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Is there a theory of humor which explains why theories of humor are invariably hilariously inadaquate?
No, any consist theory of humor cannot explain all humor. Gerbils' Incompleteness Theorem.
Did you mean: goebbels incompleteness theorem
I guess it's AI read the same article.
I've yet to see a theory of comedy which actually addresses that there are multiple kinds of comedy: - Bullying, where the joke is not particularly funny, but instead relies on attacking someone's status in front of a crowd. The crowd laughs in recognition of the successful attack, not because the joke is clever. - Epiphany humor -- the joke relies on some new thought, connection, or idea, and the "joke" is the leap…
I agree but i'd go even fruther and say the categories of comedy seem so damned plentify that almost any theory, or even set of theories, fails to capture all cases. Some people say it's about a twist in what one would expect, but in which case why is something happening repeatedly sometimes more funny, even when it begins to annoy you? And why is the buildup to an obvious punchline somehow funny (say a character you…
I've yet to see a theory of comedy which actually addresses that there are multiple kinds of comedy: - Bullying, where the joke is not particularly funny, but instead relies on attacking someone's status in front of a crowd. The crowd laughs in recognition of the successful attack, not because the joke is clever. - Epiphany humor -- the joke relies on some new thought, connection, or idea, and the "joke" is the leap…
Where does something like this fall into (story-based?): > I don't stop eating when I'm full. The meal isn't over when I'm full. It's over when I hate myself. (Louis C.K.) I think the best jokes of the greatest comedians that ever lived were jokes that don't even work when you write them down, its all in the greater context, delivery and timing. One of my favorite types of jokes are references to earlier parts of a s…
- In this case, Louis' delivery is part of what makes it clear that this is a joke. I guess I might say it's an intermixture of tonal and story-telling delivery. It would be possibly to tell the same story, but it would only be depressing and not funny. Part of the delivery is how the humor is conveyed. ie, "I don't really hate myself, I'm being hyperbolic for the sake of humor."
- Separately, I think his joke would be much less relatable if he didn't make himself the target of the joke. He's volunteering himself as the target of the humor, and so not punching down at anyone. It's much harder to be offended when the speaker volunteers the topic and the target.
I've yet to see a theory of comedy which actually addresses that there are multiple kinds of comedy: - Bullying, where the joke is not particularly funny, but instead relies on attacking someone's status in front of a crowd. The crowd laughs in recognition of the successful attack, not because the joke is clever. - Epiphany humor -- the joke relies on some new thought, connection, or idea, and the "joke" is the leap…
How would you call jokes that only work due to laugh tracks (sitcoms)? Bandwagon humor?
It's really annoying and deadening, not to mention foolish, when people try to reduce every activity of the soul to a mechanical, comprehensible process.
Failure at comprehension does not deaden, any more than only seeing a minute fraction of the cosmos deadens the soul. All that remains beyond our understanding should inspire awe.
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” The equating of jokes and comedy here is an affront for anyone who has explored different avenues of comedy in any way. The analysis is fine and even interesting for (as others have pointed out) one specific type of joke but just flippantly calling that all of comedy is very jarring as it is obviously wrong. I just completed…
Related to what you're saying, there's a whole essay by Mark Twain where he explains the difference between comedy (and comedic storytelling) and simply "telling a joke". He didn't think much of the "punchline" type of jokes, he was all about the storytelling... as you can tell by "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" and his many other stories.
Now explain why some jokes following this formula are hilarious but most are painfully unfunny. This would seem to be the hard part. > I’m awful at jogging. I run slower than Windows 95. Yeah you have definitely cracked the secret to comedy.
I think it's at least three things: 1. win95 has waning cultural relevance, and nobody has any fresh memories of dealing with its slowness 2. most of us have seen "windows bad" jokes a million times over by now - it's stale 3. "run" is a pretty weak/generic connection. Edit: 4 - "I'm bad at running" has a sort of boomer-humor vibe to it, it's less relatable to an audience that's generally in-shape.
It's really annoying and deadening, not to mention foolish, when people try to reduce every activity of the soul to a mechanical, comprehensible process.
If the activities of the soul are so beyond mortal comprehension, then the futile attempt at understanding them should widen the soul in appreciation of the infinite depth of human creativity. Failure at comprehension does not deaden, any more than only seeing a minute fraction of the cosmos deadens the soul. All that remains beyond our understanding should inspire awe.