The RoastMe practice emerged in 2015 on the online platform Reddit. Devotees of RoastMe post pictures of themselves (i.e. the Roastee’) whilst holding a placard (of some kind) with the phrase ‘Roast Me’ written on it – with the idea of attracting amusing insults (as comments) The first academic review of the practice appeared in […]
Tag: laugh
Taking Laughter Seriously at the Supreme Court [study update]
Studies into possible implications of laughter episodes at the US Supreme Court were initiated in 2005 by Professor Jay D. Wexler (Boston University School of Law) who was the first to calculate the ‘Laughter Episodes Instigated Per Argument Average’ (LEIPAA) from the records of court proceedings. Details here in a 2016 Improbable Article. Then, in 2019, […]
You can lead a horse’s ass to wonder, but you can’t make him think
This tiny video, by Gracie Cunningham, is a beautifully subtle example of how to make people laugh, then think. The twitter comment about it, by Alex Turner, is a good example of how you can lead a horse’s ass to wonder, but you can’t make him think. https://twitter.com/i/status/1298372968838508546 Gracie Cunningham was bombarded, on Twitter, with […]
The function of evil laughter in popular culture (new study)
One of the very few (perhaps the only) peer-reviewed scholarly studies devoted to investigating the function of evil laughter in popular culture has been recently been penned by Jens Kjeldgaard-Christiansen, who is a doctoral researcher at the School of Communication and Culture, Department of English of Aarhus University, Denmark. In his new paper for The Journal […]