Things I have learned about humor in CW 350H so far

1) Writing effective comedy is the act of writing jokes that will be well received by the audience you are performing in front of.

2) There is no such thing as a joke that is funny absolutely. Writing comedy is a matter of selecting material based on what most of your audience identifies with, what they choose to believe in, or what can surprises them in a humorous fashion without crossing the line between funny and upsetting.

3) The fact that the criterion for what is funny is different for each individual person is what makes no joke funny absolutely.

4) The trick to finding out what you should perform lies in making stereotypes and generalizations about what most individuals in your audience thinks is funny and writing jokes specifically for that crowd.

For example, I could write some jokes that make fun of the stereotypical conservative Republican that is borderline offensive. I would only read this to a group of people that have some degree of contempt for the stereotypical conservative Republican and enjoy the way it is offensive towards them. An ideal audience for this is a bunch of kids at the Grassroots festival, because, based on my stereotypes, I know that most of them are at the extreme end of the spectrum opposite to the stereotypical conservative Republican.

However, I wouldn't want to tell the same jokes to an NRA meeting if I wanted to make that crowd laugh. The only way that that would be funny is if the target audience was the liberal crowd. In other words, it would only be funny if the action of making awkward Republican jokes in front of Republicans was somehow communicated to the other audience that would think it's funny. Without them, the action of reading such jokes would never be funny, except to myself, which doesn't count as being funny anyways. This leads to my next point.

5) What the comedian believes is funny holds no bearing to what they should plan on writing. The greatest challenge of the comedian is to distinguish between the parts of their personality and sense of humor they need to bring out to a particular audience and which ones they need to conceal.

Or maybe this is just me that sees this as a challenge. My sense of humor has always been about two things; being creepy and saying offensive things that may be crossing the line for some individuals. However, ever since I started this engineering education, my mind has been slowly morphing. Simply due to the fact that I have been spending much of my time on understanding mathematical systems and solving technical problems, my perception of what is funny has been shifting towards what would be funny to those that spend much of their time understanding mathematical systems and solving technical problems.

From a 'writing humor' perspective, this would be great if the only people that I'm trying to entertain are engineers. But, obviously, this is not the case. In certain situations, such as the business world, I will want to bring out this kind of humor and suppress the creepy and offensive things. Reason being is because I have tried my creepy, offensive, and facetious type of humor around my classmates, and for 4 years now, they still maintain that everything I say is serious and literal. Either that or what I say goes above their head. It's pointless. But around most college students (such as the Humorous Writing class) creepy and offensive is the way to go, and I need to suppress the nerdy engineering humor.

It's exactly as Vaughn said at the beginning. There is always an audience that will think you're funny, whatever it is you're saying.

For the Humorous Writing class, I am in a unique position. Usually, people don't know that I'm joking when I try to be creepy. But because of the forum I am in, there is a presumption that, whatever it is I'm saying, I'm joking. Here is a list of things that the people in that class think is funny, or at least what my stereotypes of them say:

1) Taboo jokes
2) Weird and fucked up jokes - anything that is honestly shocking
3) Pop-culture references
4) References to other people in the class - inside jokes between classmates
5) Making fun of oneself - especially embarrassing stories and jokes
6) Witty name-calling - lots of swear words works well here

At least these are the glaringly obvious ones that I can think of right now. Personally, I don't think #3 and #4 are very funny. I believe they are very limiting in terms of creativity because the are mostly just picking on whatever thing the pop-culture reference or kid in the class is known for. Like Eric being a frat boy who had sex with Lerche, or Chris Brown hitting Rihanna. I've heard dozens of jokes on those two topics, and apparently it's funny. But I don't get it. It gets old pretty quickly. You can pick on a personality trait or an incident all you want, but it won't get a laugh out of me. It's an "Ohhh Snap!" moment, but that being said, I equate jokes like this to something you would see in a rap battle or failed SNL skits. (SNL sucks)

Now all of you know two things that will not make me laugh, so if I'm in an audience, you will know what to expect for certain jokes. Good for you!

I think I have my moments with #1 and #2, sometimes mixing them with #5. For the remainder of the semester, I'm going to be experimenting in these areas. Maybe I'll throw in a few #3's and #4's, who knows?

Now that was clutch!


Next time I might post something funny. Tough luck tonight though.

Pop-culture references

Just who the fuck do you think you are making your fancy pop-culture references to make people laugh, eh? I'm familiar with most of your culture's celebrities, but yall' are like 'team boomsplosion' and I'm going "How the fuck do you mean?" in my head.

Do I have to pay attention to this stuff if I ever want to get that LCD laugh?

Engineering Students

This is what they think. (by the way, this isn't really a humorous entry; I'm being serious.)

"Liberal arts majors are stupid and don't know how to do anything! Not like us. We're not wasting our time on something so stupid!"

"Every profession that is not related to something technical is so stupid! Even those that are doing something technical are not as smart as I am because I have an engineering degree! What, you can't even make it through college?! Stupid!"

"I'm arrogant!"

"I'm lazy!"

"Even those with an engineering degree, but not an engineering degree in my specific discipline have made the incorrect and stupid decision because I do not see an applicable reason for me to get into that field. Everything everyone else does besides my line of work is a waste of time! Idiots!"


By the way, I'm an engineering major. That was what they think. This is what I think, which I think is at the back of their minds, but will not manifest itself for a few years.

"My primary goal in the professional world is to use my white people skills to gain promotions into management and put those who have had less opportunities than me or can't speak english (foreign engineers) on the bottom of the food chain and do all the work for me. I would rather play golf, go to expensive company paid lunches, and scope out brilliant hard-working people and get paid 6 figures, work 40 hours a week, and get a month of vacation a year than to actually legitimately make breakthroughs in the company line."

And that is why I should probably get an MBA after I graduate. I want to be a shit-brained manager.

I just really like this picture

Stolen from superpoop.com

Hopefully it will inspire me later

Hammer Movie Reviews

300 – Awsome! Just Awsome. Yo, that scene, with that one dude, and the girl, when he was like, you owe me a boning, and she was like uhhhhh ok I can do that, and he was like no no no no you will…will not enjoy this! Oh man. That’s like one of my biggest fantasies, you know. Like I would be pounding a girl at the same time as her wanting me to, but I make it hurt instead? Oh man.

The reason why I am the way I am

When I was in high school, my older sister used to tell her friends about what I did at night after I thought no one could hear. It was embarrassing. I used to stay up late and make farting noises with my armpit and hand and laugh to myself

I HATE Captain Crunch

I was just watching TV, and these fucking kids really pissed me off. Okay, so these kids were learning how to be a ninja and shit from their sensei, which is pretty damn important. Their parents were probably paying half their paychecks so their kids could learn the art of being a ninja, but what do they do? They whine like little pussies!

Their sensei TOLD THEM that they can’t have a break unless they broke the wooden block in front of them. That’s something any half-wit ninja can do, but what do they do?

WAHHH!! I want my cold cereal NOW even though this training could save my life someday!!

And then who comes to RUIN EVERYTHING?!

What the fuck, Captain Crunch? Can’t you see that these kids’ parents are paying GOOD MONEY for ninja lessons? But what do you do? You just don’t give a shit, do you? DO YOU?! You just decide that $50 an hour to learn how to be a ninja is ‘not a big deal’ and you don’t hesitate to say ‘to hell with that’ and split a $3 bowl of cereal for with these kids instead of them actually getting what they came for. NINJA SKILLZ!!

So this prick takes these kids away from their lesson to eat dry cereal. Okay. After they get done sliding around on rainbows and shit and return to the dojo, the sensei wasn’t nearly as pissed as I would be. I would’ve totally fucked up that bastard Captain Crunch. No pedophile fatass sailor could stand a chance against a really pissed off dojo master. But what does he do?

Oh yeah.
NOTHING!

Because of that bastard, the dojo master got out of teaching for god knows how long, but he was still getting paid! Thanks a lot, Captain Crunch, for letting fucking up the system, letting guys get paid for doing nothing. What kind of a message does that put out to the kids? “Look kids, you can be lazy and still get money for free!”

You’re a disgrace, Captain Crunch, an utter disgrace. FUCK YOU! I hate you and your petty ways.
No, really FUCK YOU CAPTAIN CRUNCH!!

Eat shit.