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Laughter definitely scales, it's just not infinitely scalable.. The Onion scales. It doesn't scale past the Generation X audience, but oh, it scales.

by aantix 11y ago

paganel 11y ago
I'd say great comedy actors like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton or Laurel and Hardy have scaled very well, both in terms of timespan (the first Charlie Chaplin short films are now more than a century old) and distance, as they all became famous all over the world. I'd add Tex Avery's cartoon characters to this list. So I'd say in the above mentioned cases laughter did become "infinitely scalable". But then again, the guys and girls at Google who came up with this stupid idea are no comedic geniuses.
coldtea 11y ago
You'd be amazed at how many of the "Generation X" have taken the Onion for real, or stand for the exactly inverse ideals. It's like people think every 20 something in the sixties was progressive, but there were tens of millions of conservative kids that grew up into conservative adults...
- gohrt 11y ago
  What are Onion's ideals?
  - coldtea 11y ago
    Well, let's say (hard to put in precise words as not an American), but even if it mocks Democrats almost equally, it's certainly no pro-GOP, and in fact anti-Republican. It also obviously stands against everything Bible-belt -- which pines it against a good 30-50 million Americans who stand for those things (even if they don't live in the Belt). In general, it has the same kind of general progressive ideals you'd expect from such a comedic outlet, and even if it makes heavy fun of american society, it can't escape the american viewpoint on the world (e.g it's P.C. in essence, even while making fun of P.C.-isms, it shares the "success is everything" mindset in mocking the middle and "white trash" class that's prevalent everywhere, seldom questions us views of foreign countries and core foreign policy "facts" -- except for rooting for the doves in the the hawks vs doves internal us discussion, etc.).
  - evan_ 11y ago
    The onion doesn't have a strongly-defined partisan political stance, but it overwhelming "punches up" rather than punching down- meaning the butt of the joke is a person or organization with more power than the audience. To me, this point-of-view tends to look more progressive than conservative, but I might be overlaying my own biases.

Laughter definitely scales, it's just not infinitely scalable.. The Onion scales. It doesn't scale past the Generation X audience, but oh, it scales.

by aantix 11y ago

Laughter definitely scales, it's just not infinitely scalable.. The Onion scales. It doesn't scale past the Generation X audience, but oh, it scales.

paganel 11y ago

I'd say great comedy actors like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton or Laurel and Hardy have scaled very well, both in terms of timespan (the first Charlie Chaplin short films are now more than a century old) and distance, as they all became famous all over the world. I'd add Tex Avery's cartoon characters to this list. So I'd say in the above mentioned cases laughter did become "infinitely scalable". But then again, the guys and girls at Google who came up with this stupid idea are no comedic geniuses.

coldtea 11y ago

You'd be amazed at how many of the "Generation X" have taken the Onion for real, or stand for the exactly inverse ideals. It's like people think every 20 something in the sixties was progressive, but there were tens of millions of conservative kids that grew up into conservative adults...

gohrt 11y ago
What are Onion's ideals?
- coldtea 11y ago
  Well, let's say (hard to put in precise words as not an American), but even if it mocks Democrats almost equally, it's certainly no pro-GOP, and in fact anti-Republican. It also obviously stands against everything Bible-belt -- which pines it against a good 30-50 million Americans who stand for those things (even if they don't live in the Belt). In general, it has the same kind of general progressive ideals you'd expect from such a comedic outlet, and even if it makes heavy fun of american society, it can't escape the american viewpoint on the world (e.g it's P.C. in essence, even while making fun of P.C.-isms, it shares the "success is everything" mindset in mocking the middle and "white trash" class that's prevalent everywhere, seldom questions us views of foreign countries and core foreign policy "facts" -- except for rooting for the doves in the the hawks vs doves internal us discussion, etc.).
- evan_ 11y ago
  The onion doesn't have a strongly-defined partisan political stance, but it overwhelming "punches up" rather than punching down- meaning the butt of the joke is a person or organization with more power than the audience. To me, this point-of-view tends to look more progressive than conservative, but I might be overlaying my own biases.