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Blog Post 4/13

Something that I know for fact is that the more you consume a certain type of content, the more likely you are to see similar content advertised to you. I see it in literally everything; if you search for face wash, all of the sudden you get a million advertisements for different kinds of face wash. I’ll talk about something with my friends and a day or two later, an ad for it will pop up. I also consume a lot of liberal media, so all of my Facebook and Twitter feed is almost exclusively liberal articles or statements. I’m never really exposed to right wing rhetoric unless I actively seek it out or my one conservative family member posts something about it. I thought the idea of being fed things that you are actively exposing yourself to was interesting and was thinking about it in the context of comedy. Whenever I see things from the left condemning people on the right, it is always very professional. Whether it is a full length article or just a reply to a tweet, it always seems to very factually driven and intellectual. However, almost everything I see about the right condemning the left is in the form of memes. And even the content that I see that is meant to be factual, professional, and intelligent is still made fun of. An example that I often think of is Tomi Lahren. All of her segments are meant to be taken seriously but I mostly just see people making fun of it. The only conservative content that I am exposed to are just terrible memes that have no real political value. The only memes that I am exposed to on the liberal side is mostly people making fun of conservatives’ attempts to be serious. If I am constantly consuming liberal media, then where are my memes against conservatives?? The only thing I can think of were all the memes about Ted Cruz being the zodiac killer, and the occasional twitter meme about Donald Trump, but it really is nothing to the extent that the right puts out about liberal politicians

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Blog Post 4/6

I’ve always considered myself a pretty funny person (not to toot my own horn or anything) but I never really got into stand up comedians, or SNL or anything like that. I would watch some sketches from SNL here and there, but most of them were political. And I would watch a lot of Donald Glover stuff and Eddie Murphy stuff with my brother, but it was never really anything that I actively sought out to watch on my own time. This class has been really interesting for me because I’ve been exposed to a lot of things that I never really would look to watch on my own time. Until this class, I honestly could not have named any female comedians besides the big ones like Amy Schumer or Melissa McCarthy, and I don’t like either of them. Which says a lot about sexism in the industry and is an issue in its own, but I really did not know a single name of a female standup comedian. Up until this year I had never watched a full episode of Saturday Night Live either. I was tedious homework the month and wanted something in the background and remembered that John Mulaney was just the guest on SNL so I decided to watch that episode in full while doing my homework. I thought a lot of the bits were funny but I honestly did not understand half of them. There was one bit where John Mulaney and some of the cast were on some TV show that was a parody of Jeopardy or something and it made me smile a few times, but I honestly didn’t think it was that funny and didn’t understand the point of it. There was also another segment where John accompanied his girlfriend to a wedding and he kept complaining that he didn’t know anyone but he actually knew everyone at the party. I thought it was pretty funny I just didn’t understand it or its purpose.

Something that I am extremely passionate about is social justice and politics. I’m excited about this unit because I feel like a lot of social impact that comes from comedy comes from things that have to do with politics and/or social justice. Something that I mentioned earlier was that I watched a lot of SNL clips about politics, and I almost always think those ones are funny. Like in the John Mulaney special, they opened the episode with a skit about Michael Cohen’s trial and I thought it was one of the funnier segments the entire show.

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Blog Post 3/23

Recently I’ve been finding a lot of content online that I’ve been enjoying so I thought I’d make a short list of things that have been making me laugh in the last couple of weeks

Lil Dicky, but specifically his song $ave Dat Money. Lil Dicky’s music to me is so funny because him as a person is so opposite of what popular rap culture actually is. He’s this scrawny little white Jewish guy who raps about things like saving money and penis insecurity. I listen to the song $ave Dat Money at least twice a month for the last 6 months and have watched the music video at least 10 times and I am still so entertained by it. I love the lyrics and how he plays into Jewish stereotypes (which is only okay because he is Jewish) and how he has so many incredible cameos from celebrities like Abbi and Ilana from Broad City, Adam Levine, Hannibal Buress, Sarah Silverman, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvHYWD29ZNY

I recently started watching Schitt’s Creek because I remember it being mentioned a few times in class. I have only gotten halfway through the first season, but I’m really liking it so far. My favorite characters are David and Alexis because I like the way that they talk. I’m not sure how to fully explain why I think it’s so funny, but the way they communicate with each other and anyone else cracks me up. I think it find it funny because in high school my friends and I used to talk like that to make fun of people we didn’t like and it’s funny watching it on a TV show.

I recently watched Billie Eilish’s episode on the Youtube series Hot Ones. I don’t think it was necessarily meant to be super funny but I was laughing a lot. I’m a huge fan of Billie Eilish and on social media she puts out a vibe that she seems to be apathetic towards everything. The video to me was so funny because her mannerisms and the way she talked about certain things, like her favorite childhood video games, we’re almost off brand for what one would expect her to be. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDr4ITrp7YI&t=1363s

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Blog Post 3/9

Recently there has been a rise in the discussion of anti vaxers, and along with that there have been a lot of memes created from it. I am someone who is definitely pro vaccines, and so while the popularity of the anti vaccine movement has been pretty frustrating, it has also been pretty funny. There is just so much scientific evidence that vaccines work and are beneficial, and it truly cracks me up looking at the arguments against it. I’m friends with someone’s mom on Facebook who is very vocal about being an anti vaxer, and while her posts are meant to be serious, they make me laugh every single time. A post she shared the other day that really sent me was titled “LA County has a whooping cough outbreak. Can you guess why?���. I just have really a such a hard time believing that a grown woman with 3 of her own children is so vocal about her misinformed opinions about vaccines that it cracks me up every time.

