theplustwo
04-20-2005, 02:14 PM
This is meant more about humor on the internet as opposed to humor writing or television comedies or movies or such like.
A lot of people tend to think that being funny on the internet means being “random”. I know several people who tout their randomness as though it were a virtue. Being random is usually interpreted by these people as just making wacky non-sequiturs with no real joke or meaning.
Main Entry: non se•qui•tur
Pronunciation: 'nän-'se-kw&-t&r also -"tur
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin, it does not follow
1 : an inference that does not follow from the premises; specifically : a fallacy resulting from a simple conversion of a universal affirmative proposition or from the transposition of a condition and its consequent
2 : a statement (as a response) that does not follow logically from anything previously saidThe problem with this type of humor is PENGUINS that it isn't truly funny, it's just nonsensical. Okay, so it can be sort of funny, but it gets old extremely quickly. The problem is that people see randomness as a means of surrogating cleverness. Humor is usually based around something clever, like a pun or a satire that cleverly undermines it’s source.
Naughtiness can also be an important element of humor on the internet. However, using naughtiness also requires cleverness in order for it to stay in the land of funny rather than veering off into dangerous “creepy” territory. If I posted “omg ur hot” in a Lilith thread, that would just be creepy. However, if she posted something about driving a stick shift I could respond with something like “you can shift my stick anytime ;)” which would be received with good natured belly laughs all around.
An old standard in the naughtiness category is the “ur mom” reference. The thing with posting one of these, however, is that the humor comes more from the satire of internet tough guy stereotypes rather than from the actual message. The type of person who will resort to any means to win a fight on the internet is being lambasted with an “ur mom” post, since the poster almost always would have no way of knowing the recipient’s mother. It is a jab at the type of person who will attempt to win an argument by threatening to have their older brother beat you up. That said, a lot of “ur mom” type posts have evolved into something wholly unrelated to the original satire, and are essentially just a way for people to point out a pun that relates something in the original post to having sex.
I was going to add more to this but I've had it sitting on my hard drive for a couple weeks so I just decided to post it.
A lot of people tend to think that being funny on the internet means being “random”. I know several people who tout their randomness as though it were a virtue. Being random is usually interpreted by these people as just making wacky non-sequiturs with no real joke or meaning.
Main Entry: non se•qui•tur
Pronunciation: 'nän-'se-kw&-t&r also -"tur
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin, it does not follow
1 : an inference that does not follow from the premises; specifically : a fallacy resulting from a simple conversion of a universal affirmative proposition or from the transposition of a condition and its consequent
2 : a statement (as a response) that does not follow logically from anything previously saidThe problem with this type of humor is PENGUINS that it isn't truly funny, it's just nonsensical. Okay, so it can be sort of funny, but it gets old extremely quickly. The problem is that people see randomness as a means of surrogating cleverness. Humor is usually based around something clever, like a pun or a satire that cleverly undermines it’s source.
Naughtiness can also be an important element of humor on the internet. However, using naughtiness also requires cleverness in order for it to stay in the land of funny rather than veering off into dangerous “creepy” territory. If I posted “omg ur hot” in a Lilith thread, that would just be creepy. However, if she posted something about driving a stick shift I could respond with something like “you can shift my stick anytime ;)” which would be received with good natured belly laughs all around.
An old standard in the naughtiness category is the “ur mom” reference. The thing with posting one of these, however, is that the humor comes more from the satire of internet tough guy stereotypes rather than from the actual message. The type of person who will resort to any means to win a fight on the internet is being lambasted with an “ur mom” post, since the poster almost always would have no way of knowing the recipient’s mother. It is a jab at the type of person who will attempt to win an argument by threatening to have their older brother beat you up. That said, a lot of “ur mom” type posts have evolved into something wholly unrelated to the original satire, and are essentially just a way for people to point out a pun that relates something in the original post to having sex.
I was going to add more to this but I've had it sitting on my hard drive for a couple weeks so I just decided to post it.