this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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I hate this relatively new idea that comedy has to be mean. If you have to rile the audience to be funny, you're not funny.
[relevant]
I just saw this posted on lemmy a while back. It's so good. lol
For anyone who likes this, his entire show is brilliant and you can buy it for a fairly reasonable price directly from his homepage:
https://www.jamesacaster.com/cold-lasagne/
Honestly one of if not the best Stand-Up routine I've seen in the past ten years
If you're the kind of person that thinks no comedy can be mean, you're helping to destroy comedy
Just my opinion. If you don't like it, don't watch it. Don't hate those that understand centuries upon centuries of schadenfreude is what made us a funny species
Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit.
His reading comprehension is fine, the guy said
Whereas Mr_Blott is saying that sometimes, it is
The guys even right that a lot of this isn't even new ideas. Mean or even dark humor has been around for centuries.
Thanks for having comprehension 😅
Actually if your reading comprehension was better you would understand that the other poster also has poor reading comprehension and would discount their support. Reading comprehension is when people agree with me.
I see what you did there. Bold move, as it's risky.
But there is a "gray option" here. I read this as "you can rile up the audience and be funny, just not if that's the only thing you do", in context with the previous point that this sort of humour is overused and loosing its impact.
If the only way you can make pizza is by sticking a frozen one in your oven you can't make pizza; if you choose to use a frozen pizza that doesn't mean you can't make pizza.
You're conflating two subtly distinct concepts. Only being able to do something one way isn't the same as choosing to do something one way. If your only option is to rile people up, you're not funny. That's what these comedians are complaining about; their one joke is to punch down, which is frowned upon.
That's just a bad analogy. That's more like if a comedian can only copy someone else's jokes, they're not funny. If you wanted a pizza analogy, it'd be more like if you can only make thick crust pizza, but can't make any other types of pizza's, you can't make pizza.
Which is just not true. You just find an audience who enjoys being constantly given thick crust pizza.
Mean/dark humor isn't an incorrect type of humor. It is a different type of humor. If someone is good at it then they just need to stick with that audience. Is it what you'd consider high class or in good taste? Maybe not, but it's still their humor.
I mean it's not like punching up is any harder than punching down. Just the audience of that comedian is more likely to not be in the group affected by it.
Convenient of you to completely omit and ignore his first sentence, which happened to contain the core message. That's why you're both being dinged for (lack of) reading comprehension.
Just trying to make this as stupid-simple as possible.
No? You are completely welcome to hate that kind of comedy. In fact that kind of comedy by it's nature will have people who can't handle it. But it's acting like it's some new terrible idea someone thought of recently instead of a long-standing form of comedy that just happened to hit a bad spot for some.
It's basically re-contextualizing it as something that has no basis when it in fact should be a type of comedy that goes without saying at this point....
Like it wasn't removed out of convenience it's the core of nothing.
At worst you could argue he is trying to say that people actually think all comedy has to be mean...which would be stupid in it's own right because he just argues the opposite extreme in his second sentence then....Black/White instead of any form of gray argument. Like I really hope we're not saying that the extreme point is the core of his argument....
Truly even funnier after watching the video linked
These people aren't riling up the audience. They're riling up people the audience doesn't like.
Also, I'm ok with comedy being "mean", so long as the target deserves it and it's delivered in a witty way. Too many "edgy" comedians are just recycling the same joke, which runs counter to the idea that comedy is the Subversion of Expectations.
Mean comedy and riling people up can be funny.
You think that’s new?