Funnily enough, the youtube algorithm had made me watch Philemona Cunk videos, which I remember you'd given as an example of types of humor which you liked.
I've watched a few more, and it struck me how her style was similar to a Baron Sacha-Cohen skit, but less mean-spirited.
Both give this vibe of being "trapped" with the host.
This isn't super relevant to your blog though.
More relevant is about trying to find your style in writing, or comedy. I've been watching Marvelous Miss Maisel (Prime Video), a show about a fictional upcoming female comic in the 60s. What's interesting is she gets to struggle between bombing and success, what seems to be a theme of the show - where she can give a show in one bar and make the entire room laugh, but then she can give a speech at one of her friend's wedding and make too many sex jokes, making everyone really uncomfortable.
There's this idea of trial and error which I find appealing--you will bomb, but after several bombs you will find something that actually works really well; it's less about finding "the funniest bit" but about finding a way to be funny that fits you (and also works). In your case it's probably to find a way to express humor without the feeling too anxious about it.
It's interesting that you feel detached with your humor style from back then. What I recall is feeling that you could over-focus on your situation. I prefer when sympathy is also afforded to the antagonist, so-to-speak.
I think social interactions are rife with absurdity.
A) "I..."
B) "What?"
A) "Never mind."
B) "Spill it out. I don't have all day."
A) "I fought with my boyfriend again."
B) "Oh, not again-- nuh-huh I'm not hearing it. You're always talking about how you're fighting."
A) - rolling her eyes - "See what you did there?"
B) "Oh, what, was I supposed to let you stare at me until I turned to st-"
C) (passing by) "Oh hey, remember we've got to do our homework at 4. My place alright?"
B) "Uh."
C) "Alright." - leaves -
A) - raising brow - "Uh?"
B) "Shut up."
A) "So, homework huh. Or should I say, homework? Uh?"
B) "I said shut up."
A) "C'mon, spill it out. What am I supposed to let you drool all over until you die of dehydration?"
I'm not sure what I'm trying to get across here; I think different personalities have different strengths, and often characters that are averse to expressing feelings can also find themselves with a need to express their feelings, or to work through their feelings. It probably also has to do with this idea of "having at least 2 things happening at any given time"; yes we have people being jerks, but we also see how being a jerk sets back the jerk himself.
Sometimes the dynamics are more complicated. For instance, this clip from Freaks & Geeks:
... really does a good job of showing the weakness in every character's approach, and how they kind of expose one another (or self-expose out of lack of self-awareness).
Are you going to be a therapist? NO, I'LL BE A DJ!
Anyways. I remember some of the most transformative times of my childhood had me just playing with RPG Maker; it's the process that set me on the path to becoming a developer. The idea of giving accessible tools for more people to create is one I've always found exciting. And there aren't a lot of tools to create 3D maps like those! There's some genuine potential here I think!
1
Tobias 1102~1Y
Interesting that you watched Philomena Cunk (and remembered what I said about her); I recently finished watching that recent "Cunk on..." series myself (or maybe I already mentioned it and that's what you're remembering?) and laughed at it more than at most things. Part of it was due to awkwardness - since that's deliberately invoked - but something that comforted me was reading about how her guests had at least some sense they were talking to a comedian, whereas Ali G didn't tell his guests, which is uncomfortably crueller. I was able to watch the Borat film in my teens and found it hilarious at the time, but I tried rewatching it fairly recently and couldn't get through it due to second-hand embarrassment.
I've been thinking a lot about this humour perception thing - for years, I suppose, but particularly over the past few days - and I'd say that it's less about my humour finding an appropriate audience and more about...
Well, when I made MARDEK, I just wrote what I found funny and then I put it out into the world without much thought or worry. People, as a whole, liked it; I remember few, if any, negative comments about the writing, and of those I don't think any hated the humour in particular. If anything, I got a surprising number of comments praising what was perceived as 'ACTUALLY funny' in comparison to things merely intended to be funny.
With Clarence's Big Chance, I remember reading through the hundreds of comments on its release day and basking in the warm, fuzzy feeling of pretty much unanimous praise, particularly for its humour. Nothing hurt me because there was nothing among the comments to hurt me. Everyone seemed to love it.
But I also had the community on Fig Hunter, which didn't exactly reflect the wider population. Due to the embarrassingly tyrannical way I ran it, the views I expressed, and the sorts of people I repulsed and who stuck with me despite everything, I ended up with a small group of people I'd describe these days as very left-wing (though I had no conception of politics back then).
