.
Struggling to think of something to write about, I turn to Wikipedia to inspire me, and notice some curious things as I alternate between random links and following links embedded in entries.
You see, I was thinking about talking about LOL BOTS which is perhaps one of the most random things that I have come across on the internet. LOL BOTS is itself an extension of something else (substituting robots in the concept of the lolcat), and the idea is a juxtaposition of a possibly non-funny picture with some kind of humourous comment or caption in some kind of gamer/internet slang. It's hard to explain. I'm not, at times, even sure why this kind of "non-sequitur" humour works, but it does, it really does.
Or is it only me that finds it funny? It's the same with megagamerz 3l33t, which I found absolutely hysterical (and sincerely think it a shame that the writer no longer does it) and often have difficulty explaining.
"Er, yeah, so there are these two characters, and basically they have a conversation over an increasingly complex background of altered images probably found from Google Image Search and their conversation is not really a conversation, but more a series of statements that shock and amuse greatly."
I've gone off on a tangent: did you know that Neneh Cherry is Swedish?
Surprised the heck out of me.
Is LOL BOTS really non-sequitur humour? Why do I think that it is if it really is not? Does a non-sequitur work if it doesn't follow from anything? And is a non-sequitur in media always used to comic effect? Wikipedia says yes, and who am I to argue?
I have no explanation for this post other than the day was drawing to a close, my jeans are still wet from walking to the office from the station first thing this morning, and also the reason why I got onto Wikipedia in the first place was to see if LOL BOTS had an entry.
It does not.
Who left this closing question here?
Monday, 2 July 2007
Wiki Surprises, and Non Sequiturs
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
For me, there is a distinction between absurdist humor and non-sequitur humor: the latter is characterized by a certain unpredictability, whereas the former is more than just unpredictable but, quite literally, absurd. This may not make a whole ton of sense, since a lot of people think of the two as very, very similar, if not the same. As you said, though, it's hard to explain.
megagamerz falls into straight up absurdist humor to me. But I'd label LOL BOTS, lolcat, other things of that nature (humor blogs?), as well as certain webcomics (toothpaste for dinner, white ninja comics) as non-sequitur humor.
Post a Comment