Seriously, the Joke Is Dead

1103 Words5 Pages
Seriously, The Joke is Dead 1 The essay “Seriously, the Joke is Dead,” written by Warren St. John, discusses how jokes have changed over time. Warren is basically saying that jokes are not the way they used to be. Back then they had jokes with beginning punch lines like “So I walked into a bar” or “So I went to my parents the other day.” Today’s humor is more of people just saying mean things about other people. At first, and at some points I was confused about what the author meant when he said “the joke was dead.” He got off topic sometimes, overall the piece was good. It was actually kind of funny. Thought it was creative how the author made his piece into a comedy, and it was about comedy. Little bit of irony there. For example he said, and stated funny things like “To tell a joke at the office or a party these days is to be pronounced a cornball.” (John, 2008, p. 426) or “Jon Stewart just has to twist his eyebrows a little bit, and people laugh.” (Morreall, 2008, p. 428) it was the little things that made me laugh, that actually made the piece better and more enjoyable to read. The main point of this essay, from my point of view, was to get people to think about real comedy and how much it has changed over the years. Also to take a look at whom we are laughing at now, and who we were laughing at then. His main point was information on comedy. In each section of this piece the author used different themes. For example, one of the sections in the piece was about how the internet has changed comedy overtime. Another section that caught me off guard was about how females couldn’t be comedians? And how lately more woman are becoming comedians. He stated quotes from other people like, “I found that woman can’t remember jokes. That’s because they don’t give a damn. Their humor is
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