Another popular forum for internet comedy is through twitter accounts and blogs, as written by individuals. These have created public outlets for people who would not have otherwise been able or driven to express their senses of humor. Because it is free to publish oneself, millions do. With the subtraction of a distributor or middle-man, there is no censorship or external guidance in these cases, and so a great breadth of material is being produced. From Shaquille O'Neal's infamous Shaq Twitter, through which the basketball star makes quips from the bench during a game, to the musings of a Canadian housewife, anyone can express their thoughts. Perhaps the most important thing to evolve out of this direct writer-to-reader connection, is a demand by the audience for a sense of intimacy.
In our culture, there has grown an unusual longing to feel like we personally understand celebrities and, in turn, feel that we ourselves are known and seen by a greater public. One woman videotaped herself sitting on the toilet and singing about it and, upon posting it to YouTube, found instant celebrity, with over 26 million views and countless re-mixes. What draws a modern day audience to a video or a post seems to be a feeling that there is no separation between us as the viewer/reader and the performer/writer. We might as well be sitting in the same room with this woman, as she repeatedly exalts, "I'm sittin' on the toilet. Sittin' on the toilet! I'm sittin' on the toilet. I'm sittin' on the toilet!" When the video ends, I am at a loss as to why I just wasted two minutes watching this bizarre show, but much more at a loss in trying to understand why so many millions of people had watched it before me.
Because of the internet, the line between private and public is more blurred than perhaps it has ever been. As a result, comedy seems less about a story and more about a moment. Twitter restricts the author to 140 characters and, while YouTube allows the subscriber to post a video of any length, the shorter the video is, the more hits it is likely to get.
Superdeluxe type of humor- dialogue based; testing ground for tv (adult swim)
