What's so funny?
Growing Meta #24
Salam everyone!
I would love to visualize more knowledge, but not every week do I feel inspired with a topic. If you have an interesting paper that you would like to see visualized, please share!
Also, I just published a personal essay on a mistake I did this year and what I learned from it.
Around 2010, my university threw a talent show, and I decided to participate. I chose to present my talent as a stand-up comedian. I always did things to get out of my comfort zone or to experience rejection therapy, but this was - I admit - a daring call. My good friends told me not to do it because I'm not funny, I took that gracefully and then went on YouTube to study how the big comedians did it.
When crafting comedy, knowing your audience is pivotal.
Most of successful comedy revolved around pain-points, hidden desires, or “benign violations” such as when someone passes through a tough situation unhurt. I took notice of the topics of their jokes: food, dating, marriage, race, parents, gender, and work - among others. It almost always represented a social problem or desire. Then I studied their performances, I learned that most comedians memorize their content yet they act perfectly spontaneously.
I began writing my content. I decided to joke about random flirtation attempts made through social media, Skype in particular. Remember, in 2010 Skype was very popular. I used to get a lot of random requests who would find me by searching ‘Najla’ (I presume). They used to appear with dramatic nicknames, like The Merchant of Sadness تاجر الأحزان, Galaxy and the Wind’s Against Me جالكسي والهواء عكسي (galaxy the chocolate, he means he’s sweet and faces a lot of opposition), or Mileage Disconnector فاصل العداد (i.e. he turned off the mileage meter because he’s a free roaming badass). I used these nuggets as a beefy part of my performance (while the content was OK, my good friends were right, I wasn’t funny. Delivery is everything. But at least I tried!)
Reflecting on that content, each subculture has a definitive humor profile.
Last week, I talked about Murray Davis’ work on Theory of the Interesting, then I discovered he’s prolific in other interesting original inquiries, including the topic of humor as a window to cultures. He wrote about it in his book What's so funny? : the comic conception of culture and society, where he discussed how a culture develops conventions on jokes that transcend the rules of language and logic, he also theorized on defining culture and society through the lens of jokes — as they encompass individuals, groups and institutions.
One paradigm that I gained this week: good comedians should be excellent social observers.
Najla
p.s. there’s a really funny newsletter that is also smart. I didn’t know such a combo can exist!