Veenai Kuppaiyyer Stan Account ~ hermit era Profile picture
meditative, ecstatic, psychedelic-friendly, carnatic music container. seeker of mother. student of the cauldron of warming. discovering how to live ab initio.

Feb 19, 2024, 9 tweets

One of the funniest in the last couple years.

Anti semitism aside, this is probably one of the clearest examples of how much humor is *not* about cleverness.

Tension and release ONLY.

“I’m not gonna say what race .. it was this race.”

First phrase builds tension thru expectation. Second phrase subverts expectation and releases the tension thru excellent timing and delivery. That’s it. It can be THIS dumb and be funny.

Okay now listen to this. This is so so succinct - a fully contained joke within itself. Perfection.

Just 15 words. But the last two words transform the ENTIRE first thirteen - the absolute essence of what “punchline” means. Learn from this.

I’m seeing some Kanye discourse (I.e. on the man himself). I don’t care that much. I’m a big fan but he’s deeply unwell, motherless and an absolute idiot about most things

I’m literally talking *only* about/from my own soapbox here: the ineffable mystery of how laughter works 🙏🏽

Here’s another example of how laughter works. Unlike Kanye imo, this man is a conscious master of this craft. Watch him play the tension and release game with the DUMBEST MATERIAL OF ALL TIME

Going back to this clip, I was just realizing a word everyone should know and that *everyone* can access, probably one of the most foundational concepts of comedy is MISDIRECTION.

Kanye isn’t doing it intentionally. But see how it works even otherwise.

In my banter workshop at @vibecamp_ I did an exercise where someone would ask someone the time, and they would have to lie.

It shows you how dumb and stupid and non cerebral laughter really is. And this is what misdirection is based on.

This is why children laugh at peek-a-boo

@animalologist Btw speaking of incongruity or even its mild mannered cousin “surprise,” I trust you saw this gem?

@AskYatharth Btw Yatharth, idk if you read this thread, but this is the master at work. Probably the capstone on the thesis that laughter is NOT about cleverness

@jsun1993 *it’s not intentional comedy, yes

*but if you didn’t laugh at it, yeah idk what to tell you.

I did, I thought it was hilarious and I was explaining how that laughter works.

Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.

A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.

Keep scrolling