There are many ways to tell a joke and just as many ways to interpret that joke. You can say, "Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side." or you can say, "Why did the chicken cross the road? Because he loved mangos." Both of these jokes are structured the same, have the same premise, but are completely different. The appeal of the first lies in the chuckle the listener gets when he realizes that the punch line is extremely obvious. The second joke gets its laugh from sheer absurdity. This second type of joke is the kind I've always loved and admired, and I enjoy it just as much when read on funny t-shirts.
Funny t-shirts are, if you'll excuse the pun, a funny thing. When you usually want to share a joke, you know your audience and you know what joke may work on some friends and not on others. When you wear a funny t-shirt, you let that joke hang in the air indefinitely. You wait until someone snatches it from the air, examines it, and then you wait to see if they laugh. It is a system based on pure faith that your funny t-shirt is hilarious enough to make anyone laugh, regardless of their comedy preference.
The whole point of being absurd is to force people out of their comfort zone and into a world of the unknown where anything can happen. Monty Python perfected the technique, and their form of absurdist humor is still popular today. When you deal with absurdist comedy, up can be down or even sideways. When people are jerked out of normalcy and into the absurd, every situation is a challenge. No one knows what could happen or where the joke could lead. This makes my insanely funny t-shirts the greatest social tool I own.
There was a French playwright in the 1950's named Eugene Ionesco who was labeled an author in the Theatre of the Absurd. His plays were insane gibberish that spoke on social issues and the lack of communication amongst people in everyday speech. Considered a great playwright by the theatre community, he did some great work that is still performed to this day. With plays full of such insanity that you can't help but laugh in confusion, I wonder what Ionesco would have worn absurd, funny t-shirts today just like I do.
The art of the absurd is something beautiful to me, and all of my funny t-shirts border on the insane. You can reach a lot of people using the absurd to make your point. It jars the normal mind from its housing and lets it run free to do as it pleases, processing information in ways that are different than normal. What is normal, anyway? I suppose this is a question that absurdity tries to not answer, but to make null and void. Just like the chicken that crosses the road...absurdity loves eggs too.
Funny t-shirts are, if you'll excuse the pun, a funny thing. When you usually want to share a joke, you know your audience and you know what joke may work on some friends and not on others. When you wear a funny t-shirt, you let that joke hang in the air indefinitely. You wait until someone snatches it from the air, examines it, and then you wait to see if they laugh. It is a system based on pure faith that your funny t-shirt is hilarious enough to make anyone laugh, regardless of their comedy preference.
The whole point of being absurd is to force people out of their comfort zone and into a world of the unknown where anything can happen. Monty Python perfected the technique, and their form of absurdist humor is still popular today. When you deal with absurdist comedy, up can be down or even sideways. When people are jerked out of normalcy and into the absurd, every situation is a challenge. No one knows what could happen or where the joke could lead. This makes my insanely funny t-shirts the greatest social tool I own.
There was a French playwright in the 1950's named Eugene Ionesco who was labeled an author in the Theatre of the Absurd. His plays were insane gibberish that spoke on social issues and the lack of communication amongst people in everyday speech. Considered a great playwright by the theatre community, he did some great work that is still performed to this day. With plays full of such insanity that you can't help but laugh in confusion, I wonder what Ionesco would have worn absurd, funny t-shirts today just like I do.
The art of the absurd is something beautiful to me, and all of my funny t-shirts border on the insane. You can reach a lot of people using the absurd to make your point. It jars the normal mind from its housing and lets it run free to do as it pleases, processing information in ways that are different than normal. What is normal, anyway? I suppose this is a question that absurdity tries to not answer, but to make null and void. Just like the chicken that crosses the road...absurdity loves eggs too.
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There is a great site about funny tees which can be found at cool shirts where you can see how it's done right.
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