Black humor

[FrostFern]

YouTube- Tom Waits Children's Story

Does anyone else find the above completely hilarious? Am I the only one?

I see myself as challenged when it comes to humor, especially in social situations. I often fail to "get" normie humor, or just fail to find it funny. I also don't do jokes around anyone except people I'm extremely close to / comfortable with. Most of my acquaintances probably think I have no sense of humor, but they're wrong.

I hate living with depression and I hate it when people fail to understand and downplay it... yet I can still laugh at it... sometimes. Does anyone else find extreme "emo"ness funny? Even when you're depressed yourself? Even when something isn't even supposed to be funny (to others at least)?

 

[shoeless]

hilarious is not the word i'd use to describe that. awesome, yes, but not hilarious. i do love tom waits.

you should listen to "tom tales", off the glitter & doom live album. maybe you'd like that. a lot of it is dark humor, but it's still intended to be humorous.

 

[Cognisant]

Often black humour is the sort of thing that gets funnier the more you're not supposed to laugh at it, the effect is like when somebody tells you not to laugh, the absurdity of trying not to laugh when you're not laughing makes it funny, the fact that you've started laughing after explicitly being told not to, makes it even more so.

In this case however I'm getting more of an absurdist vibe, y'know when you travel beyond the depression event horizon and everything suddenly becomes hilarious. I figure this occurs because of sentience, the capacity to see oneself from an abstract perspective, it undermines our capacity for certain emotions because at some point we realise our own growing insanity and wholeheartedly embrace it, only to realise that such was an aggravatingly sane thing to do.

 

[wadlez]

I found the video halarious.
You should hang out with people who get your sense of humour, there definately out there, just rarer than normal.
I am yet to experience what you are trying to describe

 

[FrostFern]

hilarious is not the word i'd use to describe that. awesome, yes, but not hilarious. i do love tom waits.

you should listen to "tom tales", off the glitter & doom live album. maybe you'd like that. a lot of it is dark humor, but it's still intended to be humorous.

But I'm still entitled to think it's funny, regardless of what was intended. I also thought "In the Penal Colony" by Kafka was funny. Nobody else seems to think that's funny.

I don't find this stuff humorous in a campy way (e.g. like slasher films). No, I realize that the message is serious and very disturbing on some level, but that still doesn't stop it from being funny.

BTW: I own a bunch of Tom Waits stuff and like it, both the music and the lyrics + weird monologues.

 

[Adymus]

I really didn't what was funny about this at all. Interesting sure, sad definately, but not funny in the least bit.

Is the the kind of humor "The Comedian" from The Watchmen was into? Because I get a similar vibe.

 

[ashitaria]

Well, thanks alot.
The video was funny, but Tom Wait's song of poor Edward was very disturbing. Now how am I going to sleep tonight?

 

[FrostFern]

Okay. I see now that I am completely insane. Wish I hadn't written this thread.

 

[Adymus]

Okay. I see now that I am completely insane. Wish I hadn't written this thread.

No, apparently I'm the insane one because I seem to be the only one who didn't find it particularly enjoyable.

 

[Words]

I'm sorry, I really can't "connect" with the humor in this. Its too disturbing. For radical minds? For people who lacks sensitivity? or the opposite? What human attribute is required to understand the humor in this?

 

[kantor1003]

what do you find funny about this? It is more intriguing then funny. The music doesn't set up for laughter and neither does the video imo. I love black humor, but imo, this isn't humor. I can laugh at manslaughter, child murder, depression, the more tabu - the better, as long as its presented in a "funny way". This wasn't. imo of course.

Regarding black humor, does anyone have any movie recommendations?
I would highly recommend "very bad things" to everyone who love's black humor.

YouTube- Very Bad Things (1998) HQ trailer

 

[FrostFern]

what do you find funny about this?

Did you listen to the very end? "Theres your story... night night". Who in their right mind would read that story to a child before bed? It's absurd. It sounds so intriquing and poetic that you think there's going to be some kind of resolution or message at the end. Then you get there and there's nothing.

 

[NoID10ts]

I, too, found this hilarious.

* Noddy wonders about his own sense of humor and how many people find it absolutely atrocious. *

 

[Agent Intellect]

It sort of reminded me of this:

YouTube- Extinction Level Event Intro (Transcript under More Info)

 

[Cognisant]

The little girl's an android isn't she?

No wonder she's excited

 

[Cavallier]

I found the animation humorous. The little blobby kid crying was funny in a cute sort of way and I liked the wide eyed brainless confusion of the fly-stars. I found it funny when Tom says, "night night" at the end because I'd been wondering if he wasn't just torturing some kid with a horrible nighttime story while I was watching the whole video. I thought it was funny in a "it's hilarious but I feel vaguely guilty for laughing" kind of way. Also, it's funny because the kid is so unbelievably screwed over. I mean everyone is dead and everything is something much worse than it's supposed to be. There is no one to love you and everything is garbage!!!! *shrug* I thought it was funny and I don't think of myself as having a particularly black sense of humor.

Then again I'm the only one in my British Lit class that laughed out loud while reading Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. It was sad that in a high level lit class most of the students failed at understand irony and satire. They were all horrified that Swift might suggest we make gloves out of child's hide as an answer to the over-population of Ireland at the time.

Also, I suspect that most people who find it particularly disturbing may be identifying with some aspect of the story. Isn't it a common worry (perhaps subconscious) that we will be all alone some day? This is just supposition on my part and not meant to offend.

 

[Words]

Did you listen to the very end? "Theres your story... night night". Who in their right mind would read that story to a child before bed? It's absurd.

Its not so absurd when you expect absurdity. or when you welcome it. It reminds me of evil mad genius = absurd, making the absurd= serious.

 

[FrostFern]

Also, it's funny because the kid is so unbelievably screwed over. I mean everyone is dead and everything is something much worse than it's supposed to be. There is no one to love you and everything is garbage!!!! *shrug* I thought it was funny and I don't think of myself as having a particularly black sense of humor.

Yes! The futility of the situation is another element. The short story "Before the Law" by Franz Kafka has a similar kind of humor to it.

YouTube- The Trial: Before The Law

Also, I suspect that most people who find it particularly disturbing may be identifying with some aspect of the story. Isn't it a common worry (perhaps subconscious) that we will be all alone some day? This is just supposition on my part and not meant to offend.

I can definitely identify with the story. It's a scary thought. Maybe laughing is the way I cope with the horror of it.