posted
...it's that snark is so often mistaken for wit.
There are a lot of "funny" web-sites where the humor is basically "Everything sucks. Everything sucks. Everything about everything sucks."
Doing a spit-take on _everything_ doesn't prove how intelligent and cool one is.
The reason why I'm complaining (instead of just stopping the reading of the sites) is that this is happening more and more on sites that I used to love.
Sites that used to be full of joyful, zany humor have become a barrage of vicious insults.
And don't even get me started on the political humor sites.
Am I wrong to wish for funny stuff that actually leaves me feeling good instead of vindicated against whatever's being bashed?
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
I agree with you, but I don't think it's an internet phenomena, have you ever watched mid-level talent comedians? This is pretty much the humor now a days (the really good ones don't have to rely on that crutch of course, which is nice so there's still a few out there that aren't painful to watch). We think other people suffering is funny now. :-|
posted
OK, fair point, but it feels like it was always kind of an under-the-table thing, everyone would laugh when we lambasted someone else but then feel bad about it later, where as a I feel recently this culture embraces snarking and sniping with open arms. But that's just me.
posted
I was just thinking about that today. Most of the humor I see involves assuming that everyone has the same set of beliefs as you and then belittling anyone who doesn't agree and thereby implying that it's so OBvious that they're wrong to believe as they do. To me, it forms a weird ironic disconnect from reality when it's overused, and I'm actually trying to tone it down in my own day-to-day jokes.
Which isn't to say that assuming that your audience has the same beliefs as you is a bad thing, since I dunno how anyone would find anything funny at all if they didn't agree on SOMEthing. Rather, it becomes irritating when EVERY joke relies on that. As you say, it devolves into "everything sucks and we're the people who know it and therefore have the right to mock it".
I think it was C. S. Lewis who said something to the effect that true humor isn't really all that "clever" at all, it's rather sharing in some sort of joy in which the "joke" is the excuse to laugh about it and form a bond with someone over that same joy.
EDIT: also, I suck for being a slow typist. I agree with Hobbes. Unusual, I know. <-- this sounds passably funny to me, since to me it's pretty obvious that I coincide with Hobbes on many points and by saying that it's unusual I'm ironically exposing the fact that I KNOW it's not unusual. Ah, but now it has lost what little funny it had, for I have deconstructed it into oblivion. *weep*
posted
I think much of the Reality TV hype is based on similar notions--crude run-down humor of "lets make fun of these people" mode. The whole Ivasion Iowa that Spike TV is doing, where they fool a town in Iowa into thinking a film is being made, just seems mean to me. Yet Spike is promoting it like it is the funniest thing in the universe.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Actually this has been going on for at least the span of my lifetime. George Carlin, one of the greats, has taken the everything sucks approach since the late 70s/80s when he realized he could seperate himself from the pack. Denis Leary, recorded No Cure for Cancer back in i think 1991?
Posts: 1572 | Registered: Jan 2004
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<-- this sounds passably funny to me, since to me it's pretty obvious that I coincide with Hobbes on many points and by saying that it's unusual I'm ironically exposing the fact that I KNOW it's not unusual. Ah, but now it has lost what little funny it had, for I have deconstructed it into oblivion. *weep*