I remember early, important interactions in the chatroom, like being chastised for writing stories about white males instead of black women who are more oppressed and therefore need more representation or whatever, which I found frustrating. And of course condemnation of anything that could even potentially be considered 'offensive' (usually speaking on behalf of the poor, vulnerable victims, of course).
One of the two uni friends I'm still in touch with was talking to me just the other day about how her own real-world friendship group are moralisers who are always condemning the misbehaviour of others, going on about what nice, compassionate people they are, but if one of them ever misbehaves (as she recently did), the others all dogpile them then cut them out of the group.
I think it'd be naive to deny this sort of thing doesn't happen all the time. It's how beliefs - or rather tribes - work. Someone expressing doubts about the Bible in a church setting is likely to be cast out, as is someone expressing doubts about gender identity in a 'woke' group.
People do it because they genuinely believe they're acting in the best interests of whatever the group believes (the sanctity of the eternal soul, the wellbeing of the downtrodden), but it can be so destructive.
I strongly suspect that what a general audience would think differs drastically to what the small number of people on this website think with regards to things like sexual or other 'inappropriate' humour. But since I don't have any contact with them and I genuinely care about appealing to people here out of gratitude they've stuck with me as long as they have, I end up feeling trapped, and I worry about things I intended no harm with causing harm anyway.
If I didn't have a small audience criticising every word of what I made, I'd probably have produced more stuff... but I'd also probably not have cared as much about refining my skills and trying to do better than I have in the past. So it - like pretty much everything in life - is complicated, not all good or bad.
Or at least that's the territory my mind's been inspired to explore recently. I don't know how accurate it is though.
1
Tama_Yoshi82~1Y
I also have a friend who seems to suffer from a small amount of social anxiety, and tells me about his occasional "woke" friends that chastise him for expressing himself incorrectly in one way or another. I've spent a LOT of time around these "woke" people so now I feel comfortable saying that they don't know how to talk to people, and often don't know how to argue their points (something about purity becoming very strict and aggressive, when you don't have the social tools to deal with outsider perspectives). Which is a shame since I tend to understand and even often agree with their points.
I'm not sure whether humor has a huge correlation with this stuff, apart from the fact that if you're outraged you're not likely to find it funny.
I think the most striking example of comedy that "should" make woke people angry, but probably doesn't because it's handled in a manner that expresses sensibilities that woke people care about, is the series Atlanta:
It's difficult to express coherently why that doesn't strike me as offensive. I think it's because it treats with the Hood and the relative unawareness of woke ideas. You can't blame people for not understanding some somewhat obscure idea about what gender is, plus, Earn is trying to point it out, but everyone else is just caught up calling each other gay. It's pretty funny.
Then again, Philomena Cunk isn't very political at all; I can't imagine people being outraged at her. It's weird!
Funnily enough, the youtube algorithm had made me watch Philemona Cunk videos, which I remember you'd given as an example of types of humor which you liked.
I've watched a few more, and it struck me how her style was similar to a Baron Sacha-Cohen skit, but less mean-spirited.
Compare those
[LINK]
[LINK]
Both give this vibe of being "trapped" with the host.
This isn't super relevant to your blog though.
More relevant is about trying to find your style in writing, or comedy. I've been watching Marvelous Miss Maisel (Prime Video), a show about a fictional upcoming female comic in the 60s. What's interesting is she gets to struggle between bombing and success, what seems to be a theme of the show - where she can give a show in one bar and make the entire room laugh, but then she can give a speech at one of her friend's wedding and make too many sex jokes, making everyone really uncomfortable.
There's this idea of trial and error which I find appealing--you will bomb, but after several bombs you will find something that actually works really well; it's less about finding "the funniest bit" but about finding a way to be funny that fits you (and also works). In your case it's probably to find a way to express humor without the feeling too anxious about it.
It's interesting that you feel detached with your humor style from back then. What I recall is feeling that you could over-focus on your situation. I prefer when sympathy is also afforded to the antagonist, so-to-speak.
I think social interactions are rife with absurdity.
A) "I..."
B) "What?"
A) "Never mind."
B) "Spill it out. I don't have all day."
A) "I fought with my boyfriend again."
B) "Oh, not again-- nuh-huh I'm not hearing it. You're always talking about how you're fighting."
A) - rolling her eyes - "See what you did there?"
B) "Oh, what, was I supposed to let you stare at me until I turned to st-"
C) (passing by) "Oh hey, remember we've got to do our homework at 4. My place alright?"
B) "Uh."
