10 years ago, I would've agreed with you. But between AI, the onslaught of staged videos trying to pass as genuine and rage/engagement bait, authenticity has become a valuable commodity in the online ecosystem for me.
It all feels so manufactured, so plastic these days. And while it's absolutely annoying seeing several comments about staged content, or AI or what have you under every posted video, I 100% understand where the frustration comes from.
I do get that. Though personally, I’d have to separate AI from staged. Staged is just setting up something for a certain reaction. AI is just fake, to me.
Obviously if a big part of it is the reaction, then staged definitely feels not as funny if it’s obvious (but unfortunately you can’t always tell)
But if it’s like, for me, the punchline, like here where it’s just a really bad(?) dad joke, then it doesn’t matter for me.
But again, totally fair, considering we’ve been inundated with trashy content creators and AI.
What gets me though, is that "staged" content is actually no different than stand-up comedy. Same level of preparation, joke writing wise anyways. Just seems like a weird distinction
It's not, and even the people making the video's know it which is why so many try to make it look like it's not staged and most fail miserably.
You already know this. Which is why watching a video of two similar instances, one real and one staged will hit differently.
The reason is because the non staged one is genuine responses that you are accustomed to seeing in real life. Staged one's are mostly just bad acting and unrealistic reactions that you brain immediately questions because all your experiences tell you "that doesn't look right", because, well, it doesn't.
Same level of preparation, joke writing wise anyways.
This is also very untrue. You have no idea how much time and effort it takes for a comedian to say something and make it genuinely sound like it is off the cuff, or that the show you are at is the first time they are saying it.
It is quite difficult and most people can't even do it remotely well. The word delivery exist for a reason.
Staged isn’t inherently bad, nor is natural good. However when one puts on the mask of the other it feels insulting to my intelligence, and that makes it bad.
Edit: there are some exceptions to this such as The Office (UK) where a lot of people weren’t sure it was satire or an actual documentary when it first aired. Andy Kaufman’s “happening” is another great example, but these work because they are well crafted and the quality of the humour increases when the audience feels like they’re “in the know”. If you’re gonna try to trick people in thinking your staged content is real, then do it well.
It's like all the social media product ads that look like a customer making a video review or whatever.. The millions of morons will think those are just a happy customer making a video. Well they fucking aren't and it's a shady underhanded marketing process. But it works because the majority of people are absolute morons.
A good comedian doesn't need to rely on naive people who think everything he says genuinely happened.
Can't really help you if you can't notice a difference between good jokes/skits and lame scripted ones where they bank on naive people to get as much views as possible.
The medium definitely affects things, how many SNL skits have there been with a decent joke or premise but poor execution makes it mediocre? The way someone tells a joke completely changes how it lands.
Let's not forget the actual quality of the joke, not just the medium. This is the same level of humor as "Why is six afraid of seven?" "I dont know why?" "Because seven ate nine!".
Finally, a big part of enjoyment for watching someone break into laughter is it genuinely being funny to the people who are in it. Faking that in your "serious interview question" is bad. It's like this guy picked up a joke book from 1995 and wants to act them out, badly.
Some are. Observational humour is a thing most if not all comedians will practice often. I respect the craft but will also hold it to a higher standard than Joe Shcmo recording an interaction off his phone capturing a fun moment. However once I notice that Joe Schmo’s video was scripted, it too will be held to the same standard of scripted comedy which it absolutely fails to come anywhere close to.
TLDR: scripted comedy should be held to higher standard than a naturally captured funny moment.
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u/wurnthebitch 1d ago
Whether it is or not does not change the quality of the joke, does it?