Portfolio Time!?!?!? 3/29

OKAY. HERE WE GO. GRAND FINALE NUMBER 2 ISH.

So I actually read some of that poorly written Hokenson book and found that while I dislike the language, I enjoyed the points being made. Hokenson moves through history, explaining the role of humor as an agent in challenging and redefining the societies where it resides. While I much more appreciate humor as it relates to individual identity, I feel like the concept naturally must go hand-in-hand with humor as a piece of the social identity. Reading Hokenson, I more or less got the same idea from the many examples she provides in the text.

This is the idea that humor serves as a two sided fun house mirror of sorts in relation to society. On one hand, it is reflecting our values in our faces and setting the stage, on the other, it is distorting our values and constantly causing us to redefine what is and isn't "funny". I mean, and this is truly a constant cycle I'm talking about here. Jokes that may have been funny in the 1970's (a rather violent time in media history) might be seen as vulgar today.

Hokenson talks a bunch about comedy in the theatre as it related to social identity, so I tested out her theories by reading The Mandrake by Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian Renaissance philosopher. It's five acts and I kind of felt like I was reading a Will Farrell movie. None of the characters were like, good people. There is a huge amount of deception and sleeping with your friend's wife. Fun. Also, nobody really gets punished for like being a douche. Usually in old comedies, the good people win and there's a marriage. Yeah there's a marriage, but like everyone's still a douche. It's a really raunchy play too.

Anyways, this play was written because the Italian higher ups in Florence basically Facebook Unfriended Machiavelli and he was like hella salty about it. He basically thought politicians and authority figures were a deceitful doodyheads who would do literally anything to maintain their power. Hence, now we have Machiavellianism, which is a pretty legit personality type in psychology. People who are Machiavellian have a natural knack for being deceptive, conniving little pricks. It just goes to show that mistrusting your government was never a new idea. I'mlookin at you millenials!!!! *incriminates a mirror*.

And this ties back to the TEDx Talk about the very structure of humor, doesn't it? Humor is about benign violations, and the way Hokenson describes how humor and its theories have evolved through different time frames feels very familiar. Because humor is a benign violation, if a bunch of people consistently find the same things funny, they will feel less and less violated by the same things as time goes on. It's a psychology thing. As different things happen in society, different kinds of humor become more or less funny. This shifts a lot.

BUT THE INTERVIEWS I CONDUCTED WITH PEOPLE AND THE ARTICLES I READ IN UNIT ONE TELL A DIFFERENT STORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Or at least change the way the story is told! Yes, humor is universal because there is always something to laugh at. But, in Modern America at least, the Internet is changing the game. Now, collaborating to find something funny is more of a choice because now all the rhetorical power and all the information in the world is literally at our fingertips. The Internet encourages individualism in us. Which is both a blessing and a curse. Yes, face to face interaction is still cooler in my opinion, but it automatically makes one less of an individual because there is an inherent desire to be agreeable in public. It's manners and what not. The Internet is also pretty much a public space, but most people don't use it that way. More accurately, the Internet represents an infinite number of private spaces that people can plug into at their leisure. By spending our free time surfing on the web and whatnot, we're individualizing our own sense of right and wrong, good and bad, and our own sense of humor. Everybody is taking in the constant flow of information (and misinformation) and formulating their own perspectives.

This explains why the people I interviewed were the same age in the same place, but had utterly different senses of humor. The social identity IS the individual identity. Whoa.




REFLECTION TIME!!!


The annoyingly wordy book helped provide a nice framework for unit 2. It helped in like connecting so many dots. I mean I spent most of my project time trying to friggin make it through the thing, looking up phrases and stuff. 

The project pretty much became getting through that book because I knew a smart person who does smart things wrote it so the more I hopelessly stared at the pages the more I would find out. 

Frankly, I'm glad I did that because now everything seems so like solidified and goes beyond like article analysis. I wish there were more academic articles about like humor in a sociological frame that lays out a wide blanket on the topic. I found stuff but it was usually way too specific.

As for the new sources I used, that was pretty much the main thing. But it was a difficult source and it was pretty much holy grail tier because it fit so dang well into my argument and looks so pretty next to my other sources. It was packed with capital I Information too.

