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TWITTER IS CHANGING HUMOR… ONLY ON TWITTER?

Posted By Andres Govea
Wed, Mar 26 2014 at 2:29 PM

My last post I stated that humor is neither good or bad for a comedian, but a new medium for comedy to evolve and I stand, or sit as I write this, corrected. Christine Erickson’s article on MASHABLE.com, How Twitter is Changing the Craft of Humor, tells how Twitter Comedy has become a completely new genre for humor. Erickson recounts what she learned at the Social Media Week NYC at the panel “How to be Funny in 140 Characters or Less” with panelist Lizz Winstead, Jon Friedman, and Julieanne Smolinski. Erickson does not dwell on the pros and cons of the social media site, but focuses on how the new category is created.

Erickson does not make a case for the comedy on Twitter. She reinforces the fact that it is a tool to make humor more accessible. The accessibility of Twitter is seen in “Hashtag Games”, humors hashtags that trend when a larger following participates. This Twitter genre is not only accessible but contains a short life span- this is the internet after all. The hashtag given at the panel was #RejectedGroupons and it trended second place Worldwide, but only lasted an hour-  which I think is pretty long for an ADHD site. Old media, television programs, have been swayed by Twitter’s briefness. Comedy Central’s game show @Midnight was built around the Twitter hashtag trend.

Twitter is changing humor as it expands and intertwines with different mediums. But it is important to disclose that cannot fit into the mold that is TV programing fully and vise-versa. In FASTCOMPANY’s article Does Twitter Kill TV Comedy? Writers from “The Daily Show,” “SNL,” “Fallon” and Others Sound Off by Paul Myers, Myers speaks with Gavin Purcell,producer for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Gavin remarks to Twitter as "Jokes that rely on a performance element or a long wordy set-up are lost in translation when tweeted. Inversely, a lot of the funniest stuff on Twitter wouldn’t really work in the monologue." Voice becomes a continuous theme for comedian’s performance on Twitter as SNL's Weekend Update head writer Alex Baze says his personal Twitter feed has an entirely different "voice" than the one he adopts to write for Seth Meyers, and notes that while a good Update joke has a clear setup and a punchline, more often than not, that mimics Meyers’ anchoring style, a good tweet can be an observation without a joke. A joke fragment.

It's clear that Twitter does not harm comedy and Twitter influences old media. But the concerns surrounding Twitter is that it does not always fit format of TV programing. Twitter's humor is it's own hilarious monster. You can't compare the two media's and suggest that one is better than the other or that one is harmful to comedy. Twitter is simply expanding to different avenues comedy can exist while still influencing old media. 

 

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 DISCUSSION
#1 POSTED BY Rachel Michelle Glicksberg, 03/30 4:27 PM

I think this is a fascinating issue you are looking at. And I think your conclusion is very fair--that you can not compare different platforms because they are so different.  I think twitter humor is very interesting--short and to the point. I have definitely "LOL-ed" at many tweets and some hashtags. 

Excited to see where else you go with this!

#2 POSTED BY Wade Wallerstein, 04/01 3:45 PM

It's so funny that I'm reading this post today—I actually just watched @Midnight for the first time today. It's a really simple and hilarious concept, and some of the jokes are actually really brilliant. I think that a lot of the time Twitter is looked down upon as being a more shallow social media, and while almost all can laugh at a funny tweet, Twitter humor is a less established and appreciated than other genres of internet humor. The idea of tweets containing "joke fragments" is really interesting to me, especially when those fragments can fully stand alone. There are not many other places out there where such a fragmentary joke or incomplete thought can pack that much of a punch. I wonder what roads Twitter humor will lead comedy down next...

#3 POSTED BY Serena Astrid Elkaim, 04/01 8:35 PM

It's definitely really worthwhile to explore just how far the reach of these ever expanding social media platforms are in different types of more established medias. I appreciate the comparison between TV and Twitter as I feel that Twitter humor is meant to be much snarkier, succinct, and short-lived, whereas some comedy television programs are often geared more towards lengthy and drawn out story lines that can span over several seasons. It's bizarre to consider the fact that Twitter, with such a limited amount of characters could be, in any way, influencing television. I'm excited to see just how much social media is impacting older versions of media and how unaware we might be of it because of the integration of both medias in our daily lives.

#4 POSTED BY guest guest, 04/01 8:37 PM

it is interesting to note that twitter humor while different from other forms and may be considered cheaper, it is still freaking hilarious. It is easy to say that twitter humor feeds a societal lack of attention span, but puns and witty one liners have been funny from the get go. I think it boils down to what people count as a joke? The humor also tends to be more intelligent I find. Often the jokes take a moment to sink in and that almost adds to the humor. 

I don't know if I'm making a point here I just wanted to agree that I find twitter super lol worthy. 

Yay puns!

#5 POSTED BY Matthew Graham Silver, 04/01 8:38 PM

Does the humor exhibited on Twitter have any correlation/relation to the humor on other "short content" sites, such as Vine? Do you find any commonalities in content, tone, etc…? Can you offer us any define-able terminology that relates to Internet specific humor?

#6 POSTED BY Madeline Hanna Robles, 04/01 8:39 PM

Why does twitter have to be a main source in humor if so many feel that it is a "shallow media" not capable of capturing the essence of humor? I agree that both humors are different but are also just as important as the other. I wonder how will online humor evolve in the years to come, and if it eventually will become more popular than televised humor.

#7 POSTED BY Hannah Heffernan Johnson, 04/01 8:41 PM

The difference between humor within varying media platforms is really fascinating as different platforms provide different limitations and struggles to comedians. Something interesting I'd love to see you explore further would be the accessibility social media platforms give people to get their material out there. Are some platforms more effective than others at creating a space for up and coming comedians? Why do some of these spaces work more than others? Does the internet make the world of comedy "smaller" in any way by allowing comedy to reach across boarders so that things can become universally funny? Sorry kind of random thoughts, but this is where my mind went. Hope it helps!

 

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