Monday 26 February 2007

More laughter please

It was my boss’s stag do at the weekend, so 15 of us trotted off to Jongleurs for a night of stand up comedy. Apparently it must have been a gay stag do. According to the hilarious Aussie Jim Jefferies we should have been in Prague watching Donkeys shitting on Cats – after all that’s what real men like him do! For some strange reason I think he may have actually done this.

Jim is very crass and extremely un-pc, I’m not sure you will ever see him on ITV1 on a Saturday evening before You've been framed. This guy was seriously funny, but there were times when you had to ask whether you should really be laughing at some of his gags. There was lots of sucking through your teeth and looking at the person next to you to see if what was OK to laugh? And sure enough 9 times out of 10 it was.

I think people found it surprisingly liberating. It was certainly eye opening to see people laughing at the very things society tells us we shouldn’t laugh at. I’d recommend going to a comedy night just get you out of the politically correct mindset that we all fall into, even just for a few hours. It certainly brings you down to earth and back in touch with what people do actually find funny when they are in a different environment. I’m sure if you took the same people and cracked a few of his jokes in a meeting you wouldn’t get the same response.

Out all three acts Jim was the only one whose name I could remember and he certainly got the most laughs. Whilst I’m not suggesting that brands make fun of people in such a manner, it is apparent that in a world when brands need to be more transparent and more human like, society is trying to make us become less human. Or the ideal human, if one exists. I think things like blogging, Youtube and Myspace are a result of people being able to express themselves in a more accurate way. It is the real them that perhaps can’t get out because society says that’s not funny.

No comments: