from the Nilsens

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Digital Humor
by Alleen Pace Nilsen and
Don L. F. Nilsen

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4. Computer Trouble Shooting
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6. Emogies
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7. Brian Willams Raps
on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YCeIgt7hMs&feature=youtube_gdata_player
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8. And look how far we have moved
away from books,
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9. MY BLACKBERRY’S NOT WORKING:
http://www.flixxy.com/my-blackberry-is-not-working.htm
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10. The First Digital Communication—
With Real Digits
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11. Evolution of the Cell Phone
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12. The QWERTYUIOP Principle
It is commonly believed that the QWERTYUIOP keyboard was invented in
order to slow down the typist and keep the keys from jamming.
Actually, only the first part of this belief is true. QWERTYUIOP was
invented not to slow down the typist but rather to speed up the keyboard
by keeping the keys from jamming.
When typewriters were first invented, the letters that were used most
often frequently jammed together, so the QWERTYUIOP keyboard was
designed to separate these letters from each other.
Nevertheless, today, whenever something is designed to slow us down
rather than speed it up, this design is said to be following the
QWERTYUIOP principle.
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13. Millenials and Beyond
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14. Intentional Cell Phone Humor:
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15. Accidental Cell Phone Humor
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16. Everybody is now a news photographer for
Hurricanes, Meteors, Floods, Police Actions…
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17. and how far we’ve come with photos.
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18. Texting
With a cell phone, we are able to escape
the moment.
This increases our social audience, and
allows us to transcend.
But is it always a good thing?
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19. We’ve gone from talking to texting
--at the game
--and at dinner
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20. --at the Art Museum
--and in the car.
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21. BRB: Be Right Back!
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22. Memes
Memes allow us to combine pictures with
text.
The text in the top part of the meme
gives us the historical context.
The text in the lower part of the meme
gives us the ironic spin.
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23. Memes give new meanings to old events
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24. “Lazy College Student” meme
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25. Philip Fry from Futurama
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26. Philosoraptor Memes are named after
Velociraptor dinosaurs.
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27. Photo Bombing
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28. A New York Times photo of students in BYU’s computer animation program
Can you spot the photo-bomber?
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29. Is this a photo-bomber?
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30. Changes in society, religion, and technology
cause anxieties that inspire new movements.
• FRANKENSTEIN became popular when scientists began
experimenting with real bodies.
• In the 1800s American “Tall Tales” were humorous
extensions of the strange things people found as they
moved west.
• And in the 1970s, urban legends made fun of people
facing new and scary technologies, including microwave
ovens, organ transplants, and a lack of privacy.
• Zombies are now popular because of medical advances,
aging populations and fears of biological warfare and
pandemics.
•
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31. The Vine Application
• Vine is an application that allows users to take and post short video
clips.
• The teller of verbal jokes has the luxury of taking their time in order to
provide the information needed to understand the joke. This is
especially true in a shaggy dog story.
• But Vines are 7 seconds long, so they require careful cutting and
editing.
• They also require the use of stereotypes, so that the information can
be presented quickly.
• Editorial cartoons also follow the 7-second rule for the same reasons.
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32. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHcXmR5f-_4
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFL9omud1hQ
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpoWTcLOfhI
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33. Selfie!
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34. Selfies at Oscars, Tour de
France & Running of the Bulls
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35. Selma, Alabama, 2015
Selfies on the Edmund Pettus Bridge
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36. As new concepts emerge, we recycle old words and
phrases from fantasy and science fiction.
Godzillagram = a huge packet
Munchkins = teenage techies
Wabbit = a mischievous
program
Sorcerer’s Apprentice Mode =
an indefinitely repeating
program
42 = the meaning of life, truth,
and everything
A Trojan Horse = a program
infiltrating a computer
UTSL = Use The Source Luke
(from Star Wars)
Obi-Wan-Error = Off by One
code from HAL (IBM) in 2001, A
Space Odyssey
Tree Killers = paper wasters
from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of
the Rings
Code Police or Net Police =
thought police from Orwell’s
1984
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37. Millennials and Their Careers:
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38. People can be addicted to Facebook, Twitter,
Vine, Tumblr and especially Video Games.
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39. Call and Response on Facebook
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40. More Call and Response on Facebook
ELLEN DEGENERES: “In Your Facebook”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvjIs-fBFok
MARK ZUCKERBERG FACEBOOK AD:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls7wCgbmXYM
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41. Texting
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42. Example of a gender-based computer joke:
“No wonder you can’t write. You’re not plugged in.”
42(Eschholz-Rosa-Clark [2009]: 105)