I am also a part of a Facebook group called “flat earth friends… no trolling”. This page brings me a lot of joy because it is so absurd. I am certain that over half of the members in that group are there for the same reasons I am (to get in a good laugh), but there are absolutely people in the group who truly believe that the earth is flat. One of my favorite things from that group is that the members who actually believe that the earth is flat use literal MEMES to prove their point. They have no scientific evidence or anything of substance to back up their argument, but they genuinely use memes to make their argument.

My question is, are memes about anti vaxers and flat earthers a form of punching down? By engaging in this memes and finding them funny, am I engaging the punching down? Since learning about the differences between punching up versus down, I believe that often times, punching down is a form of bullying or used as a tool to marginalize people. So by that logic does that mean I am a bully?

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Blog Post 3/2

I have never really been into stand up comedy so this unit is something that I am both excited and nervous for. I’m not sure if it’s just me or if I’ve been living under a rock for the last several years of my life, but I feel like stand up comedy has recently made a come back. I definitely didn’t really think about stand up comedy much, or at all when I was younger, but I can say for certainty that I think of it in a different way now than before. In my opinion, stand up comedy has made a pretty big comeback in the last few years. Up until recent years, I feel like the words “stand up comedy” held a different connotation than it does today. From my own memory, it was kind of looked down upon as not the best form of humor. Whenever I thought of stand up or stand up comedians, I always thought of white guys standing on stage with one spotlight telling jokes that most people didn’t laugh at. One of the first stand ups that I ever remember engaging with was an old Eddie Murphy clip. I was too young to fully understand most of his jokes, and while I thought some of his material was funny, I didn’t really understand the concept of someone just standing on stage and telling jokes to an audience.

I feel like with the rise of different platforms such as Youtube, Netflix, Hulu, etc, stand up comedy has become a much more popular thing. Before these platforms, people would have to travel to an actual stand up show to see this comedians. Now, people don’t have to even leave the comfort of their own beds to be exposed to these things.

I’m not entirely sure if half of Bo Burnham’s material is considered stand up, but he was one of the first comedians that I really took an interest too. I thought that it was unique that he was doing comedy shows, but it was like a concert because all of his material was in song form. I think that he was definitely the first comedian that sparked my interest. One of the first songs I ever heard from him was his song “I’m Bo Yo” because I was at the age where I could catch all of the little things within the song. I was so entertained by that song for so many years because every time I listened to it I found something else that he had snuck into what was a seemingly innocent song.

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Blog Post 2/9

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot is how comedy changes over time and how it is often generational. Something that my friends and I might find extremely funny is something that my parents wouldn’t find funny or often wouldn’t even understand. Something I was also thinking about is how some things become funnier the more time one spends engaging with it. I have a group of friends and all of us have pretty similar senses of humor, but we are also very different. We find most of the same things funny, but there is an occasional time when someone will find something funny and some of us will not. A few months ago, I walked into one of my friends’ rooms and they were watching some video on Youtube and were hysterically laughing. Whatever they were watching, they truly though it was the funniest thing they had ever seen and they insisted that me and my other friend watch it will them. As we watched the video with them, I did not laugh even once. My two friends were still cracking up, but me and my other friend could not find this video funny at all. To this day, they are still obsessed with this video and find it funnier and funnier every single day. The only difference now, is that I also find the video funny. Not in the same way that they do, because I don’t laugh hysterically when we watch it, but I do find myself giggling. I’ve been thinking about it a lot because I’ve been wondering what had changed that made me find the video funny when I hadn’t found it funny at all before. I know the content hadn’t changed, I didn’t go through some significant life change that would suddenly change my perspective on life, truly nothing happened, yet I find it funny now.

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Blog post 1/31

Being in this class so far has been really interesting. I have always considered myself a funny person, I will always chose comedy shows/movies over anything else, and I spent lots of time on the internet looking at funny content. However, something that I literally have never thought to think about is the “science” behind comedy. I never have really stopped to think about what makes something funny/why it’s funny. Even doing so now that I’m in the class sometimes makes my brain hurt. As of right now, I’m still having a hard time completely grasping that there are only a few theories that humor falls under. Walking home from class today, I heard someone who was walking by me say something kind of funny, and I stopped to think about why it was funny. I didn’t think too much about it, but I came to the conclusion that it probably fell under the incongruity theory.

I’ve also never really tried to analyze my own sense of humor or think about what I thought was funny or why I thought it was. Learning about the different theories of humor in class has forced me to think about what I think is funny and what theory it falls under. I think I have learned that I mostly find joy from things that fall under the incongruity theory. After doing our first in class writing about things we thought were funny, I explained that I liked Broad City because of the way they handle ordinary situations. I explained that I found it funny that I found myself in some situations portrayed in the show, but never thought to handle it the way that Abby and Ilana do. I now understand that that falls directly under incongruity.

I have also spent a bit of time thinking about how punching up and punching down fall under the superiority theory. I often find punching up humor funny, but I never find punching down humor funny and it quite honestly makes me uncomfortable. I personally am having a hard time understanding how people use “punching down” as their main form of comedy without feeling like shit about themselves.