I still would have preferred Hokenson use smaller words and wrote a bigger book. I'm still mad about that.

Moving forward, I guess the next question would be specific to American Humor. How did "funny" get to become individualized like it is for my generation? Was it just the Internet or SOMETHING MOOOORE?!!???!?!??????!?!????????!??!?!??


*Unit 2* 

3/10 Humor burger helper?!?!?

Alright so I watched another TEDx event about humor. I mean there are a lot of TEDx videos about comedy so yeah expect a bunch of those with some articles and stuff too for my project.

Anyways. This is a TEDxDhaka event in which Naveed Mahbub talks about how through humor people have come to understand him better. One particular instance he describes happens after he finishes a set talking about his difficulties about the airport. After, an intimidating southerner pulled him aside and said that from the humor he understood more about muslims than he ever learned, even when he was in the Middle East.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeO701Zyjnk

That's the link dudes.


Anyways! This is interesting when it comes to humor because it demonstrates the value that face-to-face comedy can provide. The genre of stand-up comedy is unique in that the literal identity of the speaker is what sells the humor. I wonder how this translates to internet humor if it does at all. Is it as if everyone becomes their own stand up comedian through the social platoforms they use; or is there something different at play? Can we achieve the same level of understanding that Naveed experienced that day?

I doubt it. But it's something to look into fo sho.

*Unit 2*

3/8 Jan Walsh Hokenson writes too many big words.

So I rented The Idea of Comedy  out from the library and I tried to read it and it was an unsettling experience. I'm very much used to reading things in plain english, and I feel like this lady had a word count limit and used the most exuberant and extravagant words to be within the limit.

Like the book is basically in latin. I have to read very slowly just to follow what she's saying and that fact is getting on my nerves. I'm lucky enough to actually know some of the references she makes so at least there's that.

In the book Hokenson basically puts on her analyzing glasses and analyzes/explains the different theories of comedy and the sociological worlds surrounding them throughout history. 

That sounds very interesting, how can you POSSIBLY make it boring? By USING TOO MANY TEN SYLLABLE WORDS IN CONSTANT SUCCESSION. OK. I GET IT. YOU HAVE A LOT OF PEER REVIEWED PUBLISHED WORK. GOOD JOB SMARTY PANTS. (No but it's actually really hard to do that props gurl.) 

I dunno I just don't think knowledge that can't be understood by even an undergrad is knowledge that shouldn't be published. We're expected to refer to books like this one in our super duper mega essays or whatever so please, stop with the latin. It's a DEAD language. Holy crap.

It's not that I don't understand the words. I just want to be able to like read and learn what's in it at a faster pace. But the way in which it is written literally prevents me from being able to just read a sentence and be like "yea I understood that".

This book is a stressor.

3/3 OK SO I PITCHED IT I THINK??

I basically sent a link to this blog to one of the writers on Clickhole.com

Clickhole seems pretty relevant to my topic because it capitalizes on internet humor and earlier on I touched on the idea that the internet's reformulation of our perception of humor is allowing individuals to gain their own unique sense of humor because the internet is so darn HUGE.

Longest sentence ever wow.

Anyways the email pitch looks like dis:

Hello, Adam...

Meh name is Rafiq and I go to ze college and for my writing class I had to make ze blog and "pitch" it to a person with more money than me I. E. YOU.

I know what you're thinking actually I don't but frankly dear, I don't give a *hoot*. 

My project for this blog thingy is about humor as it relates to identity and millenials and all that stuff. I try to sound intelligent but I'll let you be the judge as to whether I actually DO or not. 

http://cleverspiffystuff.blogspot.com/

Click that hole, man. 

I figured, why not turn my pitch into a horrible attempt at humor? The dude's a writer for Clickhole I mean cmooooon!

*Unit 2*

3/1 Ok so I'm still hooked on this humor and identity thing...

Alright I wanna keep researching humor as it relates to personal identity because it is STILL incredibly fascinating to me. I'm glad this assignment happened, because it provided me with an oppotunity to actually get some testimonials from people I know in real life.

