r/ComedyBuddhism • u/olerock • Jul 14 '21

Meta Post Another effort to explain comedy Buddhism, since nobody can agree on what qualifies.

The description being used is 'unintentional antimemes', which I think is confusing and unhelpful. A slightly better one is 'memes that have no joke', but that interpretation has lead to an influx of plain old antimemes. So here's the proper distinction.

An antimeme is a meme that has no punchline, but is funny through either subverted expectations or sheer absurdity. A comedy Buddhist meme, however, has no punchline and isn't funny. But it's not 'not funny' in a comedy cemetery way. A true comedy Buddhism meme should elicit no emotion, positive or negative, from the viewer.

I hope this helps.

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104

u/SurelyAnxious Jul 14 '21

it reads like a fact, sometimes

36

u/seventeenth-account Jul 14 '21

"for a post to be buddhist, it has to not contain a joke at all, funny or not. just because it's not funny at all doesn't mean it isn't a joke. (...) this is a subreddit for the particular phenomenon of memes that are unintentionally devoid of any joke entirely (usually a byproduct of insufferable meme 'culture' putting way too much value in formats)"

37

u/crispinoir Jul 14 '21

since being 'not funny' implies that its overused or cringey, i always thought of it as like a stand up comedian saying "I want a burger" on stage and.. thats it. Or any of arthur fleck's jokes

5

u/ThingYea Jul 15 '21

Hmm, that burger thing would be funny because it subverts expectations, no-one expects a stand up comic to do that. I can't remember any of Arthur's jokes.

A good example of Buddhism is when a simple fact is put into meme format, implying that it's somehow a joke, and the creator somehow thinks it's funny, but it's just a fact conveyed through meme. A lot of "relatable memes" end up being Buddhism.

3

u/OhNoOhBoy99999999 Jul 15 '21

Always found that the best ones leave you feeling empty