jet lagged, brain dead and terribly disappointed with some of the traffic on my
email, sent this out to all of you instead of just to Gary.
b
Barb Stuart wrote:
> just wanted to remind you.
> b
>
> Gary D Shank wrote:
>
> > i'm a little nervouse sending this along because i feel that i am
> > betraying my comrades somewhat even though i am not identifying them, but
> > i want to add some concrete ethnographic meat to the bones of some of this
> > discussion. if you find the group i describe patriarchic and
> > exclusionary, then it is the fault of my telling and not the being of the
> > group, i can assure you...
> >
> > gary
> > shank@duq.edu
> >
> > I'd like to take our discussion of humor out of the abstract and into a
> > more concrete, ethnographic direction. This will probably be a bit long,
> > and please forgive me in advance for omitting key details. All names will
> > be altered to preserve anonymity, of course. There will also likely be a
> > number of cultural references that not everyone will be familiar with, as
> > well. I'll try to clarify without revealing identity details.
> >
> > One of the most interesting communities of practice I have ever
> > experienced came to me out of the blue. Somewhere around ten years ago, I
> > get an email message from a person whose name I recognized but whom I have
> > never met or corresponded with. This person, let's call him Ray, sent me
> > an invitation to join a private, clandestine email list. I had 24 hours
> > to accept or refuse. If I refused, I was asked not to tell anyone that I
> > had been asked to join. By anyone, he meant anyone on the Usenet group
> > that we both read and sometimes wrote messages to. For those of you who
> > are familiar with Usenet, it was one of the rec. groups that dealt with a
> > certain kind of music. I won't say exactly what kind of music, but a
> > number of the people who wrote lived in the San Francisco bay area.
> >
> > When I joined, this private list had about 30 members. Over the years, it
> > has maintained this size, more or less. Ray and another member, whom we
> > can call Rufus, founded the list and they had sole power of inviting new
> > members. Of course, any member could nominate a person for membership,
> > but nominations were always informal -- you know, I think Billy Bob would
> > make a good member, that sort of thing.
> >
> > The criteria for membership were simple -- you had to love music and you
> > had to be funny. Newsgroup posts were scrutinized for posters who were
> > consistently clever and witty. Once the person achieved a decent track
> > record, all the time without even knowing that he or she was being
> > observed, they just might get invited to join.
> >
> > By being a member of this group, I have been privileged in getting a
> > really interesting and sophisticated education into the role of humor in
> > human community. No where are the 'rules' for this group written down,
> > but every member knows them --
> >
> > 7 Racist humor is totally off limits. To my knowledge, no one in the
> > group is a member of a minority group, but I have no way of knowing that
> > for sure. In all the years I have been a member, no one has told a racist
> > joke or made a purportedly witty remark grounded in racist concepts.
> > 7 Ethnic humor is complex. For instance, a good number of our group are
> > Jewish. Years ago, Walter wrote to tell us that he had been counting, and
> > that the following joke had been sent to him online 100 times. The joke?
> > "How do you frustrate a Jew? Offer him free ham." From that moment on,
> > every joke dealing with Jewish ethnic issues was labelled as a 'freeham'
> > joke. Then, every tired joke that was passed along from the Internet was
> > labeled freeham, and then shortened to ham. So, if I was going to pass
> > along a joke about flying saucer aliens performing rectal probes on the
> > members of the Bush White House, I would label the message as 'UFO ham'
> > and everyone would know what it was. There is a sense in which a ham joke
> > is not really worthy of the group's standards, but you are sending it
> > along to keep everyone informed of where the humor winds are blowing, so
> > to speak. Going back to the ethnic issue, I am expected not to be hurtful
> > and at the same time to be not very thin-skinned. I am one of two native
> > hillbillies on the list, and so I am always on the lookout for good
> > hillbilly humor. A favorite -- "What has 43 teeth and is a quarter mile
> > long? The beer line at the West Virginia State Fair." But there is a
> > line to be drawn as well. I can tell a ham joke if it is really funny,
> > but to go on to talk about, and elaborate on, ethnic stereotypes is
> > hurtful. I would not be officially corrected, but I might find that folks
> > are not chatting and commenting on my posts for awhile. Messages get sent
> > in all kinds of subtle waysI
> > 7 Sex is always funny, so there is lots of sexual humor. Much of it is
> > self-deprecating, and none of it is political. The best ribald material
> > is situationally grounded. Here is the most famous example. One of our
> > members, say Ted, was attacked by a lamebrain on the main list (not our
> > private list). Ted was attacked for not knowing music to the satisfaction
> > of the poster -- a time honored Usenet tradition. In a fit of pure
> > illiterate venom, he accused Ted of being the product of 'hiney sex'
> > between his mother and father. Hiney Sex got abbreviated as HS, and for
> > then on, every post to or about Ted had to have an ObHS reference, or
> > obligatory hiney sex reference. The more stupid the better -- tell Ted I
> > just got back (obhs reference) from Cleveland.
> > 7 Gender is an interesting issue as well. There have always been a number
> > of women who have belonged to the group, and they have played an integral
> > role as women. Betty is a lesbian, having told us in case we might want
> > to work that fact into our teasings of her. No one ever did -- being a
> > lesbian is neither especially funny or especially serious to us, I guess.
> > Mary is gorgeous and everyone flirts with her and she loves to flirt back.
> > Once, there was a long thread on masturbation for some reason, and she
> > sent a message to complain about the boys hogging the topic. I wrote back
> > and asked her -- How could you masturbate? What would you hold onto? The
> > bedpost, she tells me! But I would never write a message like that to
> > Doris. Her funny bone is tickled by politics, much more than mine. In
> > short, we donUt dodge gender, but we donUt dwell on it either.
> > 7 Much of the discussion is serious. This group has expanded my musical
> > horizon, thanks mainly to Georgio the former college DJ. Right now, as I
> > am writing this message, I am listening to Medeski, Martin, & Wood.
> > Sitting beside the CD Last Chance to Trance Dance is Radiohead's Kid A.
> > Next to that is Anonymous 4, Phish, and moe. All of this music I owe to
> > these guys. Reggie also keeps us abreast not only of truly weird web
> > sites like http://www.eugenemirman.com and 'all your base are belong to
> > us', but also innovative art and cultural sites.
> > 7 The glue that holds the group together is genuine human warmth. Jerry
> > nearly died two years ago from leukemia complications -- he went into the
> > hospital weighing 95 pounds with a 5 pound spleen. He needed five quarts
> > of blood, and they decided to remove his spleen even though the operation
> > was surely going to be fatal. He was in a coma for 2 weeks, during which
> > his left eye became fixed and dilated. Several group members kept vigil
> > and one of them stayed with him and nursed him back to health. Jerry had
> > the poor sense to tell us afterwards that he hallucinated the presence of
> > several of us during his coma, including one person who was helping out as
> > an IV stand. Birthdays are always celebrated online -- my specialty is in
> > coming up with some weird and cool saint for a patron saint.
> >
> > Here is the point to this long ramble -- genuine humor is warm,
> > respectful, and cohesive. The more a community understands itself and
> > accepts its members for who and what they are, the fewer taboos we need.
> > But we are able to keep this delicate balance by being private and
> > selective. As groups grow in numbers, and access to groups becomes easier
> > and easier, then there is less time and available energy to maintain the
> > good will you need to avoid having taboos.
> >
> > gary
> > shank@duq.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Mar 01 2002 - 01:00:18 PST