Why if America's Funniest Home Videos (AFV) so funny?
Posted on: September 20, 2008 - 12:01am
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Why if America's Funniest Home Videos (AFV) so funny?
So here I am watching AFV, and am wondering why I and other people find it so funny. I mean it's mostly guys getting hit in the balls. I don't know what that feels like, but I can imagine it hurts. And the other body parts too.
I just find it weird that people (including me..) would laugh at people falling on their faces and getting vasectomies with a baseball.
I guess I'm asking why do we laugh at the expense of others?
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Should have been cancelled years ago, especially since you can see any of that and pick what to see on YouTube. I haven't watched since about 1990. I remember anything with a dog or baby tended to win, even if it was stupid and boring.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Why do guys laugh at other guys getting nut shots?
The thought, "I'm so glad that's not me"
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Ahhh. Schadenfreude. Mel Brooks said that tragedy is when one cuts one's finger, but comedy is when someone else falls down a manhole and dies.
Some studies suggest that its a form of "Social comparison" theory.
I suspect it's actually empathy that makes it funny. It's a sort of heightened camaraderie in human foible. As a corollary to that, I think most folks would not find it funny anymore if anyone in a similar style video were actually seriously injured.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
If you had read Robert Henlein's 'The stranger on the strange planet', there's a theory, that laughter is a human method of dealing with pain, suffering and tragedies. Laughing is the best thing when you don't want to cry. It provides a welcomed detachment from the evil around, and may work as an anesthetics, it may help you exist and work in harsh circumstances, and survive.
And as you know, anesthetics are addictive, and so is laughter, that it became a desirable part of human culture and thinking, so it isn't even associated with the suffering.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
I believe it is Stranger in a Strange Land.....good book BTW
Seeing someone being bounced off a trampoline and land on the ground on their arse makes me giggle. The whole time I am thinking "oh my gosh look at that, they are being careless, they could get hurt, OH there it is!" It is more a relief that they are okay that gets to me.
The build up, anticipation and the *grin* of relief when all is well.
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I remember that from Stranger in a Strange Land. Where it was pointed out how all the really funny jokes involve something bad happening to someone.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
I'm just wondering aloud, but you know that some people laugh as a reflex reaction to really bad things happening, right? I mean, somebody gets hit by a car right in front of you and you laugh before you know what you're doing. I can't recall reading anything specific to this phenomenon, but I wonder if laughing at other people's misfortune might have some connection with it. I dunno.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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Books about atheism