Absurd Laughter is Contagious

As soon as I realized the Yahoo! Pregnant video was about to play, I started laughing. It's not just the the poor grammar and spelling that makes this video funny, but the the narrator's tone, emphasis, and pauses for dramatic effect. I haven't seen the Sims video before, but it was equally as funny. Its narrator similarly contributes to the humor because you can hear when in each sentence he himself registers the humor and begins to wheeze with laughter.

I agree with Alex's opinion that absurdism is difficult to explain within our four comedy theories. In his blog post he explains his analysis of how each theory works for one video and not the other, or only partially fits the humor being presented. The four humor theories we have discussed often focus on the subject and the structure of the joke, but not necessarily how it was told. Watch the pregnancy video again, but this time without sound. Sure, its still funny, but you might not have laughed as hard as you did before.

Although this topic does not immediately relate to absurdism, what struck me in the two videos was the comedic timing and how the joke was told. These two things, in my opinion, can make or break a joke. This is true for most forms of comedy. Famous comedians earn their entire living off of being able to turn the mundane funny just by the way they use facial expressions, change their voice, or pause for dramatic effect. Both of these videos used narrators to provide these vocal changes and dramatic pauses. They both even edited in pictures for facial expressions the audience could laugh at. It's interesting the four comedy theories we discussed don't really cover this concept. You could say that seeing or hearing someone use these comedy techniques allows the audience to know something is benign (benign-violation).

Additionally both of the videos were full of laughter from the narrators. This, I would argue, also makes the videos funnier. Laughter is contagious; you are more likely to laugh along with someone than laugh alone. That's why sit-coms use laugh tracks. I believe that's also why something may seem funnier in the moment-- a combination of comedic timing and the laughter of others happening at that time whereas when you tell the story you wait for and expect laughter? Therefore the classic quote "You had to be there." Maybe the seemingly surprised laughter of both narrators in both videos allow you to almost "be there" so to speak.

Toward the end of Alex's post, he mentions that just reading one of the quotes off of social media alone probably wouldn't be as funny as reading them sequentially. I would add that (in this particular case) the comedy in these absurd videos largely come from the narrators and their humorous reading of the Yahoo! Answers and Sims flaws as well.