I asked all of these questions either in person or by phone call because texting them just seemed like an awkward idea. What if they don't respond? Not risking that complication no sir! So here are the questions and respective responses.

What is the funniest thing that has ever happened to you?

Person 1: A hobo once spent 30 minutes trying to convince me that if I slept with pantyhose under my pillow I would turn into Ganesha, the Hindu Elephant God of Wisdom.

Person 2: I once fell down an escalator into an elevator as it was closing, sending me back the the top floor of the mall that I literally just descended from.

Person 3: When I was like, nine ot ten, I was at a water park and I got lost. So I climbed up to the top of the biggest waterslide in the park to yell for my parents. But I didn't need to in the end because my older brother, who we all thought was studying abroad, was working on that ride at the amusement park. So he helped me find my parents but trying not to be spotted by them at the same time. It was hilarous. He did get spotted and he got into huge trouble. But the whole ordeal is like funny in hindsight now.

What is your weirdest habit?

Person 1: I sleep with pantyhose under my pillow. No, No, I joking. Um, I don't know? I listen to NPR?  

Person 2: Sometimes, when nobody is around, I like to switch the locations of the pens and pencils in the room and see if people notice.

Person 3: Sometimes I like to put Oreo filling on a toothbrush and eat it that way. I'm surprised I haven't lost all of my teeth yet. 

How much work do you put into your selfies, if you take them? 

Person 1: I don't do selfies.

Person 2: Sometimes it takes hours. I have a problem. Is the angle right? Is there too much contrast? Are the shadows okay? Do I need to reshoot? I'm stressing out just thinking about it.

Person 3: I take pictures of food usually, but when I do take selfies, all I do is add the filter I like, nothing much else.

I was really satisfied with the responses I got. I think I asked good questions. My aim was to provoke specific answers but still keep the questions open enough to allow for different types of answers. "What's the funniest thing that has ever happened to you?" seems to achieve this best. I always asked the questions in the same order as well. Moving from something that happened to the person, to something the person does, to a more specific action that is as identity as identity can get: taking a picture of one's face. I did this to see if I could find a throughline between humorous experience and indentity on an individual basis. Later on, I might do this same exercise with even more people. It was fun!

It was also very interesting to recieve the answers because I indirectly got to see how different people define the words "humor" and "weird".

*Unit 2*

2/18 This is the part where I look deep inside myself.

Okay. So I'm pretty good at creative writing. I'm not going to lie. But am I good at research writing? I probably could be if I felt like it.

Ow. That sounds really bad... So what, I'll leave it.

Anyways, let's go through the sources I chose and see if they're really okay or not. The 2008 article may be from 2008, but that doesn't mean it's like, bad. In fact, I see it's datedness as a helpful glimpse into a time when the internet was young and the relationship between comedy and identity was only beginning to really sprout. It gets really in depth about not only the celebrity response to the writer's strike, but internet humor as a whole. I didn't really focus on its statements about internet humor as a whole in my critical review. That's kind of a big miss. Whoops.

The TEDx video serves as an interesting addition because it provides a distinct definition of how humor is created, while still stating that humor works on a individual basis as a verbal asterick. This was a great source to use in my opinion because it provides a nice starting point for my analyses of humor as it relates to identity.

The third source I used, the Wall Street Journal essay, was a little different in its message. It was much more opinionated and actually made an argument as opposed to explaining a phemonmena. I thought it would be a good idea to include this source because it makes inferences based on literal science about the effect humor has on people. In the video I talk about how it relates to me specifically but I forgot to mention how internet humor is increasingly becoming a part of social identity, possibly even out of dare I say: necessity!!

If you couldn't tell earlier, I don't like boring writing, so I was very happy with the feedback that my neighbors wanted to keep reading. They also stated that my strength is in the way I argue my points. However, because this is "research writing" I was told that my summaries of my sources were dispropportionatly weaker than my critical responses to them. I don't want people to be confused about what I'm even responding to, so I have to make sure to be more thorough with my summaries so as to not jump the gun.

*Unit 1*

2/18 Comedy and Health and Easy Mac Oh MY!!

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304256404579449180386537694 If you wanna see the article.

*Unit 1*