Check this out. This is Hilarious. Epic! You will never believe what happens in this. Just keep watching until 0:22.. You will thank me later.
Sound familiar. Yes. This is clickbait talk. We have all seen it before and probably even clicked on a few of them from time to time while scrolling through the various feeds.
But, other than just being a waste of time, perhaps there is something more insidious at play in the background.
I am a Monty Python fan from as far back as I can remember. Well, not quite if you read my last post about my earliest memory but, probably not long after that. The humour of the Monty Python group is an acquired taste and for many outside of the UK, Australia etc, quite difficult to grasp. While I find it hilarious, friends of mine (with obviously no taste) sit there perplexed at what the hell is going on.
A lot of British humour is nuanced, dark and often with double entendres that without a good grasp on the language, can be easily missed, resulting in jokes falling very flat or looking quite daft.
The Americans fixed this problem. One American in particular actually, Charles "Charley" Douglass. He was a sound engineer who created the Douglass laugh track. Yes, canned laughter. Now, everyone knew when to laugh because rather than work it out by ourselves, we were told.
I like the show Frasier but without a laugh track, how funny is it? I have taught English for almost 15 years and a native speaker with an adequate vocabulary yet, many of the words go over my head, especially when they are spoken quickly. On top of that, a lot of the jokes reference operas and symphonies, hundred year gone psychiatrists and medical terms. Really, without being told to laugh on cue, how many would I understand?
This seems harmless enough as it is like a joke told to a group where I don't get the punchline but laugh when everyone else laughs so as not to look silly. But it isn't like that at all. I am sitting in the comfort of my own home with the power to turn over the channel at any time. How many Emmy's did Frasier win?
For those playing at home, 37. The most for any series ever. Not bad for a show that would go over most english speakers heads let alone the non-english speaking countries it was syndicated heavily to.
Yet still, I feel connected to the series even though I have never read a book they have mentioned nor been to an opera or ballet. Pretty clever. Not me, them. The canned laughter has me under its control in my own home, telling me when to laugh.
Nearly all comedy series use canned laughter to dupe the audience into believing it is funny. It would be an interesting experiment to see the shows without the laughter track. Would they last? Big Bang Theory?
Now, online there is little canned laughter but about 2 years ago I started noticing the clickbait try a new attention grabbing technique. They tell you to watch or read it because it is awesome, and then the punchline too or what precisely to look for. This way, when you find what they have told, you will go "aah, I get it!". Read this letter this girl wrote and left for her roommate. She totally owns her when she mentions the dirty clothes in the sink. It is epiiiic! What a boss!
Have you ever seen the video of the two teams passing two basketballs and you are asked to count the passes? Missed the gorilla? this is the opposite of that. They say, don't pay attention to anything else, look for the gorilla, he appears at 35 seconds in and beats his chest. It's epiiic!!!
I have not lived under a dictatorship other than the current one at home but, being told what to look at and when to laugh and actually doing what we are told, does not sound like the behaviour of free people. This sounds a lot like conditioning similar to Pavlov's dog and priming for more to come.
When I say more to come, look at the state of the world and watch the news. Much of the news has diverged from reporting on what events are taking place to dictating how we should feel about what events are taking place. And there is a Baskin & Robbin's flavour for every group. We have grown accustomed to hearing the bell ring, and instead of getting lunch, we are being fed something else entirely.
This hasn't been a quick training, this is generational. And like the dumbing down of our cognitive skills through technological replacement which will leave us as dependents on authority, we are being further dumbed down in our critical thought functions that will make us even more susceptible to their words. Reliant on the ones who we are trained to listen to. Awesome!
Does this sound like a conspiracy theory? That is what they want you to think.
Cue the laugh track. No, no, no... that is the bah bah bah sheep track! They aren't all ready for that yet.
Won't be long though.
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]
Btw, that is an image, stop trying to press the play button.
Great observation. I had completely missed the connection before, but you are correct. Not only are we told what to think and believe, we are told when to laugh. I wonder how long until shows on the "E Network", or "Lifetime Channel" include canned crying during the sad parts of their movies?
Canned crying would be an awesome app. Girls wouldn't need to ruin their makeup.
you got me! I thought "if taraz is making such a clickbait title, it will be important for sure" :D
:) hopefully it made enough sense.
Sure it did. Clickbait and artificial stimulations like canned laughter are everywhere nowadays, it is an important topic and deserves to have a fitting clickbait title ;)
Master Taraz,
I have lived a life without a laugh track (at least I never heard it). I expect it would have been more fun if I would have learned to laugh at things instead of trying to improve everything.
On a parental note... Dig out the old Monte Python videos and introduce your daughter to them. She will thank you later. Daddy why are they banging on coconuts?
They are not coconuts, they're horses dear.
Improvement is not an easy path to take but valuable beyond the self.
So true. My son asked the other day why something along these lines. Thinking about the times we had contagious laughter is getting far and few in between. I thought I was just getting old and too serious. Its getting to be not a honest reaction to anything anymore. I've learned to love reading.
It is a strange world where quality of life has increased yet moments of true enjoyment seem to have dropped.