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Of course, I’m not implying that any of you are less than masters of wit, but I think we can all agree that there is oftentimes a very fine line between funny and cringe.

Based on the more humorous stories on the site, as well as my own limited experience in writing humor, it seems that the easiest (or maybe more natural) way to get a laugh is through absurdity. This makes sense. After all, people often say that the main component of humor is the subversion of expectations though. I’ve been thinking though, and I’m not sure that lol random absurdity is the best approach to getting a laugh. One of my personal favorite humorous books is The Man Who was Thursday specifically because it manages to be funny without being retarded or entirely incoherent.

Obviously, in the real world, jokes are able to be much more subtle because we can rely on tone of voice and delivery. Written fiction doesn’t afford that advantage. On the other hand, you have the opportunity for a much longer build up to a punchline than is reasonable for spoken comedy.

To get to the point, I was curious to hear your opinions on the best kinds of written comedy, best humorous book, methods to make sure it’s funny, et cetera. Or if you disagree with me, I would also love to hear that. And if you hate my guts and need a place to vent, that’ll work.

To put it simply, I fucked up. We have established that I know not when to stop speaking nor how to navigate a social environment. However, if there is one thing I've learned, it is that crossing EndMaster only ends in damnation. Thus I had to try. If only for a brief moment.

Now, here in damnation, I must sit and think of all I can do to improve. I have no reputation to speak of or good will on your end, but I must try to plead for a second chance. In many ways, I have failed but I refuse to allow my curiosity to be the end of me. Not yet. So instead, I am going to attempt something that has never worked for me before.

Please, forgive me for my digressions. I have learned from my mistakes and will take into account all that has happened. There is little more I can say and my groveling has gone on long enough. I may have more to offer, I swear. Just one more chance.

When in doubt, be racist.

Edit: It seems I've been granted the power of editing after replies. I'll try to restrain myself from wiping clean every forum post I've ever made.

The adults are talking you bomb toting, uterus having, raghead

I think you're taking humor... too seriously.

All those thoughts in your head that you think "Oh my gosh I'm so glad I didn't say that out loud!" Well, with a little bit of judgment, those thoughts can be formed into this thing called "jokes".

It also depends on where you are. Here, humor that's derogatory/deprecating is more widely accepted. I don't think they'd much appreciate puns and such.

Thus ends my spiel- cue the exiting bow.

Thank you for reading my monthly contribution to this site.

Burn . . .

Surrealist humor is my personal favorite as it subverts expectation while maintaining tone regardless of what setting or tone you may have been working with at first. Some examples of this type of humor as I've written it before:

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Have you been struggling to find an answer for what the modern woman enjoys? You may hear that it's not all about length. But research shows it's not even about girth or even density these days. It's about radar cross-section or RCS. This very important electromagnetic signature is what determines if you can get the gal.

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While our penis size decreasing pills may be 100% effective, there are those among the elite who may want an extra tactical advantage. For these men of the hour we recommend the MK III Ultra-tacticool fullbody suit. With complex carbonpolymer geometries you'll not only be undetectable but kept entirely within comfort. The suit comes with a range of perks, most notably the (tacti-)cooling system which allows for vigorous and quick thrusting action while staying well conditioned. The fan blades are notched to attenuate airflow noise and the suit itself is highly breathable, allowing for moisture wicking should payload delivery happen prematurely. With an impressive form fitting wingspan you can come and go withotu ever disturbing the peace of your beloveds' sleep. Perfect for use on the busy woman in your life. The highly durable wings are made from a prefamulated amulite substrate which allows for gliding should escape from higher floors be necessary.

Indeed delivering care packages is a large part of our customers needs, but we have a solution even for dropping bombs. For a minor decrease in tactical stealth, the back hatch opens temporarily for payloads to be dropped from your port. For those who would enjoy having that port be stealth while open, we recommend checking our line of Tactical Homo solutions on our website.

With Maduup Engineering's stealth solutions, they'll never see you cumming.

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This kind of humor often elicits a jerry face.

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You can also do what I do
which is to make jokes
only you would understand
or laugh at

and then when they flop
for an audience
you laugh
at how bad it was

mogami river

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Sometimes surreal can be very small and not obvious to many, but still kinda funny. Like this email conversation I had with my team lead:

From: [Manager]
To: [Me]
Subject: 3/1 Meeting

Hi,

No one showed up to the meeting except Sean. Can you explain why?

Thanks,
[Manager]



From: [Me]
To: [Manager]
Subject: Re: 3/1 Meeting

Nope.

Thanks,
[Me]

-----

I accidentally started this post and left it in a forgotten tab for enough time for me to forget what my point was. I also did not read the OP so anyway here it is.

I could use a textbook on that. 

For my contest entry I've decided that it's going to be more on the lighthearted, funny side. The only problem is I don't know if the jokes will come out as cringe or actually funny. Usually I need to get to know people more before I can warp my humor into something that I know they'll think is funny. 

You're a Mormon who ranked yourself a 10/10 on the autism scale. Through no fault of your own, funny will always elude you.

It seems I'll never beat the mormon allegations.

I watched this thread without posting in it because I thought it was going to be funny.

Now I have posted in this thread to say I'm un-watching it.

Honestly I think the most important part is being a man.

Nope

Anyone can be funny, but not everyone can be funny.

The funniest things on the site are actually the comments, especially the ones that feign praise.

 

Of course one can lean to absurdist humor, but it would result in simple bafflement and/or cheap laughs. The things that would cause me to downright break into laughter is when there's a clear contrast shown. Contrasts makes things funny/funnier. Perhaps it's better to say that in order to be funny, it has to subvert some form of expectation.

 

F.e. hero encounters a village who warns him about a fearsome terrifying creature that has eaten their livestock; turns out to be a puppy. If it was a dragon it wouldnt be as funny.

 

Also one writing tool I'm especially fond of seeing is dramatic irony which is probably easier to pull off in written works. It can also lead into quite some dark humor too which is always a plus. 

 

It's hilarious for example to have a guy claim that he's a bear whisperer, only to have him and his girlfriend to be mauled by a brown bear and have their last moments being revorded by the camera he used to film his "wholesome bear videos". Or the submersible accident; the hubris en overconfidence of some very rich millionairs is contrasted with their rather unusual deaths.

 

I also thought the same way about the porters striking during one of the earliest K2 expeditions because the expedition leader refused to give them snow glasses "to save weight" and presumably time, then the remaining crew got snow blindness which resulted in a massive delay.

 

Well, therefore one of the funniest stuff I've read on the site was the entire Allison route. The sheer bafflement the Eternal has for very human things such as nicknames and relationships was pretty funny to me, mainly because one imagined such a character being a walking talking unfeeling killing machine. 

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...

...

Or perhaps I really like Schadenfreude.

Perhaps it's better to say that in order to be funny, it has to subvert some form of expectation.

That makes sense! You are not surprising at all.

Also the bear happened to be a rogue bear and not one the dude had been building rapport with. Of course, with wild animals you can never be entirely safe, but that is sort of a wrench.

I'm not sure either of these scenarios count as funny. Dumb and retarded yeah. Comedy gold? Eh.

 

From reading this post we can all still tell your funny bone is massively underdeveloped.

I thought it was canon he didn't have bones, just a wobbly cartiliginous mass. You guys make up your minds.

There are some pretty funny comments on storygames here, but the ones that are unintentional and oblivious are the best. Still it's worth noting that I agree with the first half of Darius's first sentence. Perhaps he should have stopped there.

If he hadn't bragged that he was such a bear expert, then it wouldn't have reached the funny level. The fact that he made entire documentaries and was callous enough not to carry any bear spray despite the warnings, only to get mauled by this bear, makes it comedy gold.

Clearly people made fun of the submersible incident so much that the public's reaction was displayed on the news. The main operator of the submersible had bragged that about him using a new innovative material, only to have this thing implode due to the hull being too weak. The irony too with the submersible being named titan after the Titanic and it sinking as well. Also the game controller they used being sold out. Then the submarine horror game getting a massive sale boost. Everything about it is very very funny.

The hubris, the arrogance, the fact that they clearly were very stupid and didnt listen to experts despite the many warnings and their obnoxiousness and their eventual unusual deaths. It downright looks like a comedy skit you would find in SNL.

It also helps that I found it very difficult to feel bad for these folks, well except for the girlfriend in the bear story and the 19 year old kid that went inside the submersible for his father's sake. The rest, kind of almost guilt free comedy.

Key 2 comedy = No empathy

In almost any joke (at least in stand up comedy), someone or something has to be punched down. It's just the question which group is the most suitable target, aside of the delivery of the joke. But honestly, you can joke about anything.

Sometimes, but I’m certain there is comedy that doesn’t entail loss and suffering. Simple misunderstandings can be pretty funny at times

It's extremely funny that your thread has turned into this, and I can't feel empathy because you really really did recklessly dangle the "explain human emotions" bait over the slime drenched alien autismo pit. We knew how this was going to go.

That is actually hilarious, and I never learn from my mistakes. I am reading Sabbatical Report Presentation, though. Not all was lost

Lmao autismo pit

No those are both horror shows you inhuman swine. There's a degree of stupidity involved but not these are not funny. You clearly don't get humor at all.

Literally none of this is comedy.

 

I bet Darius sits on the couch with his popcorn watching 9/11 footage just chuckling and slapping his knee. Real SNL skit material right there.

What a deranged faggot.

 

I think I am booting you off my rpg server. Don't need you jacking off every time there is even a vague description of combat round violence.

 

Just when we thought maybe you would before tolerable only on the site, you start with your shitty "humor" opinions. Jeesh.

Please don't compare a real tragedy with thousands of innocent people dying with 4 stupid people (aside from that 19 year old) who had so many resources to consult experts, but still signed a waiver to go into a dumb suicide trip in a makeshift port-a-potty, only for the government to waste millions of dollars on a needless rescue mission. For what, to make them feel human again? Degree of stupidity is quite a massive understatement.

 

Things can be sad, tragic and also very funny at the same time. I think that's what amazing about humor, as it can help people cope when hearing about horrible things. Perhaps this is why the horror comedy genre exists or why I found that the humor that is interlaced with the horror elements of Chainsaw man this more hitting. These two genres can blend surprisingly well and as Mizal has said it before, horror can quickly become comedy if you push things too hard.

 

As for other funny things that could otherwise been seen as tragedies when looked at from another lense. The Knight from pointy python and the holy grail suffering a horrible injury, but says "tis but a scratch". The man who gets yeeted near a bridge after he failed to decide which color is his favorite. The hanging of Brian in the life of Brian. Funny, but still a tragedy.

 

But it seemed like you people relish more in that kind of lolrandom humor from the 2000s, which is also a fine take to have. I'm kind of surprised that people who love to pretend they're very edgy and groundbreaking, are appalled by this bland of a take? Alas, it's good to keep in mind next time. Slurs are a-okay, but schadenfreude big no no. 

 

It's honestly amazing that you carry such an overwhelming compassion for these four people, it really speaks how great your empathy is. Really, compliments to you for not sharing the majority opinion and bringing that good old school humor back.

 

Btw. Im actually glad that you kicked me out, I didn't know how to set that channel on mute. The notifications got me spooked many times. Thing creeped me out. Although, it might read as passive aggressive, I have to clarify that I do mean what I mentioned in this particular comment, in case it gets misconstrued. 

Except these tragic things aren't also funny you dumb faggot. And I will bring up whatever the hell I want.

Citing Mizal won't make you a humor understander.

 when looked at from another lense. The Knight from pointy python and the holy grail suffering a horrible injury, but says "tis but a scratch". The man who gets yeeted near a bridge after he failed to decide which color is his favorite. The hanging of Brian in the life of Brian. Funny, but still a tragedy.

An obviously goofy movie where a guys arm falls off isn't tragic and funny. It's just funny. Don't know this Brian thing but I'm sure it's a horrible example.

 

Next, no we do not. Literally none of us here enjoy lol random humor. There might be a case where it can be done well but that's an outlier. All the good stories involve actual writing and narrative, lol random humor, like you, is very low on the totem pole, in the muddy dregs that is.

No one here pretends they are edgy and groundbreaking. You're just a bland, rambling faggot who literally understands nothing he is talking about ever. And then somehow when we tell how retarded you are, you blink and gape your stupid mouth at the screen and ponder how it must be us not making sense somehow. Mixed with your lame comebacks and gremlinlike features even you might start understanding why we dislike you and respect for you has plummeted since you joined the server, if it didn't start in small part before then.

 

Don't compliment or patronize me you swine. I think these people are all quite stupid but most people can differentiate people dying painfully and horribly and that is pointedly NOT good ol fashioned or lol random humor. Except for you who gets his concept of humor from similar bland retards who meme everything on the internet.

 

I'm glad you got kicked off too if people being crushed in a can makes you snort with laughter but seeing names such as "Kneck Beasy" and "Smerve Jenkins" popping up in your notifications you are too stupid to figure out how to turn off rattles you.

 

I hope Enter bangs your sister repeatedly and sends you videos, that would be the creme de la creme of humor right there 

I'm trying man but he got her locked up even tighter than the aliens in Area 51

Still haven't got that @

It has been an unexpectedly long and busy day, but this thread is delightful to settle down to at the end of it.

I'm actually confused by this one since you didn't even have a role that would've gotten a notification "many times". The Bloodborne game ended months ago and even if you had the one shot role (I can't remember) that's like, three notifications in the past month asking who will be around. Scary!

Looking up or asking how to mute notifications, or asking to have a role removed, or just, like, leaving another server you weren't using anymore probably would've been a lot easier and far less weird than any of your activities in this thread.

And do you feel like the intended tone of your posts is getting misconstrued? That's unfortunate! What was it you were aiming for in that comment to DB? Because it's important. To be clear. In the things. You are saying. Communicate. :)

How have you read so much of the site, yet think lolrandom humor is the norm here? Lolrandom games get executed by the Modstapo on the regular.

What is funny: Darius' ability to just keep digging his own grave. Man has ended up sixty feet under, and is still shattering the bedrock.

Now go read Propheteering and leave an 8/8 review pls

I'm trying to think of the last time one of those types of games even popped up. It'd have to be back in the era before we nuked the school games section because that's the only place the infestation was ever really noticeable.

The example I thought of is the "you're a disc in my dad's spine" game but that's the ONLY funny lolrandom game in my opinion

I mean, I find the submersible incident funny. I have laughed at submarine memes, I even thought the bear whisperer joke was kind of funny even though it was horrible after scrutiny. I can't defend my laughter if you've never laughed at it in the first place, but that doesn't change what it is. There's definitely humor to be found in it, fundamentally. The bear guy not so much because it's way more complicated once you look into the situation of how he came to get mauled in the first place- Much like the "dingos ate my baby" lady or the woman who got her nads scalded by mcdonalds coffee, which were literally worldwide memes everyone was laughing at before even the internet and were both horrible things. But at the same time, it's still funny on a surface level because that's where the initial contradiction is. Narcolepsy is terrifying, but "falling asleep" at random times is inherently funny.

Life is full of these small contradictions and incongruencies especially in horrible tragic circumstances, and I feel like that's even one of the primary uses of humor, because like, you can either laugh at these surprises or be sad, but the latter is going to be miserable. I mean, think about how much shit happens in, like The Big Lebowski, that would be abjectly horrifying and depressing if it was happening to anyone but The Dude and the people he knows, and if the perpetrators weren't amusing in their own ways? The Cohen Brothers in general are really good at kind of riding this line and showing where it is, actually. And like, think of any Adam Sandler movie- If people fell down or had meltdowns like that in real life, would you really laugh at them? Like, right in the moment? Or would it just be a funny story in hindsight that was really uncomfortable at the time? Would Mortal Kombat Fatalities be even 1 millionth as goofy if you actually saw somebody rip somebody else's heart out or break their bones in real life? Would you be able to laugh at that ever if it was in your memory? But it sure is funny when it's recounted in a stylised manner from a second or thirdhand source, right? That's kinda where the joke comes from- Humor really can be just a factor of pain + time.

Never has this been phrased in a less funny manner, though. And I hate that a wriggling milk-maggot like Darius keeps sometimes slipping out of his nest like a string of pus from a skin pore and then squealing out the ghostly fragments of points I loosely agree with, and then defending them so badly that it convinces everyone in the room to believe the exact opposite thing in far greater detail. I think that's truly one of his most awful habits. Even with my own beliefs about humor, I found myself instinctively siding against him because the way he describes simple things is so perverse that it seemed to imply a kind of soulless sadism rather than just a disconnection from the event itself and the ability to see the funny. I had to consciously avoid reading any more of his posts in this thread because of how they sickened me, and I only rose to this occassion to defend this point because the path he was leading you down in his daemonic counterpsychological way simply was not right.

^^ one of the least funny guys ever 

It takes a truly unfunny guy to truly dissect what's comedy. People who are naturally funny don't have to overanalyze jokes to get them or overthink stuff. Same reason why most math geniuses are bad math teachers.

you sound insane, and this makes no sense.  Actual true comedians, who are funny, and that get paid tons of money, put a lot of work on crafting things to be funny.  The good ones dont just dont just wing it on the spur of the moment.  They are not unfunny, and they can dissect comedy pretty well.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/25/opinion/sunday/college-professors-experts-advice.html

Im not clicking that.  but the NY times is written by morons, so some idiots opinion does not prove anything.

And you clearly didn't read my comment. :). I said. Naturally. Funny. People. People who say funny stuff in conversations, who don't put effort in.

Comedians have to put effort in their work, the fact that they struggled and thought hard about their craft. That makes them different. I don't. Mean. Them. It didn't came naturally.

Read.

 

I was replying to this statement by you:

"It takes a truly unfunny guy to truly dissect what's comedy."

so perhaps you should read your own stuff.

You didn't read the latter half, but yeah you're right. Some idiots opinion won't prove anything and everyone who writes for the new York times are all morons. Yeah, those 137 Pullitzers don't mean anything, blah, just mere plastic trophies. Certainly not reputable. Yes, I should trust some bloke on an amateur writing site instead.

So I linked a study instead.

Yes, I did. Perhaps you did not?

 

"It takes a truly unfunny guy to truly dissect what's comedy."

- completely stupid statement.

 

"People who are naturally funny don't have to overanalyze jokes to get them or overthink stuff."

 - Ok, but does not really modify the statement you made in the first sentence.

 

"Same reason why most math geniuses are bad math teachers".

- doubles down on your first statement that was moronic

 

Come on Darius, you are better than this...

You're going at it from line to line, to prove what point again? You know what, if it makes you feel any better, take your win. It veers into straight absurdism. Show your winner's trophy off or something, because I'm not touching that anymore.

You kept saying I didnt read the full comment.  So yes, I did.

And the person that searches and links articles to try and prove his point now wants to act like he is above the effort. 

I'm analyzing your unfunny posts right now and determining that you would be 63.4771% less cringe if you just knew when to stop. (Hint the point of no return was passed some time ago, and smugly announcing you are "not touching this" after fondling yourself through your own personal pride parade makes you MORE of a faggot, not less.)

lol... that was funny.

Forgot I had this tab open and had to start the morning with this dose of. Intense. Passive aggression. What. An. Unbelievable. Cunt. :)

I’m not paying a dollar for this and I’m out of free articles. As a Dutchman, you should understand the sentiment

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/choke/201008/the-best-players-rarely-make-the-best-coaches

Here

I read it. It wasn’t funny

Sometimes I think Malk's accusations of you being a disgusting Redditoid are just him having gazed so deep into his daemonological inquiries that he sees the enemy in everyone who's just a bit retarded. But then you do shit like link a science article about why a colloquial generalization is sometimes true. For, like, this derangedly soy attempt to cite a source for your argument for insulting a dude who said you're not funny.

You indeed have convinced me, I disagree with Malk now. That is a hilarious thing to do.

Honestly cannot think whether this is a compliment or an insult. Huh. What desensitization does to you. But glad that your dislike doesn't run deep.

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I should have used physics as an example, you're right.

Saying which one it is would kill the joke, but I think there are enough context clues out there

Then I'll live in blissful ignorance, thinking that you think I'm so funny that you reread my comments just to feel alive again.

Well I mean, for one thing, that's probably why he just said it wasn't funny

For another, it is kind of funny that when you tried to think of a field where the geniuses are bad at teaching it, you decided to pick the one where literally everything you do has to be written down with complete instructions on how it works and how to perfectly replicate it in order for it to be true, you can't even begin to do it without knowing how to do this part, and basically all dialogue at the highest level are geniuses teaching each other and not bothering to clue people in on a normie level. That's, like, one of the foremost examples you shouldn't have used!

I think you just really like schadenfreude.

Yo' mama's like a postage stamp, people lick her, stick her, and then send her on her way.

There, see how easy humor is?

Easy just like yo' mama.

How long did it take for you to come up with that?

About a minute.

The other fifty nine minutes I spent doing your mom.

sigh

Best comment of the thread

Glad to know that doing Suranna's mom was all worth it.

Living in the Midwest should have desensitized me a bit more, but the autistic European need for soulless passive aggression never stops bringing me pain.

I still don't know how to be funny.

Glad I had such good foresight to commend the OP before anyone even knew how funny this thread would become.

I really expected at best for comedy value we'd get some awkward long winded explanations, possibly including statistics as people try to autistically dissect and quantify "funny", but what a glorious dumpster fire this turned out to be.

I haven't read any other posts in this thread, so apologies if I'm reapeating anything.

Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy is my favorite book, so that probably says a lot about my humor preferences. The martian is another favorite of mine.

In general, I find that the type of humor I enjoy most is character-driven and plays off character dynamics. That way, you can both get a laugh, and get in meaningful characterization. I tend to try and do this in my own writing (though I don't think I've done so on this site). One-liners or short dialogue bits are also fun and pretty easy to do.

I also love when stories are able to pair comedy and tragedy (or horror) in a way that allows them to enhance each other. This works best when it's paired with character-based humor. The trouble with these two approaches is that they require a lot of history, so they can't work in a shorter work.

When writing comedy sketches, I usually go for absurdity because you don't have time to develop characters and history. There's also a lot more room there, because a sketch will eventually be preformed by actors, who can work on a funny delivery for the lines.

What CYS has taught me about humor is that it's highly subjective. I'm known in most of my real life friend groups as the funny one, but by CYStian humor standards I'm not funny at all. Conversely, I find most CYStian humor incomprehensible. Similarly, when joking with people in real life, most people my age find sex jokes very funny and they're completely dull to me.

I recently read a book about the evolutionary origins of humor which claimed that it was originally a reward mechanism for detecting errors in systems of belief (the book was called 'inside jokes'). This claim is unproven, but it seems to explain why many of the things we find funny are so.