The other day I was flipping through the channels on TV and came across an old Marx Brothers movie, A Night at the Opera. It’s a 4-star classic comedy. I watched for a bit and was astonished at how unfunny it is by today’s standards. What qualifies as humor has changed a lot.
If you were to watch an old vaudeville routine now, and you are under 60, it wouldn’t amuse you in the least. Those comedy bits relied mostly on cleverness and surprise. Cleverness and surprise are no longer enough to qualify as funny. They were sufficient through the Mel Brooks era of Young Frankenstein, but worked best when mixed with some sexual innuendo or slap stick to take it up a notch.
When I was a kid, the groundbreaking humor was a TV show called Laugh In. It featured adults being silly, and not much else. Cleverness wasn’t even a goal. I recall it being hilarious at the time, apparently because being silly on TV seemed like getting away with something. It violated the viewer’s sense of normal. If you watched it today, it would just hurt. Being silly, and mildly violating some norms, no longer qualifies as humor.
When Saturday Night Live first hit the air, it redefined humor for a generation. It was a little bit silly, but it was more naughty and dangerous. It didn’t violate norms so much as shit on them. (See what I did there?) Humor became, and remained for decades, a test of how much you could get away with.
George Carlin mixed the cleverness of vaudeville with the danger of the new generation and he was huge. I saw him live recently and I still laugh at the first lines he spoke when he walked on stage. I’m paraphrasing, but this is close: “Fuck Lance Armstrong. Fuck his yellow shirt. Fuck his cancer. Fuck his balls.” It gets harder each generation to violate norms, but George Carlin still nails it.
Seinfeld defined the observational school of humor that was huge in the nineties. Topics were funny if you could relate to them. You didn’t need to be silly or dangerous or naughty. Coincidentally, that’s the same time Dilbert started hitting it big on the comic pages. Dilbert started out being clever and not much else. It got very little attention. A few years into it, when I changed the focus to the office, it joined the ranks of observational humor, and it took off. People enjoy Dilbert to the degree that they recognize the situations. I season it with cleverness and cruelty and mild violations of norms, but mostly it’s about the recognition factor.
When reality TV shows hit it big, humor began another huge shift. Sitcoms started to decline as the main source of TV humor. Now the public wants to watch real people doing real (or allegedly real) things, so they can laugh at them at home. If you think about most reality shows, you wouldn’t classify them as humor, but what you are doing at home is often laughing. And when you discuss the shows with friends, you often laugh again. It is comedy in disguise.
Now it seems that humor is moving from center stage of our entertainment world to become more of a seasoning. Only one of the top 10 TV shows in the United States is an outright comedy, and it ranks tenth. But several of the top shows, such as House, Desperate Housewives, Dancing with the Stars, and Grey’s Anatomy, all include humor as an essential ingredient. Humor is a seasoning, not an entrée.
Take a look at the top 100 books on Amazon. The only humor books in this category revolve around a particular topic, with humor as more of the seasoning. Nothing in the top 100 books could be characterized as pure humor, in the sense that the topic is secondary. It is all humor in the service of making a point, about politics, the world, the bible, something. And I only found four humorous books in the top 100.
#5 I Am American (And So Can You Be)
#32 Our Dumb World
#60 The Year of Living Biblically
#88 If Democrats Had Any Brains They’d Be Republicans
The most popular book I authored was The Dilbert Principle. It was humor, but it was about the workplace, and management in particular. Humor was seasoning for a message. My later books had themes, but they were really just excuses for collections of humorous essays. They weren’t so much “about” anything. And they were far less popular.
I had a conversation yesterday with a brilliant business associate about why The Dilbert Blog is so popular, while my book that has the best of its material is curiously not a huge best seller. If my writing is enjoyed by people who read blogs (a tiny percentage of the planet), I thought, the writing should be just as popular with people who prefer their humor in books. My brilliant business associate pointed out that the blog is about interaction. And while only a fraction of my blog readers bother to look at the comments, or make comments, the fact that they can if they want, changes their experience. The blog is seen as a conversation between lots of people, with me as the moderator and shit stirrer. That conversation – or the reality if you prefer – is the show, and my humor is just the seasoning.
I confess to looking at the blog-to-book conversion in the same way an engineer would. If 95% of the people reading the blog don’t care about the comments, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to leave them behind and put my writing by itself in a book for the majority of the world that doesn’t read blogs, who enjoy humor, and prefer books. It seemed like a no-brainer.
