This whole crazy thing about Laughter...

I find this whole idea of parasites extremely funny. Here, we have this movie called Shivers, the film we started the class with, it begins the idea within our classroom of whether or not the parasites were evil, or good, and if good, would they be considered a symbiote and not a parasite? This very idea drives me a little crazy, trying to make a justifiable claim as to whether or not it is to our advantage or to our dismay.

On my blog, you will find connections about laughter all over the page. Why? The answer could be simply, because I like to laugh, or I could take you down this path of connections and linear relations and networks all of which intermingle around the idea of laughter. Is laughter contagious? Is it good for your health? Are there any downsides to laughter? These questions could all be answered so quickly and easily, however could follow the other path and drive itself into conversations and debates about which answer is right. I love to debate and argue.

Let’s go into some analysis, shall we? Is laughter contagious? I believe that the majority opinion is ‘yes’, right? We have all experienced those moments of just hearing someone’s unique laugh in the middle of a lecture at an awkward moment and the rest of the class joining in with laughter. Then there is the idea of the ‘laugh track’ heard for the first time in 1950 on “The Hank McCune Show”. The reason why the laugh track was invented was to make up for the lack of a studio audience, and although it made up for the audience, it proved that people were more likely to laugh if the laugh track accompanied whatever the viewer was watching and/or listening. However, this laugh track could be applied almost anywhere and either A) receive laughter from viewers, B) be misunderstood or read differently and therefore, received with an unintended response away from the original purpose (but sometimes still funny), or C) carry no emotion whatsoever.

For example:

Taxi Driver with a Laugh Track
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl5JNj2XW0A
In this clip, De Niro plays an intense ex-soldier who is forced to leave the military and gets a job as a taxi driver in the city. Although this scene was complete improv on De Niro’s part, the clip was still used in the film and has been stapled into our culture for years! People who don’t even know the movie will still use the phrase! Add a laugh track to this scene and you get the expected result: laughter.

The Shining gets a laugh track
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a0AaQF15rc

The Dark Knight with a Laugh Track- Better audio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p1kjOU1O_g
In these two very intense scenes, we have characters who display the opposite emotion of joy or happiness and yet, we still might get a kick out of it. Either that or we feel like the laugh track is extremely inappropriate. However, the emotions the makers of each film intended for the audience to feel are not of joy, but of stress or fear. Yet, you add a laugh track and these two scenes steer away from the anticipated emotions. People’s emotions and thoughts have been manipulated to feel the opposite.

Failed Sitcoms – Let’s Dump Dave!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leyWS_Kpxx8
In this old sitcom clip, someone added a laugh track to this clip, but the overall outcome is still not so funny (at least in my opinion). That’s the thing, the continuation or suddenness of laughter can overwhelm us and cause us to respond to it with laughter as well.

We cannot further this discussion about whether laughter was contagious without commenting on the 1962 laughter epidemic in Tanzania. What started as three girls laughing at a boarding school in an African village multiplied to 95 out of the 159 students laughing. Symptoms tied into the laughter epidemic were crying and laughter, thus, the school had to be closed and re-opened. The epidemic spread to nearby villages and by the end of it, 2 ½ years later, more than 1,000 people had been afflicted by the laughter epidemic. Now, it turns out that the epidemic was caused by either mass psychogenic illness, or mass hysteria, brought on by stress. On that note, this would be the perfect time to bring up whether laughter is good for your health. See? Questions that can continue and spread into more and more conversations or debates, just like a parasite, but is continuing this constant flow of conversation good for you?

My opinion is, of course! Just this past Friday, the 1 PM Parasites class had some Face 2 Face (F2F) time and, if people were paying attention, we call bettered from the conversation. We continued, topic after topic, to test our will to question other people’s statements, and even question our own! Whether we like it or not, conversations like the one this class had on Friday will only make us stronger, more knowledgeable people. Why? Because we can question everything, question each other, and if you are strongly opinionated towards one thing or another, your relationship with such topic grows stronger as well.

We debated about this idea of technology and its proper uses, and its considered “downsides” commented by people in the class. First, check out this clip:
Kaplan University Commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e50YBu14j3U
Here is my opinion towards that, as I wrap up this whole soapbox thing that I am trying to do, whether we like it or not, the times are changing. We have generations who have been introduced to the television, generations who were born with the television, generations who were introduced to computers and mobile phones, and generations who were born with the great advancements in computers and mobile phones. And now, after decades of dominance, it seems like the television is losing its grasp on its viewers. It is becoming no longer the primary, but maybe the secondary SCREEN that people decide to go spend their time with. Times are indeed changing, and educators are going to be up for a big task, educating generations that are accustomed to using technology for practically anything. Moreover, technology is also a resourceful tool to publish your own writing and research, or show the world your art, music, or whatever. Educators must be prepared to move from using old methods that worked for them, to discovering new methods to captivate their students and keep them attentive and as participators. Technology has spread and is contagious just like laughter. (AH-HA!) The question we should ask ourselves individually is, ‘Is technology good for ME, or not?’