Can crowdsourcing produce funny humor pieces?

"Reviews on historic books by people who haven't actually read the book."

"Likely names of organisms had Linnaeus been a science fiction fanboy."

Although I still have difficulty considering myself a writer type, what little experience I do have in this world is mostly limited to publishing humour pieces. I guess my niche is to do this and still stick to science and technology subjects. So far, I've been lucky enough to have gotten quite a few pieces published in various places (you can see a partial clip list here), although often I think my geneticist title was key in throwing editors off. In fact, one of the reasons the Science Creative Quarterly (which I edit) exists is that I thought it would be cool to have a portal for "literary science humour."

Anyway, when I write a humour piece, I usually start with a quirky title (the two of mine above being prime examples), and then kind of let the ideas flow from there. As well, if you just peruse the SCQ's humour archive, you can readily feel the potential of each humour piece just from the title. Consequently, I've always wondered if crowd sourcing the comments on a blog post might be a good way to produce a decent humour piece. This might fail epically, but I always thought it would be worth a try - especially if I ever had a chance to give it a go on a website with clever commentary and excellent traffic.

So, just for fun, let's see if we can first start with an interesting title. I've got a few that have been sitting in my head for a while as backups (at the top of this post), but hopefully, we can come up with better ones in comments below. In other words, here is the first task:

Can you come up with a humour piece title that lends itself to potentially funny answers?

(PS: We'll also stick to things that are science- or technology-related, since those I have a bit of experience in as an editor.)

David Ng likes to find funny things to show in your next science talk.

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I think I would read any article with a title like that.

lectroid

“-An overview of animals that would exist if the world were significantly more awesome.”

this is the clear winner, since we already have several extant lists from which to cherrypick, starting with nearly ever SciFi (sorry, SYFY) movie made in the last decade.

I mean, c’mon… Sharktopus? Seriously, what’s more awsome than Sharktopus?

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Can crowdsourcing produce funny humor pieces?
What do you mean by “crowdsourcing?” Funny stories/columns submitted by strangers? McSweeney’s. Funny bits from here and there? bash.org. Some kind of collaborative round-robin bullshit session? Good luck, mang, it’ll be drama queens and in-jokes within a week.

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Let’s start by getting the spelling of “humor” right…

/anti-Canadian humor

cjp

Let’s start by correcting your attitude. ‘Humour’ is perfectly acceptable. It’s useless to unleash rancour on your neighbours to the north when they simply practise a much older standard of syntax, modelled more on British roots. You can’t go around labelling an entire nation’s spelling as incorrect, especially one which has produced some of the finest writers of our time. Instead, try to manage a litre of lustre for our splendid differences. Venture to the theatre with a Saskatchewanian, wear a wollen toque once in a while, or simply deign to curb your candour when encountering distasteful spelling. An easier dialogue between the two nations begins with the endeavours of a single, open-minded individual.

In turn, we will try with every fibre of our being not to criticise when you misspell metre or your ‘parlor’ has an offensive odour. We will not scorn you for your sabre-rattling or giggle too loudly over your misguided literary labours. Yes, we will honour the pledge to never be so focussed on your short-comings as to not see your goodness.

Humour, my dear American friend, is the key to living well with each other. So humour us a little, okay?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Humour, my dear American friend, is the key to living well with each other.
  
  Well, two out of the four humors are bile.

Dave Ng

These are great! And bash.org and Encyclopedia Dramatica are pretty cool (definitely need to spend some time checking them out).

On tuesday, we’ll see if we can focus on a title from these comments and then collect comments for the remainder of the humour (humor) piece.

Game on!

Prufrock451

So are you saying you’re done taking suggestions? Say it ain’t so!

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- Dave Ng
  
  Not at all, keep the suggestions coming. These titles alone are pretty funny. I’ll hopefully pick a good one from the lot and report on tuesday for the next stage!

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-Quantum Physics according to your mother.
-An overview of animals that would exist if the world were significantly more awesome.
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ibbers

@artiefx0

Nice.

“An overview of animals that would exist if the world were significantly more awesome.” just made me light up with glee. I SO wan to read an overview of animals that would have existed if the world was *significantly* more awesome. Not just awesome, but *significantly*.

Awesome work, art. You just made my day start with a fucken’ awesome smile :D

heck yes.

Anonymous

Topic suggestion: “Topics from crowdsourced humor lists”

Entries could include “Lolcat WOW names,” “Funniest thing about nutshots,” “Memes Hitler should rant about,” “Things as fun to look at as boobs,” “Twitter updates from a Chatroulette troll,” etc.

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Lists are the most naturally LOLable literary form but FWIW I tend to go for more complicated pieces, where I assume it would work best with someone with an over-arching vision telling the nameless hordes what kind of joke you need at any given moment.

That said. composing a good list isn’t the same as choosing all the funniest suggestions.

Also, “-An overview of animals that would exist if the world were significantly more awesome.” made the world slightly more awesome.

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I’m voting for something from either Prufrock451 and sapere_aude. Their titles made me laugh and think.

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Collaborative humor? topfive.com has been doing it that way for years – been featured in the Wall Street Journal, NYTimes, Al Gore speech, and Jeopardy!.

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sapere_aude

Okay, here are a few more (this is a lot more fun than actually working):

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The jerks of the periodic table: Nobel gasses really aren’t any better than any of the other elements; they’re just acting like antisocial snobs

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Encyclopedia Dramatica is the perfect example of this. Sure it’s not for everyone, but if you’re a /b/tard it’s pretty damn funny.

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I’d like to read an article (or at least a list) based on the second example at the beginning!