These two video clips were hilarious. Afterward, I was definitely intrigued by why I found myself laughing so hard. I completely understand your arguments and find them compelling, but, especially for the first clip, I think you missed a large part of incongruity theory that could explain what made these readings so funny.
Obviously, the graphics and the voice in the back made it a lot funny since it was a lot more dramatic, and someone laughing in the background makes the audience laugh more since laughter is contagious. I think the main part of the argument you missed though was not giving the incongruity theory enough of a chance to explain the first video.
The incongruity theory seems to have a straight forward definition, but there are a lot of instances where the incongruity theory can be expanded upon a lot more than you may realize. For instance, in the first video, I think part of the reason the clip was so funny was the huge gap between grammar education and sexual development. All of these people were talking about either sex, being pregnant, or both. The mere idea of this in itself is hilarious. If you stop to think about how old you have to be to become pregnant or even be aware of the notion of sex, the idea that these people writing these posts cannot even spell this mature idea is hilarious.
This is also incredibly incongruous because normally, in each of our mental sets, or at least in mine, one would think that a person would be able to spell pregnant before they were actually worried about pregnancy!
For the second video, I think you had some great explanations, so I do not have much to expand upon with that one. I thought it was mainly funny considering the idea that these random and seemingly obvious things could be overlooked and need to be corrected in the first place, which I think you mentioned.
Thanks for sharing!
I agree that the trick with incongruity is to make it specific. I think you are absolutely right that the incongruity between the spelling ability of someone who is of child-bearing age and these folks is a huge part of the humor. I'm interested if we can come up with a more specific explanation than just "this doesn't make sense" for the second.
ReplyDeleteI find your argument for incongruity theory in the first video very fascinating, primarily because that is not at all how I interpreted the video! However, after reading your post, I most certainly can see your point. And it's a great one! I kind of like your argument better than my own. :) I guess sometimes it takes listening to other people's perspectives on a topic to really form a solid understanding of your own.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with the points you made in your response blog. I feel that Incongruity Theory is a very good explanation of what is going on here. I think that Incongruity Theory can explain the second video as well, but it is a lot more difficult to see how.
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