In my first proposal to a publisher, for turning the blog into a book, I picked the theme of my wedding. The blog posts in the book track the time from my engagement to just after I got married. Only a small portion of the chapters are directly about the wedding, but it all tracks my state of mind, as the tension ratcheted up. In fact, my original proposed title for the book was The Year I Got Married.
Do you think that title and approach would have worked better?
Just dropping by to say and good luck to you buddy!
Sam Milby
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Office Supplies are pretty boring, but what about organization, productivity, office humor and annoying your coworkers? http://blog.officenmore.com
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Posted by: Penisa | February 10, 2008 at 06:57 PM
Hi Scott,
I've read a couple of your books and enjoyed them both! I think the fundamental difference here can be distilled to this: people read blogs only because they're at work, and since just about anything is better than working, the threshold is set artificially low.
When it comes to a book, the threshold is much greater because: A) I have to pay for it, and (more importantly) B) I have to view reading the book as something so worthwhile that I would substitute that activity (i.e. reading a book) for every other potential activity I could be doing with my time. (Being an eco major, I'm sure you get the reasoning here and could likely devise a formula to measure it. :-)
If nobody had to work for a living, blog readership would be reduced to the set of people who write blogs themselves, as they seem to be the group of people most interested in what is on other people's blogs.
Hope that helps!
Bob
Posted by: RJP | November 20, 2007 at 10:16 AM
Hi Scott,
I've read a couple of your books and enjoyed them both! I think the fundamental difference here can be distilled to this: people read blogs only because they're at work, and since just about anything is better than working, the threshold is set artificially low.
When it comes to a book, the threshold is much greater because: A) I have to pay for it, and (more importantly) B) I have to view reading the book as something so worthwhile that I would substitute that activity (i.e. reading a book) for every other potential activity I could be doing with my time. (Being an eco major, I'm sure you get the reasoning here and could likely devise a formula to measure it. :-)
If nobody had to work for a living, blog readership would be reduced to the set of people who write blogs themselves, as they seem to be the group of people most interested in what is on other people's blogs.
Hope that helps!
Bob
Posted by: RJP | November 20, 2007 at 10:16 AM
Absolutly.
Posted by: Dan | November 19, 2007 at 12:45 PM
The people who know about blogs probably read it on the web and won't pay for the old stories. All the other people might not understand what the book is about.
The marriage theme would have worked better because many people can relate to the topic. I can imagine someone looking for 'a funny book about getting married' as a present. If you put in some more work, write a few more chapters of episodes you did not yet post in the blog and maybe use some of the many suggestions you got from mails or comments, I'm sure you can make a nice book that will sell pretty well.
Than you can write a sequel about how it is to be married. And if one day luck lets you down (I hope it won't) you can make the best out of it and write part III about getting divorced.
A blog book is much more difficult because you can't sell people what they already got.
As an added value for your blog readers you could include some of the best comments on some of your post. Because most of us don't take the time to dig through >100 crap comments to find that one pearl.
Maybe you could write some funny comments on the comments too.
If you know that already I appologize for wasting your time ;-)
Posted by: st512 | November 18, 2007 at 12:54 AM
For some reason your use of the term "shit stirrer" had me in stitches. Nice one :-)
Posted by: UTAWAPOS | November 17, 2007 at 01:22 PM
NO!!
There is another factor to who reads blogs and that is: "where do they do their reading and why".
Books I read at home in free time.
Blogs (especially this one) are my coffee break reading. It's more work-place acceptable to take 5 minutes to read something online than it is to take 5 minutes and open a novel.
So, the reason I read the blog (and almost never look at the comments) is the ease of doing it mid-day as a 5 minute escape. A book would TOTALLY not provide me the same satisfaction (I'd just read comics instead).
Posted by: Maryanne | November 16, 2007 at 02:21 PM
I don't think the explanation is complicated -different title, seasoning, etc etc etc...-, but has to do with added value.
When you announced that old posts were taken out because they'd be in your new book, I immediately went to The Way Back Machine [ http://www.archive.org/index.php ] and thought: why would I buy something that is already available for free?
I have bought blog-books, e.g. the PostSecret.com ones. The added value is seeing some postcards not posted before, and also having a nice print of them :)
Posted by: Yet another Dilbert fan | November 16, 2007 at 11:19 AM
SCOTT - NO!