C) "Alright." - leaves -
A) - raising brow - "Uh?"
B) "Shut up."
A) "So, homework huh. Or should I say, homework? Uh?"
B) "I said shut up."
A) "C'mon, spill it out. What am I supposed to let you drool all over until you die of dehydration?"
I'm not sure what I'm trying to get across here; I think different personalities have different strengths, and often characters that are averse to expressing feelings can also find themselves with a need to express their feelings, or to work through their feelings. It probably also has to do with this idea of "having at least 2 things happening at any given time"; yes we have people being jerks, but we also see how being a jerk sets back the jerk himself.
Sometimes the dynamics are more complicated. For instance, this clip from Freaks & Geeks:
[LINK]
... really does a good job of showing the weakness in every character's approach, and how they kind of expose one another (or self-expose out of lack of self-awareness).
Are you going to be a therapist? NO, I'LL BE A DJ!
Anyways. I remember some of the most transformative times of my childhood had me just playing with RPG Maker; it's the process that set me on the path to becoming a developer. The idea of giving accessible tools for more people to create is one I've always found exciting. And there aren't a lot of tools to create 3D maps like those! There's some genuine potential here I think!
I've been thinking a lot about this humour perception thing - for years, I suppose, but particularly over the past few days - and I'd say that it's less about my humour finding an appropriate audience and more about...
Well, when I made MARDEK, I just wrote what I found funny and then I put it out into the world without much thought or worry. People, as a whole, liked it; I remember few, if any, negative comments about the writing, and of those I don't think any hated the humour in particular. If anything, I got a surprising number of comments praising what was perceived as 'ACTUALLY funny' in comparison to things merely intended to be funny.
With Clarence's Big Chance, I remember reading through the hundreds of comments on its release day and basking in the warm, fuzzy feeling of pretty much unanimous praise, particularly for its humour. Nothing hurt me because there was nothing among the comments to hurt me. Everyone seemed to love it.
But I also had the community on Fig Hunter, which didn't exactly reflect the wider population. Due to the embarrassingly tyrannical way I ran it, the views I expressed, and the sorts of people I repulsed and who stuck with me despite everything, I ended up with a small group of people I'd describe these days as very left-wing (though I had no conception of politics back then).
I remember early, important interactions in the chatroom, like being chastised for writing stories about white males instead of black women who are more oppressed and therefore need more representation or whatever, which I found frustrating. And of course condemnation of anything that could even potentially be considered 'offensive' (usually speaking on behalf of the poor, vulnerable victims, of course).
One of the two uni friends I'm still in touch with was talking to me just the other day about how her own real-world friendship group are moralisers who are always condemning the misbehaviour of others, going on about what nice, compassionate people they are, but if one of them ever misbehaves (as she recently did), the others all dogpile them then cut them out of the group.
I think it'd be naive to deny this sort of thing doesn't happen all the time. It's how beliefs - or rather tribes - work. Someone expressing doubts about the Bible in a church setting is likely to be cast out, as is someone expressing doubts about gender identity in a 'woke' group.
People do it because they genuinely believe they're acting in the best interests of whatever the group believes (the sanctity of the eternal soul, the wellbeing of the downtrodden), but it can be so destructive.
I strongly suspect that what a general audience would think differs drastically to what the small number of people on this website think with regards to things like sexual or other 'inappropriate' humour. But since I don't have any contact with them and I genuinely care about appealing to people here out of gratitude they've stuck with me as long as they have, I end up feeling trapped, and I worry about things I intended no harm with causing harm anyway.
If I didn't have a small audience criticising every word of what I made, I'd probably have produced more stuff... but I'd also probably not have cared as much about refining my skills and trying to do better than I have in the past. So it - like pretty much everything in life - is complicated, not all good or bad.
Or at least that's the territory my mind's been inspired to explore recently. I don't know how accurate it is though.
I'm not sure whether humor has a huge correlation with this stuff, apart from the fact that if you're outraged you're not likely to find it funny.
I think the most striking example of comedy that "should" make woke people angry, but probably doesn't because it's handled in a manner that expresses sensibilities that woke people care about, is the series Atlanta:
[LINK]
It's difficult to express coherently why that doesn't strike me as offensive. I think it's because it treats with the Hood and the relative unawareness of woke ideas. You can't blame people for not understanding some somewhat obscure idea about what gender is, plus, Earn is trying to point it out, but everyone else is just caught up calling each other gay. It's pretty funny.
Then again, Philomena Cunk isn't very political at all; I can't imagine people being outraged at her. It's weird!