43. • Peter Steiner’s 1993 cartoon in the New
Yorker showed two dogs in front of a
computer. One is remarking “On the
Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”
• Even Steiner was amazed at how
popular it became.
• It not only reflected, but helped shape
world-wide attitudes.
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45. We like making fun of computers.
I have a spelling checker.
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.
Common spell-check mistakes include:
Untied States, Worth nothing that, and Fraud
for Freud.
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46. THE THE IMPOTENCE OF PROOFREADING (TAYLOR MALI):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_rwB5_3PQc
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47. Importance of the “Rule of Three”
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48. Because headlines are so short,
they often contain ambiguities
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49. These sentences are ambiguous; computers
don’t provide “real world knowledge”
•A cheesecake was on the table. It was delicious and
was soon eaten.
•SIGN IN A CHURCH: For those of you who have
children and don’t know it, we have a nursery
downstairs.
•NEWSPAPER AD: Our bikinis are exciting; they are
simply the tops.
•It’s time to make smoking history!
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50. The Nilsen family enjoying a PowerPoint or a Video Clip
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51. Challenges in the Digital World
• People want to create and post their own
material.
• What goes out on the Internet has probably
not had an editor, a director, or a producer.
• This results in originality and spontaneity,
and also in questionable materials.
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52. Grammatical “errors” are common
as in this “Success Kid” meme.
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53. Internet Shows
INTERNET SHOWS: “EQUALS THREE”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EwSAzHj8VM
INTERNET SHOWS: “JAKE AND AMIR”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHIWsvfwcRw
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54. Recent firings because of the digital
broadcasting of inappropriate humor…
• In October 2013, White House staffer Jofi Joseph was
fired for posting “snarky” and mean-spirited tweets under
the handle of @natsecwonk.
• These tweets were a mix of leaking sensitive national
security information, criticizing the White House policies,
and insulting the personalities and appearances of
national security officials.
• In his own “apology” or maybe “defense,” Joseph called
it a “parody account,” and said he was only “saying what
everyone else…thought.”
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56. Tumblr
• Tumblr is a website
that is part social
network and part
microblogging.
• On Tumblr can be
found list jokes,
puns, parody,
sarcasm and call
and response.
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Tumblr’s Mighty Pixie
(Teh Mighteh Pixeh)

57. Tumblr Humor
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58. Pinterest Snow Humor
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60. Pinterest Haiku
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61. Video Game Inconsistency
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62. Video Game Irony:
Smiling Children as Villains
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63. Compare Cartman on Southpark
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64. Video Game Glitches:
Photoshop & Sorcerer’s Apprentice Mode
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65. A Vine for Old People:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/qteu4ld_SCE?rel=0
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67. In conclusion, Steiner’s joke is no longer true.
Today, if you’re a dog on the web…,
someone will find out.
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68. MOOCS & Viral Videos
“Gangnam Style” has been viewed by over 2 billion viewers on Youtube
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69. Which of these countries do we call for tech support?
School Bus in Japan School Bus in India
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Digital Humor Websites
ANIMATOR VS. ANIMATION II:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/689540/animator_vs_animation_2/
BYU Computer Animation Team:
http://nyti.ms/ZfAFon
CLEVERBOT:
http://cleverbot.com/
THE MATHEMATICS OF HUMOR:
https://uofa.ualberta.ca/science/science-news/2015/november/the-
snunkoople-effect
MONTY PYTHON “SPAM”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE
TOP 50 POPULAR TEXT & CHAT ACRONYMS (NETLINGO):
http://www.netlingo.com/top50/popular-text-terms.php