(I sell books as a side business and just finished packing some I need to mail this morning on my way to the other work). If you write a book about weddings, the ONLY people interested are women. And they only (maybe 99%) want to see it from the woman's point of view because to a woman, the man's point of view is irrelevant and they would rather pretend that it is wonderful in his opinion than hear the actual thoughts and phrases that are going on in his mind in picture form (since we think in pictures). Most men do not think white frilly table settings are a nice image to keep in their brains so they decide to think about something else, which probably comes AFTER the wedding. If, by some abnormality, your precursors to the wedding were something women would actually be interested in, then you could POSSIBLY write about that. Men do not like to think about weddings. They would rather think about a pig roast. Making that book would be a mistake unless your book appealed to women.
As for blogs, there are a few reasons people read your blog:
1) to argue with you
2) to see what crazy idea you have today
3) NOT to read the news - we are sick of that
4) for philosotainment - why your (main) book on that matter is popular
5) for a short thing to do that doesn't take much time and is thought-provoking, even when they disagree with it
People read books for ENTIRELY different reasons: For examples:
1) To take them away for a long time so they can forget the mundaneness of their lives.
2) To take them to a very distant, completely different "world". I don't mean just fantasy here, sci-fi and other stuff applies.
3) For philosotainment, philosophy, history, culture, religious purposes, etc.
4) For quick laughs. To pick up a Garfield book and read a few strips in the 80's or a Sniglet.
5) Other reasons that are not pertinent. Like for information.
So, I suggest NEVER to write a book about weddings. Unless you really are crazy and women would be interested in your point of view OR if you are so crazy that men would actually be interested (like if you blew up the reception room because Nazis were coming to take her away). Since you wrote about the wedding in your blog, I don't think it was about how beautiful the doilies will look so the women wouldn't be interested.
As for other books, I suggest sticking with one of the 5 reasons above people read books. You could sell philosotainment. If it is well thought-out, you can write it almost in the same type of language as you use in your blogs and WE will buy it (if we have the money).
Peace.
Posted by: Lymonhead | November 16, 2007 at 04:37 AM
Yes.
Posted by: Joe | November 15, 2007 at 08:02 PM
With the marriage theme, I'd have called it 'The Ramblings of an Almost Married Man'
I think people would have bought it to find out what 'almost married' means.
Posted by: Sondra | November 15, 2007 at 07:35 PM
I risk repeating what might've already been said in the comments, but without sifting through the ~270 comments posted already, there's no way to be sure.
I have an informed theory on the popularity of your blog vs. a book of similar writing. I only say "informed" because I almost never comment on blog entries (and this is I think the first time I've commented on one of yours, though I've read nearly every entry).
A few things come to mind :
1. I don't have time for books, cause I'm in front of the computer (usually working - either for myself, or one of my clients). I bought Carl Sagan's book "Billions and Billions" about 2 months ago and I haven't even read in the inside cover.
2. This writing is short-form. With a spare 5-10 mins in a day, I can complete reading at least one, sometimes several, blog entries. I can't really determine the length of time I would spend finishing a chapter in a book, and leaving off mid-chapter feels wrong and incomplete.
3. I can see what others might think of a given post. I don't care to wade through 100s of comments at a time, but a cursory glance through select comments gives me some amusing insight.
4. It doesn't cost anything - so if I didn't like a given entry, I didn't technically "lose" anything.
5. It's easier to figure out whether or not I'm going to like a given blog entry within the first few sentences. There's no way I'd get an idea for whether or not I'll probably like a book unless I've read through several hundred pages.
6. From a slacker standpoint - no one knows I'm reading a blog as opposed to actually working. Sitting here with a book in my hand says to people "I'm not working. I'm leisurely reading something".
Anywho - just my $0.02.
Posted by: Rev. Mitcz | November 15, 2007 at 05:01 PM
I risk repeating what might've already been said in the comments, but without sifting through the ~270 comments posted already, there's no way to be sure.
I have an informed theory on the popularity of your blog vs. a book of similar writing. I only say "informed" because I almost never comment on blog entries (and this is I think the first time I've commented on one of yours, though I've read nearly every entry).
A few things come to mind :
1. I don't have time for books, cause I'm in front of the computer (usually working - either for myself, or one of my clients). I bought Carl Sagan's book "Billions and Billions" about 2 months ago and I haven't even read in the inside cover.
2. This writing is short-form. With a spare 5-10 mins in a day, I can complete reading at least one, sometimes several, blog entries. I can't really determine the length of time I would spend finishing a chapter in a book, and leaving off mid-chapter feels wrong and incomplete.
3. I can see what others might think of a given post. I don't care to wade through 100s of comments at a time, but a cursory glance through select comments gives me some amusing insight.
4. It doesn't cost anything - so if I didn't like a given entry, I didn't technically "lose" anything.
5. It's easier to figure out whether or not I'm going to like a given blog entry within the first few sentences. There's no way I'd get an idea for whether or not I'll probably like a book unless I've read through several hundred pages.
6. From a slacker standpoint - no one knows I'm reading a blog as opposed to actually working. Sitting here with a book in my hand says to people "I'm not working. I'm leisurely reading something".
Anywho - just my $0.02.
Posted by: Rev. Mitcz | November 15, 2007 at 04:59 PM
Don't feel bad I plan on buying 3 copies of your book to give out as gifts for people I don't like,,, er I mean people I think would enjoy it! Maybe 4, I dislike more people every moment!
Posted by: Hep | November 15, 2007 at 02:35 PM
I think some of the reason towards humor as a season is that it deflects the humor from the targets who can't take a joke. A lot of people don't seem to have a sense of humor, everyone is complaining about being "dissed", damage to their "rep", etc. Personally I think much of the "credit" goes to the PC mentality as well as kids growing up in school where there are no losers or winners, competition is bad and we must stroke everyone's self-image. A lot of what went on in schools back when us old farts graduated HS certainly sucked, but recognizing a job well done, or some healthy competition and even handling defeat are skills needed in the real world.
Posted by: HowManycomicsdoes i t take to change a lightbulb | November 15, 2007 at 07:11 AM
It's all in the format.
A blog is not like a book - it's like an article in a newspaper or magazine. Garrison Keilor writes columns for newspapers, and they do quite well and get his writing out to non-readers of blogs. I check blogs I like daily like reading a newspaper column.
It may also be in "image". You've been typecast. To many, you are the creator of Dilbert - period. If they don't identify with Dilbert, perhaps they won't read your book even if it isn't about Dilbert.
Are you really trying to reach the 95% or were you trying to make more money on the blog material? Your blog is not very developed in terms of ads and links. You could do more with this format.
As for commentors, who'd want to be in your book since you obviously consider us "monkeys" and have a disdain for us? Well, I would, if you link to my blog :-)
www.lifetimelearning.blogspot.com
Posted by: Cathy | November 15, 2007 at 05:30 AM
I seriously would like to know why you did the log-into-a-book-project. It
a. gives a general feeling of an old dinner being reheated,
b. looses its wittyness without the Internet-context
c. makes you (Scott) look greedy.
So seriously: why did you do it?
Posted by: Nico Voskamp | November 15, 2007 at 04:24 AM
So your conclusion is that humor being all about transgression is going to travel more and more into bizarland ?
I believe our time is cursed with overlong memories. People get jaded because everything is available.
Before photo / audio / video recording it was possible to be "original" for each generation, most art was forgotten / destroyed fairly soon after it was issued, making it easier to be "original".
Now artists have to compete against 200 years of perfectly recorded art history (and a lot more of imperfect record thanks to archaeologist), and it is getting harder and harder to surprise and shock.
Feels a little like porno movies, they are more and more deconnected from reality, because everything has already been shown somewhere.
Posted by: Michel de Becdelièvre | November 15, 2007 at 02:18 AM
Much better.
Posted by: Andreas Toscano | November 14, 2007 at 11:18 PM
Wow... there are some astonishingly well reasoned comments on this topic. I guess the lesson is you should have posted this topic BEFORE you put the book together.
For what it's worth I bought the book for no other reason than I read your blog nearly everyday and it was a modest way to pay you back for your effort. Then I promptly xeroxed a hundred copies and gave it to everyone I know. They all seemed to enjoy it.
But seriously, thank you for writing the blog. It's the only one I would actually pay to read. And I really did buy the book. :-)
Posted by: l.a. guy | November 14, 2007 at 09:18 PM
It would have been funnier if it had been entitled "The Year I got Married to a Dog." But I'm pretty sure your wife would have taken exception.
Posted by: ahbee | November 14, 2007 at 08:19 PM
"People enjoy Dilbert to the degree that they recognize the situations. I season it with cleverness and cruelty and mild violations of norms, but mostly it’s about the recognition factor."
I rummaged up some of the old Dilbert paperbacks a few days ago, and I think I enjoyed Dilbert a lot more when he was being an engineer (inventing anti-gravity machines, etc.) rather than him being an office worker.
I also noticed he was a lot taller then.
I miss Bob.
Posted by: Chad | November 14, 2007 at 07:06 PM
"Only a small portion of the chapters are directly about the wedding, but it all tracks my state of mind, as the tension ratcheted up. In fact, my original proposed title for the book was The Year I Got Married.
Do you think that title and approach would have worked better?"
Yes.
Posted by: Chad | November 14, 2007 at 07:03 PM