One of the most simple and laid back projects in Freestyle, the Humor unit was a unit that studied different form of comedy, from absurd humor found in books like Rhinoceros and Slaughterhouse-Five, to satirical, situational, and black humor that are used by professional humorists. Our goal in this unit was to make a 5-6 minute humor video, which required an analysis on 2 different humorists, which would be used as the inspiration for our video. What I valued about this project was that I got to revisit my favorite humorists for my analysis, and decide on who I’d use, choosing Gabriel Iglesias out of several others, such as George Carlin, Brad Williams, Bert Kreischer, Josh Wolf, and Jeff Dunham, and I tried to edit the video with a bit more of a YouTube style in mind.

Humor Proposal

The 2 humorists I decided to look at are ones that I watch a lot, and I find both of them hilarious. They both approach humor in different styles, but both of them inspired me when coming up with my video idea. These humorists are Gabriel Iglesias and Anomaly. 

Gabriel Iglesias is a professional stand-up comedian that specializes in humor through his own life experiences and stories. He likes to take many aspects of his life and use those for his comedic routines. In the example I provided in the link, he talks about his process for handling his obesity, and that he was considering undergoing gastric bypass. He then talks about his experience at the doctor’s office while waiting for his appointment, and he brings up the many things that happened in the waiting room in a very hilarious fashion. He uses these types of anecdotes a lot when talking about his stories, and he does it very well. He has a lot of parts in his life that he uses for fun, such as his weight, his girlfriend, his son, his friends, his vehicles, his travel experiences, his previous shows, and many more. He can even take serious topics, such as his diabetes, and make it funny, which shows how well he specializes in situational humor. This, along with other more serious topics, like alcohol, step into the realm of black humor. He’s talked about the types of alcohol he would and wouldn’t deal with, and the experiences he had after getting drunk. In the example I provided, he talks about his huge guy that was way more overweight than he was, using a hyperbole. He also likes to sometimes exaggerate the situations he ends up in. Not only that, he is a master of practical jokes. One of the most popular aspects about Gabriel Iglesias is that he is able to make a lot of very convincing sounds and voices. When he tells his stories, he would use his voices to personify the characters in his story, such as in the example I provided, where he uses a sort of Godzilla voice when personifying the huge man. He even uses his voices in situations outside the shows. He told stories about how he would go to drive-thru’s and pretend to be an obnoxious woman through his voice to mess with the employees. His humor is very effective, and he’s probably top 3 for me when it comes to stand-up comedians.

The other humorist is barely even a humorist, but a YouTuber. If I could still do a live performance, this section would be going to George Carlin, but I have to make a video, so this is the best comparison that I want to make. While Anomaly is mostly known for his gaming videos and streams, he also does a lot vlogs where he gets himself into a bunch of crazy shenanigans. In the example I provided, he goes out on a Kayak trip with his friend, Victor. Through that, he makes a bunch of jokes, along with editing that adds to the humor being presented. The comedy in his videos tends to hover over absurd humor, where he does a lot of logically inappropriate things, while also keeping some things wholesome, and just not talking a lot of things seriously. A lot of the jokes he makes involve exaggerations and irony, where he would like to spout a lot of random nonsense about his weight and his ability to emote with people. See, his videos aren’t the most school appropriate videos out there. While Gabriel Iglesias’s humor can be appealing to everyone, Anomaly’s humor appeals to a certain subset of people, those being people mainly teenagers and young adults, and those who are into memes and video games. His use of inappropriate jokes may not be appealing to older audiences, but I find it hilarious, because the videos and jokes are just so stupid that you can’t help but laugh, and I think a lot of the humor is legitimately funny, while also having some legitimately good editing to back up the audio and video. Anomaly is a master of situational humor. He’s made a lot of videos about things he’s done in life, such as some Swedish traditions, being on a boat, LAN parties with friends, taste tests, fan mail unboxing, and traveling to many countries, like Finland, Japan, China, Australia, and more. Many of these videos feature stupid jokes and memes, as well as funny camera shots and editing, which is where his live video recordings shine the most.

When looking at both is these comics, the uniqueness in the ways they portray humor are what appeal to me. Both handle jokes pretty differently, but both get laughs out of me. Gabriel Iglesias’s use of exaggerations and situational humor are what appeal to me the most when thinking of my video idea, and Anomaly’s use of creative editing and situational humor adds to that inspiration. What appeals to me most about the both of them is that they don’t just make up scripted jokes and take things seriously. They just take life one day at a time, letting their personalities shine through their lives, and let their content speak for their lives in comedic ways. The difference here is that Gabriel Iglesias does this through stand-up and stories, while Anomaly records the experiences. This is where I want to take my video idea to. I want to incorporate the main ideas the both of them have in their performances, which are the parts of their lives, and use it in my own routine. I initially wanted to do a live performance, where I would talk about a part of my life, and leave the audience with the thoughts my words give them, as well as the opportunity of interacting with the audience when doing so. Gabriel Iglesias does this very well, leaving the audience with their imaginations to fill in the blanks of what he is talking about. But since I couldn’t do that, I shifted the focus from live to video, and incorporate exaggerations to boost the comedic value of my topic.

 

Description of Chosen Project

My project is a video talking about my bedroom. The reason I wanted to use this as my basis for humor is because it’s quite unusual for a bedroom, since it’s on the first floor in a 3-story house, and it used to be a garage. There are a lot of things I could say about my room, which could lead to a good amount of comedy. One of the main comedic tools I planned to use was exaggeration, mainly through visuals. An example of this is how my room tends to be kinda cold, and I can express this through wearing very thick clothing in the video, which would add humor to the fact that it’s pretty damn cold in that room. Other tools I planned to use are some forms of sarcasm and satire, pointing things out about my room as being either positive or negative. I used some other forms of comedy, such as light amounts of irony or defusing anxiety, and I definitely used some situational humor. This was a solo project. I recorded and edited everything myself. I guess the best way to describe this routine would be a comedic narrative. There isn’t much of a story here, but this was definitely scripted. The target was a younger audience, as I incorporated some humor that would appeal to younger people. I did want to keep all of the content school appropriate, but I think I made something that anyone can enjoy. I felt like this is the right project for me, because I already had a good understanding of the material I was working with, and this helped me come out as a more funny person, while also having people learn a little bit more about me.

 

Here are the 2 video links I referenced in the reflection: I’m Healthy By Default | Gabriel IglesiasANOMALY GOES KAYAKING AND GETS LOST (PART 1)

 

Humor Project Script:

So this virus thing has got us kinda bored, right? I’m pretty sure we can all say that we live in our bedrooms now. You know, relax in the warmth of your rooms. Maybe crack open a window and let some fresh air in. WELL NOT ME! I GET TO SIT IN THIS COLD-ASS DUNGEON IN FRONT OF A COMPUTER WORRYING ABOUT 20 DIFFERENT THINGS AT ONCE WHILE I SLOWLY LOSE MY SANITY. AND NOW I GOTTA MAKE THIS VIDEO BECAUSE I CAN’T JUST DO A STAND UP ROUTINE LIKE I WANTED TO AND FOCUS ON ALL OF THOSE OTHER THINGS I NEED TO DO! THIS QUARANTINE STUFF IS REEEEALLY FUN! … Where was I… oh yeah, room.

See, my room is quite different from the traditional bedroom. Most bedrooms would be located on the top floor of a multi-story house, or just next to the other bedrooms in an apartment. My room is one the 1st floor of a 3-story house, and when we moved into this house, there wasn’t even a room there, because it used to be a garage. It was a tandem garage. You know, the type of garage where one car is parked behind the other, making that back car as useful as age restrictions on YouTube. After a few months of having to share a room with my sister, we decided to take the back half of the garage and turn that into a room, which started by building a wall. 

After all that, we made it look like an actual room. You know, shelves, a desk, lamp, blinds, a bed, this piano I never use, the works. Of course, the room still has its garage features. I mean, I’m literally sleeping under the stairs. There’s a really easy joke I can make there, but I’m not going to, because what’s more important here is that I sleep right under a water sprinkler. I’ve even almost had an accident with the sprinkler. Now, the sprinkler doesn’t look so close to the bed, but when you’re 8 foot 9 like me, and you try to stand up on the bed, you’re gonna do something stupid. Here’s the sprinkler, you see that little dent on one side? Yeah, that’s my head.

With a room like this, there are definitely some positives and negatives. One positive is that the room is pretty big. Ignoring the living room, it’s the biggest room in the house. I got enough space here to do some full blown workouts… with some bikes parked nearby.

Another positive is that because the room is on the first floor, and all of the other bedrooms are on the third floor, it makes it much easier to sneak food during the middle of the night. There are many nights I’ve stayed up to 3 am, or something like that, recently, so I’ve snuck up there to take some food or something, with absolutely no worry of anybody hearing me.

Now for a couple of negatives. One negative is that there’s no ventilation, there’s no air vents, the windows don’t even open. As a result, the room tends to be pretty cold, and no air circulates. As a result, I need to have a space heater and an air purifier in the room to filter so my lungs don’t coat in dust and so I don’t have to go to bed like this.

Another negative about my room is that the floor is hardwood. Now, I would sometimes exercise in my room, because the space allows for that, and that’s fine, because I wear shoes. But because of the lockdown, I also have to work from my room. Some of you may know that I teach Martial Arts. Now, trying to teach through this app that basically came out of nowhere is a whole different story, but I also have to train in the room, and that’s a problem, because I can’t wear shoes, for obvious reasons. So I either have to train barefoot or with socks on. Doing it barefoot means a lot of conditioning on the cold hardwood floor with nothing protecting your feet, and it eventually just feels like this. Doing it with socks on means that holding your balance on anything is basically impossible. Either way I do it, I still gotta do all those planks and crunches on the hardwood floor.

So that’s my room. At the end of the day, I still love this place, and I’m glad I was able to get not only my own room, but one with so much space. Now, if you excuse me, I’m gonna go crawl back into my bed and look for humor, with the idea that I live under one simple philosophy: L O U D = F U N N Y,  H A H A H A H A H A. Time for me to go and continue hating myself while laughing at *insert 1st video* and *insert 2nd video* and *insert 3rd video.*

 

Humor Video: