US just don't seem to be all that funny for some reason. And recently I came across this video that maybe sheds some light on why that is:
[video=youtube;KSXKzPOcYDU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSXKzPOcYDU[/video]
Tocky on 13/8/2022 at 04:40
That was truly long winded and I watched it all. I don't disagree but he repeated over and over what could have been said by simply saying the right is mean and vindictive and that just isn't funny. Funny is light hearted. Funny is observational. Funny does not promote a lack of intelligence but takes jibes at it even when the object of that is oneself.
demagogue on 13/8/2022 at 10:35
The punchline I got was that they're not even trying to be funny in the way that humans are wired to find things funny.
I guess if you want to get technical about it, at least as far as I understand it (which I'm not guaranteeing is exactly right), the N400 is a negative potential spike in the temporal lobe when some piece of information doesn't fit with what's expected. If you set it up and get the timing right (the N400 is going to be a lot bigger the bigger the differential from the expectation value at the top of its peak vs. what you give them right on that beat), you can plug in a really unexpected word or phrase, but that still makes sense in an absurd way, and it's going to spike dopaminergic action to like three levels or so of recognition: unexpected, makes sense, and brings a really absurd or abject image to mind. A good comedian is crafting language to work in time with that whole complex machinery to evoke the strongest reaction they can juice out of it.
The other thing you could do is juice the oxytocinergic action, where you're value signaling and juicing for solidarity & gatekeeping membership to the tribe, which is to say, being very clear who's outside, although there are a few similar elements, especially the abjection (sometimes phrased as "the cruelty is the point").
The sign you've derailed from doing legit comedy is when you intentionally, in terms of what your entire goal is with your set, stop juicing the former machinery and start juicing the latter. It's probably easier to show if you just look at a lot of examples, but I think you get the gist of my hypothesis.
Starker on 13/8/2022 at 14:34
Yeah, I really appreciated that he brought specific examples of both conservatives being funny and not being funny and talked about what made the jokes work or not. And the reason being that US conservatives tend to see comedy as a weapon first and as entertainment second made a lot of sense in that light.
Pyrian on 14/8/2022 at 04:56
I think another issue is that so many conservative politicians are just so fucking absurd. Nobody covering Dubya or Trump will ever lack for material. Boebert's husband reportedly drove into a neighbor's mailbox and it barely makes a ripple in the national conversation.
Azaran on 7/9/2022 at 17:12
[video=youtube;jD1i4_Y3WgU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD1i4_Y3WgU[/video]
Komag on 21/9/2022 at 11:49
That was enjoyably cringey!
SubvertizingOrg on 27/9/2022 at 21:54
Autumn equinox fire celebration with coworkers
[video]https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SSC5S7d7NZc[/video]
Not sure why the video isn't embedding^. Formatting problem?
Hi ttlg!
Tocky on 28/9/2022 at 04:38
When was he ever here? How can you be back from never was?