The document discusses various forms of digital humor including memes, internet shows, photo bombing, intentional and accidental cell phone humor, and issues around inappropriate digital humor that has led to firings. It also covers the evolution of digital communication technologies from books to cell phones and how they have shaped new genres of humor spread through social media, videos, and images shared online.

1. 1
Digital Humor
by Alleen Pace Nilsen and
Don L. F. Nilsen

2. 2

3. 3

4. Computer Trouble Shooting
4

5. 5

6. Brian Willams Raps
on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YCeIgt7hMs&feature=youtube_gdata_player
6

7. And look how far we have moved
away from books,
7

8. MY BLACKBERRY’S NOT WORKING:
http://www.flixxy.com/my-blackberry-is-not-working.htm
8

9. The First Digital Communication—
With Real Digits
9

10. Evolution of the Cell Phone
10

11. 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.
11

12. Millenials and Beyond
12

13. Intentional Cell Phone Humor:
13

14. Accidental Cell Phone Humor
14

15. Everybody is now a news photographer for
Hurricanes, Meteors, Floods, Police Actions…
15

16. and how far we’ve come with photos.
16

17. 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?
17

18. We’ve gone from talking to texting
--at the game
--and at dinner
18

19. --at the Art Museum
--and in the car.
19

20. BRB: Be Right Back!
20

21. 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.
21

22. Memes give new meanings to old events
22

23. “Lazy College Student” meme
23

24. Philip Fry from Futurama
24

25. Philosoraptor Memes are named after
Velociraptor dinosaurs.
25

26. Photo Bombing
26

27. A New York Times photo of students in BYU’s computer animation program
Can you spot the photo-bomber?
27

28. Is this a photo-bomber?
28

29. 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.
•
29

30. 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.
30

31. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHcXmR5f-_4
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFL9omud1hQ
• http://vinebox.co/u/wunxZbLhuNA/waXqR8EJD3y
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpoWTcLOfhI
31

32. Selfie!
32

33. Selfies at Oscars, Tour de
France & Running of the Bulls
33

34. Selma, Alabama, 2015
Selfies on the Edmund Pettus Bridge
34

35. 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
35

36. Millennials and Their Careers:
36

37. People can be addicted to Facebook, Twitter,
Vine, Tumblr and especially Video Games.
37

38. Call and Response on Facebook
38

39. 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
39

40. Example of a gender-based computer joke:
“No wonder you can’t write. You’re not plugged in.”
40(Eschholz-Rosa-Clark [2009]: 105)

41. • 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.
41

42. 42

43. 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.
43

44. THE THE IMPOTENCE OF PROOFREADING (TAYLOR MALI):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_rwB5_3PQc
44

45. Importance of the “Rule of Three”
45

46. Because headlines are so short,
they often contain ambiguities
46

47. 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!
47

48. The Nilsen family enjoying a PowerPoint or a Video Clip
48

49. 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.
49

50. Grammatical “errors” are common
as in this “Success Kid” meme.
50

51. R-Rated 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
51

52. 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.”
52

53. After the crash of Flight 241, KTVU in northern California broadcast fake
names of the pilots, which caused three men to be fired.
• They had identified the pilots as
Captain Sum Ting Wong We To Lo
Ho Lee Fuk Bang Ding Ow
• They claimed that the names had been verified by the NTSB,
which never releases pilots’ names and certainly would not
have had these names on any list.
• The female newscaster was not fired because she was as
surprised as anyone when she read the script on air.
53

54. It was inappropriate because it targeted the victims,
came so soon after the tragedy, and was presented as
real news. Later in fake news reports…
• Stephen Colbert said that the names sounded Chinese instead
of Korean, and “if you’re going to make ethnic jokes, you really
should get the ethnicity straight.”
• Bill Maher had fun creating the name Cok Fo To for former
Congressman Anthony Weiner, who tweeted photos of his
crotch to women
• Maher also created the name Me Lik Ho for Eliot Spitzer, who
resigned as New York Governor in 2008 when he was caught
patronizing prostitutes. The names Weiner and Spitzer are
natural set-ups for such jokes.
54

55. 55

56. Even a University President Found Himself in
Trouble for His Humor
• Gordon Gee, the highly respected president of the Ohio State
University made controversial statements at a semi-private
meeting with members of his athletic department.
• He objected to admitting Notre Dame to the Big Ten
Conference because “You just can’t trust those damn
Catholics on a Thursday or a Friday…The Fathers are holy on
Sunday, and they’re holy hell the rest of the week.”
• The Associated Press heard about the statement and asked for
a recording of the meeting. The upshot was that President Gee
retired at the end of May.
• He apologized, but said “I have no regrets about having a
sense of humor and having a thick skin and enjoying life.”
56

57. Other High-Profile Firings Include:
• An ESPN announcer was fired for doing a story under the
heading “A Chink in the Armor” when Asian basketball
star, Jeremy Lin was let go by the Knicks in February of
2012.
• Comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who had the job of being the
voice of the Aflac duck, was fired in 2011 for tweeting
jokes about the Tsunami in Japan. 75% of Aflac’s
business is in Japan.
• Paula Deen, a celebrity chef on the Food Network, was
fired from her television show because of using the N-
word and catering “old plantation” parties that were
considered racist.
57

58. 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.
58
Tumblr’s Mighty Pixie
(Teh Mighteh Pixeh)

59. Tumblr Humor
59

60. Pinterest Snow Humor
60

61. 61

62. Pinterest Haiku
62

63. Video Game Inconsistency
63

64. Video Game Irony:
Smiling Children as Villains
64

65. Compare Cartman on Southpark
65

66. Video Game Glitches:
Photoshop & Sorcerer’s Apprentice Mode
66

67. A Vine for Old People:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/qteu4ld_SCE?rel=0
67

68. In conclusion, Steiner’s joke is no longer true.
Today, if you’re a dog on the web…,
someone will find out.
68

69. MOOCS & Viral Videos
“Gangnam Style” has been viewed by over 2 billion viewers on Youtube
69

70. GIF: Graphics Interchange Format
GIF Links:
https://vimeo.com/75782754
70

71. 71
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/
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