Tell Me All About Humor: What Makes You Laugh?
I’m a huge fan of The Onion. I love it when their articles hit just the right balance between side-splitting humor and cold, hard truths about the human condition, like this one:
Experts estimate that, by 10 p.m. Tuesday night, Blume had survived exposure to approximately 1,700 advertising images of epic banality, at least 35 emotionless interactions with complete strangers without making any real human contact, and more than 25,000 moments of soul-crushing inner emptiness throughout the almost day-long struggle. In addition, he also surmounted the onslaught of more than 150 separate anxiety-producing forces, including credit card debt, weight gain, hair loss, sexual inferiority, loneliness, a dead-end job, geographical isolation from extended family, virus-laden spam, the need to keep his cell phone charged, in-store Muzak, mortality, mounting laundry and dishes, his cable bill, indefinable longing, fear of terrorism, online gossip, the unavoidable certainty of his own unimportance, nostalgia for a past that never was, severe lower-back pain, and general ennui.
Read more from “Area Man Makes It Through Day.”
I have a few more favorites that I can think of right off hand. More after the jump.
Walking Sports Database Scorns Walking Sci-Fi Database
Do Waiters Always Have to Swear So Much?
Aging Gen-Xer Doesn’t Find Bad Movies Funny Anymore
Generally, I’m a big fan of what could be called absurd humor, although the examples above are more observational than anything else. I love pulling confusing, bizarre practical jokes on friends and coworkers and making up weird and seemingly nonsensical games to keep myself amused. Blame it on an early diet of “Monty Python,” “Mad Magazine,” “The Kids in the Hall,” and the works of Douglas Adams.
What about you?
First, do you read The Onion? Have any favorites? Is The Onion not your kind of humor? What is?
Do you have any thoughts about humor? What purpose does it serve in the overall human condition? How did it evolve? Is one form of humor better than the other? Why? What’s your favorite kind of humor?
April 13, 2008 at 12:36 pm
For The Onion, I prefer those articles that uplift the human soul, such as this life affirming piece. I have yet to achieve such a moment of wholeness in retail shopping.
But sometimes I like my humor to be multi-purpose and more practical, such as movies re-enacted by bunnies in 30 seconds. This is the only way I will ever be able to watch the Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Saw. (The one for Alien is a classic, and I love the way she animated The Grudge.)
So to sum up: humor good. I can’t imagine one kind is better than another. I’m sure somewhere in history one caveman, about to get his ass kicked, told a joke to distract his would-be attacker and then promptly sucker punched him and ran away. Humor has to be part of survival of the fittest. To laugh is to survive.
April 13, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Three of my all-time favorite Onion pieces were from the 1990s-early 2000s. One is no longer on the website, but it was a blurb that read “Tennessee Lawmakers to Decide Ford-Chevy Debate” (yes, my glorious native state has been the butt of many a joke there). Another was “Homosexual Recruitment Drive Nears Goal,” and my all-time favorite was “South Fails to Rise for the 135th Straight Year.”
Good stuff, huh?
April 13, 2008 at 4:29 pm
It’s the unexpected in the everyday that makes me laugh. The ability to take a toss off phrase and re-verve it by completely misdirecting the obvious. The “taking something literally” and coming up with completely new permutations or ramifications.
That, and doing what seems blindingly obvious but treating it in a manner that’s completely over the top. The Onion’s “Fire Hot” story for example. That one still has me cracking up. Or the “Thousands of people are fleeing Debois, Iowa” (as a take on the daily commute).
April 13, 2008 at 4:53 pm
I’m a big fan of off-key humour. Y’know, that kinda “I shouldn’t be laughing at this, but I’m laughing at how absurd life is” kinda things. The Onion (in particular American Voices) has me in stitches regularly. The one the other week, regarding banking and having someone say “giving these businesses money for not doing their job, which was, in fact, to have money, doesn’t seem like the best plan” was pure gold! (I’m paraphrasing it; it was probably funnier…)
B3ta is always good for some dark laughs. You seen it before? Their Image Challenges are always good, in particular the Movie Letter Switch and Extending Cover Art ones!
April 13, 2008 at 6:25 pm
I was always a fan of I Enjoy Being A Battery and I Just Wanted To Tell The Nice People About The Yoghurt, and of course the classic Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over, which just gets retrospectively blacker and bitterer with every passing year.
Also, the funniest blog on the internet is the Fafblog, recently returned from a terrible two-year hiatus.
April 13, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Oh, man! Felix!
How did I ever forget “I Enjoy Being Battery!” That was one of the first Onion pieces I ever read, and has always been a favorite.
April 13, 2008 at 8:21 pm
OMG, Chris, that floating head at b3ta scared the freakin’ HELL out of me! If that floated through my window I’d run out of the house screaming. I just…no…(looked at it again)…God, no.
:::shudder:::
April 14, 2008 at 9:06 am
Here’s one of my favorites, about the 40 Watt in Athens, GA collapsing.
37 Record-Store Clerks Feared Dead In Yo La Tengo Concert Disaster
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27870
It’s the details, like “finding a green-and-gold suede Puma sneaker in the rubble.”
I’m also a fan of
Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs, ‘Oh Shit’ Says Humanity