New Books in Popular Culture Alfie Bown, "Post-Comedy" (Polity, 2025)
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Mar 5, 2025 Alfie Bown, a Senior Lecturer in Digital Media at King's College London and author of Post-Comedy, delves into the evolving landscape of humor. He argues that comedy has shifted from fostering camaraderie to breeding tension, exemplified by the infamous Oscars slap incident. Bown critiques how jokes today often reinforce existing beliefs rather than provoke honest laughter, and he highlights the importance of humor in social cohesion. He also explores the impact of digital culture and trolling, ultimately advocating for a recovery of comedy's universal spirit.
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Laughter Typing Masks A Deeper Unity
- Theories of laughter often split laughter into types, but Alfie Bown argues this typing is misleading.
- He suggests laughter's unifying feature across history is relief, which is now shifting toward tension.
The Oscars Slap As Cultural Turning Point
- The Will Smith–Chris Rock Oscars moment signaled a cultural shift where comedy produces tension rather than relief.
- Bown uses this to ask how comedy moved from communal relief to a source of conflict in recent years.
Left And Right Joke Structures Mirror Each Other
- Left and right joke styles often stage different audiences but function similarly: they affirm in-group beliefs.
- Bown calls much contemporary humor didactic, reinforcing agreement rather than producing liberating relief.
