How does digital media influence comedy? originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.
Answer by Baratunde R. Thurston, futurist comedian, writer, and cultural critic, on Quora:
I'm going to interpret "digital media" more broadly than perhaps you intended. I'm doing this because I think it will be more useful, and because I can and you can't stop me.
So I'll think "technology" rather than just "digital media."
Technology and digital media are having a profound impact on how we make comedy, how we receive or experience it, and who is involved in making it. The same could be said of almost every area of society affected by technology, which is to say, almost everything.
Given that everyone is now a publisher, writer, and sound and image broadcaster, anyone can also use these tools to make jokes. The number of people involved in making comedy has grown by several orders of magnitude over a generation ago. You can write and post a funny article or tweet, for example and you don't need permission from anyone to do it. More interesting, the amount of collective comedy being made is increasing. People are coming together to make and amplify memes, build comedic websites and experiences, and crowdsource major creative projects, including comedic ones.
That brings me to what we're making comedically now and into the future. Basically we are seeing an explosion of comedic formats and user experiences. It's not just about standup comedy or comedic films, posters, books. Comedy is showing up in virtual reality, in code even. The core goal of my company's (Cultivated Wit) event, Comedy Hack Day, is to encourage this expansion of comedic formats.
Finally, let me touch on how tech has affected how we all receive comedy. The ability for people formerly known as the audience to coordinate means that jokes they don't like aren't just jokes they don't like. They become rallying points for political expression. And so you see moments like #CancelColbert lead by members of the Asian American community. Given how we consume all media increasingly in feeds, the lines between the experience of a comedic piece of media and a serious piece of media doesn't exist. You could come across a joke right next to a death announcement. You could come across comedy very much not intended for you because of the nature of our social networks. All this leads to more opportunities for those who make comedy to discover new audiences and communities, but it also can lead to more conflict as we strip context from the comedy that was created.
Comedy is becoming part of an increasingly borderless world. Anyone can make it, even unwittingly. People can find it who aren't looking for it. And how comedy finds expression will continue to evolve as our tools of expression grow.
Then there's the power of data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence. AI comedy is coming, but I've run out of time (or did the AI really write this instead of me so as to throw you off its trail?).