"The reason why this is so funny ["stop singing that stupid ****** song"] is because he knows it's a song."
Ch3ckraise's brand of humor is so exquisite, so perfect, that it invites analysis.
As a person engaged in the clinical practice of a branch of neuroscience, I find myself asking why people act the way they do. For example, what is music? What is art? From a functional neurological perspective.
There are people doing research on the neurological basis of humor. One was profiled on NPR not too long ago. It was obvious the guy was a functioning autist who had no sense of humor, but wanted to know what all the fuss was about.
He noticed activation of a part of the cingulate gyrus of the frontal lobe that is known to be involved with cognitive dissonance, or in other words, the feeling that something doesn't quite fit. "Something ain't right here."
I don't doubt his results, I just don't think he's gotten to the bottom of the matter. Because cognitive dissonance is not pleasurable. Quite uncomfortable in fact.
I think what he's missing is concept. A joke has to "click" to be funny, in the sense that we say something "clicks" when you finally get what your teacher is trying to tell you.
Neural networks in general, and brains in particular, store information in the form of links between attributes that are distributed across functional domains. For example, the concept of "dog" is dependent upon making connections between things like "small" "furry" "animal" "bark" and other things. Smell. The visual word form D-O-G. There is no brain cell dedicated to the definition of "dog," as if it were written somewhere on a hard drive. The concept is generated on the fly, any time enough attributes are presented to the brain. One attribute brings up the others, so if you see a little furry creature barking, you are reminded of the dog you had as a child, and the feeling of cuddling with him, the sorrow you felt when he died, and the feelings you have of your childhood home. All attributes of "dog," all linked. Learning what a dog is, is nothing more or less than the process of linking these attributes.
Concepts help the organism predict what is coming down the road, and give us a clue how to react to what is coming. Concepts can be simple or complex, and they can be more or less valid. A simple, less valid concept might be, "bet enough and often enough and you will win." A more complex and sophisticated concept might be, "When a nit checks after a scare card falls on the turn, a big bet will sometimes win the pot."
Our growth and survival as human beings requires us to form more complex and sophisticated concepts as we go along. It seems to me that a function this important must be rewarding on a certain level. Survival is as important as reproduction, and reproduction is certainly pleasurable, right?
And if you think about it, it is pleasurable when you "get it." I remember my poker coach hammering me about bet sizing, and I listened to him and did what he said. How do you think I felt when it finally "clicked?" Did I stamp my feet and cry? No. I smiled. "Aha!" I said. It felt good.
It's not possible to deny this, that concept formation is pleasurable. It's why it's more pleasurable to read a book than the Cliff notes. Why seminar courses are so much more interesting than memorize/regurgitate classes.
I would submit that humor is a form of concept formation. In my mind, that puts it in the same category as art. Good humor should give you or teach you a unique perspective, an angle on something you never quite thought of before. And it is no doubt a subtle angle. Someone once asked Hemingway what one of his books was about. He said, "If I could just tell you, I wouldn't have had to write the book."
What's brilliant about Ch3ckraise -- like Hemingway -- is his brevity, the lack of wasted words or energy. Each thing is just enough in itself.
That's why it doesn't have to rhyme, right? When two words rhyme, that's kind of interesting I guess. When they make a pun, that's funny. A pun is a juxtaposition of two things that lends meaning, and when it lends meaning on enough levels, there may be ah "Aha moment" that is delightful.
Might be hard to put words to it, which is partially the point, to get into levels that aren't accessible to symbolic representation. Dolly Parton once said in a movie, "Laughin and cryin at the same time, that's my favorite emotion." Yeah, I know that emotion. My favorite commercial of all time is the VW commercial, where the 20-somethings are riding around in a convertible on a beautiful moonlit night, and they decide not to go to the party with all the drunk people. The entire point of that commercial is to define an emotion, and I kind of see where they are going with it. I do love that emotion, when you're riding around with your friends. And everything is perfect. You know, I have felt that. I have.
It's all in the juxtaposition of things, showing how two things go together in a way you never thought of. For example. "I'm no expert on lyrics or anything, but wtf does titt1ies rhyme with?" "Documents, imo."
