I spent the better part of today (my last day being Age 33!) reading Ken Jennings's book Planet Funny: How Comedy Ruined Everything, about how the world is "getting funnier" with everything turning into a joke, from the comedy news shows like The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, to books (the most famous books about World War II were Slaughterhouse Five and Catch-22, which were satirical works meant for some dark humor) to social media where everyone is a comedian and every comment to a Youtube video or tweet or reddit post is a chance to be funny. Politics is now funny; the last 2 presidents we had before current President Biden definitely broadedened the horizons for joking around in the Oval Office, whether they intentionally did or not. President Obama was the "People's President" in terms of going on talk shows and making jokes bout himself and giving his big likeable grin after delivering one, and President Trump........set himself up for a lot of jokes, but also joked about political opponents. Not to say that serious matters aren't taken seriously anymore, but a lot of life has been infused with elements of humor. Even Jeopardy, apparently, encourages contestants to tell a funny story about themselves during the interview segment and have canned laughter ready for any semblance of a joke......and that was part of Alex Trebek's charm, he was a great reader of clues but also did a great Jay Leno impression when giving one-liner replies to contestants' eccentric professions or nonstandard stories. I still think contestants though can be funnier, which is difficult for people with IQ's over 130 I guess to develop a funny bone and hilarious personality, but I'd have a couple tricks up my sleeve if I ever got on.
I get it: most people want to be well liked, and one of the clearest paths to being well liked outside of being extremely popular naturally through athletic prowess or good-looking (good gene prowess) is to resort to making other people laugh. In many ways it's a defense mechanism not unlike bugs adopting camouflage or being stinky to avoid predators: I developed jokes to get social acceptance and have some semblance of a social circle in high school. Later on, I tried to be funny in dates, and luckily, MJ fell for it (I do think some of my early charm in our relationship is my ability to make her laugh, if only to ease the tension in her very stressed life, or to cause a momentary break in an argument).
One thing I've missed about the pandemic is the ability to deliver jokes: can't be funny with no one to talk to. In fact, I took for granted how much I relied on telling a joke to ingratiate myself at work or work my way into a group; I realize now it was part of my routine to try to get a quick chuckle at least on the first day of a work project or whenever an opportunity presented itself. Nothing doing on zoom calls or work meeting calls; it's just not the same without seeing everyone's face and making sure everyone's paying attention, and getting the timing just right. I tried to "spice it up" this past week by wishing all my co-wokers "May the Fourth be with you" on May 4th. Maybe one or two Star Wars fans got it, but even if so there was no audible response, I didn't get the feedback that I wanted and all comedians crave when they tell a joke and waiting to see how it went.
Nowadays, though, jokes are a double-edged sword: they're more prevalent and acceptable, but only the right kind of jokes; the wrong types can doubly offend and do substantial damage to one's personality. Anything regarding race, religion, gender, politics, gender politics, vaccines, and a whole range of sensitive topics needs to be handled with kid gloves; even comedians who have a much looser leash to tell jokes have to reign in some of their more offensive jokes for fear of backlash. So imagine little me who works for law firms that handle lawsuits, I have to be even more careful about not making insensitive jokes. Every company I've ever worked for has a sexual harassment policy, so I adhere to that. I also try not to put any jokes in official emails for fear that it will be used against me (a big part of my work is reading OTHER people's emails, which makes me conscience of what I write in my own emails in case they ever end up being used as evidence in the future). Therefore, my comedy range is pretty limited......I go for cheap jokes that get a quick laugh, avoiding long stories with set-up that require some investment and have a higher possible reward of being VERY funny but also carry risk of falling flat on my face. I've gotten a couple disapproving looks fom MJ, but many of my jokes are sexually-tinged jokes that's given me a reputation among from friend circle. It's paradoxical: some of the edgiest jokes about sex and sex acts are the safest because they don't put anyone down or affect any of the listeners; they're just funny because of their ridiculousness to take the listeners and me making the joke to a different reality, which is part of the point of jokes in the first place.........not have to deal with the reality of the moment and go somewhere, if even for one line of dialogue, to an unexpected place, an unexpected thrill that makes our brains go, "ooh, that was funny, I should laugh." And not get offended while doing so. I miss that feeling.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
No comments:
Post a Comment