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Humor Vs. News: Can An Internet Meme Move Politics?
Ajax Union
Humor and the news are strange bedfellows. The news, as it were, is simply a series of facts, or at least that is what it is supposed to be. Often these facts are unpleasant as the old adage that "no news is good news" tends to be true unless you are waiting on news on something that is already terrible is being addressed (ie: a war, financial crisis, disease, etc.). By contrast, humor is all about perspective and tweaking facts, or simply inventing them, to make them light up in a particularly hilarious way.
This all said, some facts are inherently funny. Like an escaped bear rummaging through a local dollar store with no injuries to report. This is the sort of instantly hilarious thing that we all want to know about. Funny news stories are different than what people are doing when they make the real news funny. Making actual news, stuff with real-world implications for large portions of the population, into comedy is a much different thing. Pop culture has perpetually reflected the actual events occurring and yet it is becoming more and more of a joke seemingly every time any event happens. Some people offer special reprieve from their biting humor when the news stories are about death, war and other troubled areas but even those have become open targets for many. A scan of the Onion or the Colbert Report on any given day would send someone from twenty or thirty years ago into quite the tizzy.
Luckily an internet meme or some funny video clips actually have a healthy place in our public discourse. These things can help move conversations but they can also take some of the heat out of issues, offering everyone a chance to make positive moves. With political discourse seemingly always at an all time nasty low, humor can help bring some levity to the situation. It might also articulate someone's feelings in a way that is newly relatable. Humor can go a long way in making things seem more comfortable and clear than they were when every argument was life and death, and each person's opinion was set in stone.
The internet, with its tweets and funny videos, has made participating in the national dialogue a lot simpler. With each person having a larger platform, humor often helps a person's views travel a lot farther than one might have expected. It is a valuable communication asset and the best chance a normal person has of moving the dialogue somewhere positive.
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Article submitted Thursday, February 09, 2012 & read 4 times.
Mark Etinger is a business strategist at Ajax Union Marketing
Ajax Union specializes in Business Development and Internet Marketing
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