That is a non-random association. Those two things do "rhyme" in a semantic sense. But, up until now, only in the mind of C3ckraise.
The joke is "about" the relationship between sex and money. And we get that. First time I went to Vegas, my wife said, "This place is all about sex." "No, I think it's all about money." "Same thing."
We get that, but the victory song is a juxtaposition of numerous, numerous attributes. To put a preliminary spin on it, it's money, adult sexuality, infantile sexuality, narcissism, gangster culture, dominance, sadistic gratification, masochistic gratification, white culture, hedonism vs asceticism ("reported!"). Give me a few minutes, I can come up with more. And the funny thing is, and this is why it's funny, is that Ch3chraise drew a line that connects all these things. In a way that has some universal relevance in some ineffable way. A concept broad enough to cover the dancing hot dog girl is nothing to sneeze at, my friend. You watch that video and say, "Yeah, that's perfect. That fits." Not every derivative of bing/blang/blaow worked. Not everything was funny. Ch3ckraise has defined something.
There's more to it, of course. We could make note of comedic timing, because there is rhythm to the written word. Punctuation is funny($50>BANKWIRE>ATM>TITT1ES), and that in itself would be an interesting topic. Perhaps a priming effect?
There is definitely an aptitude involved. We tend to think of funny people as smart people, and while that is often true, it's not necessarily true. I've noticed a lot of people with Down's syndrome possess a very wry and apt sense of humor. (I'm not trying to say Ch3ckraise is ******ed. His girlfriend might think so, but I don't! And in any event it's obvious why she loves him.*)
Some of us are sad, if not ashamed, that this stuff has become stuck in our heads. But we latched on to it for a reason. Certain things "click" when you first hear that song, and it might be difficult to put words on it (all words are concepts, but not all concepts are words) but this stuff refers to something true. No doubt.
I have this theory that the brain chemical responsible for all this is DMT. But that's another topic for another day.
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I mention this because of an "inspirational moment" a southern protestant preacher offered up the other day at work, when talking about dealing with all the crap life deals out to you. He said, we only really learn from the bad times. When times are good, we are happy and all but we aren't learning. So we should be thankful on a certain level when things start to suck, thereby improving us as human beings.
I take issue with that, which I see as a rather narrow interpretation of things from the viewpoint of a particular philosophy (Calvinism) that should be required to prove itself in the marketplace of ideas.
Different people have different ideas on enlightenment, and where it comes from and how we feel when we get it. If you're a Japanese Buddhist, you probably believe that enlightenment is associated with a nice feeling, and that Enlightenment with a capital E is the most intensely pleasurable experience a human can have.
As we travel through this world, we learn how things (attributes) relate. We go through phases where we believe that some things relate to each other, and other's don't. Then we start to understand that things that seem to have no connection, can in fact be connected. (Read up on synesthesia, and then read up on why synesthesia is considered taboo in some circles.) The time will come when you come to realize that maybe, just maybe, everything is connected on a certain level.
To move down that path, you have to shake the sandbox every once in a while. Jumble up the connections a bit, let things sort themselves out in a different way for a little while.
That's what humor is.
It might also be what music is, depending on what kind of music. It's what school is. It's what travel is. It's what psychoanalysis is. It's what mediation is. It's what poker is; studying poker allowed me to understand existentialism for the first time, among other things. It's what Burning Man is.
As you go down this list, think about how lost we've become.
Because these are the things that are not like humor: Cliff notes. Memorizing. Playing blackjack. Watching porn. Listening to someone preach. Voting party lines. Using cocaine.
There's an element of moving forward, and an element of experiencing things directly.
--> Move forward.
--> Experience reality directly.
--> Laugh.
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I am inspired by V.S. Ramachandran, whom I have heard speak, but with whom I have not yet had the pleasure of getting drunk. He has published on the neurology of art and synesthesia. Unlike the cingulate gyrus guy, he is hilarious.
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*Because of his enormous penis, of course.
Last edited by AbqDave; 08-09-2014 at 02:56 PM.
yeah folding this seems like me? Lmfao
