Over here, in dear old Britain (or England, as we're known in the USA), we've often suspected that our slightly ironic and edgy sense of humour was not fully understood by our cousins over the pond.
I don't think there is any better example of this phenomenon than an extremely funny blog entry by my good friend, Jason. He humorously compared two pictures: One by BBC News Web Site Photographer Of The Year finalist, Bud Force, a truly excellent shot and well worthy of the praise it has received. The other, by a friend of mine who likes to take pictures sometimes - great pictures, as it goes, but I doubt she would describe herself as a professional photographer.
I urge you to read the full blog entry and especially the following comments from both Bud himself and also Bud's friend. It's breathtaking. I still can't believe that this was not spotted as an affectionate joke.
...and Bud, if you're reading this - just remember that if you weren't so good, this wouldn't be funny.
When I had my original blog and it was drawing a lot of traffic, I got responses like this too. A lot of people not at all getting what seemed to be an obvious joke. And recently I took a creative writing class online with students from all over the U.S. I wrote a humorous how-to article about keeping in touch with your friends, and one of the ideas was to mail them odd and interesting clutter from off of your desk at work. My classmates came back with comments about how it might be immoral to use the company mail system for this purpose.
Posted by: Ruby Riley | September 28, 2006 at 04:28 PM
I hear you, Ruby. I suppose, when someone fails to get the gag, no amount of explaining will do. They'll only ever see it as a poor joke at best.
Also: Thank goodness that you DO have a sense of humour! :)
Gives me hope.
Posted by: AndyC | September 28, 2006 at 04:46 PM
You don't understand what it's like to live among people who believe that The Onion and The Colbert Report are legitimate, non-satirical news sources.
I don't know what's more unsettling, the amount of time bud spends googling himself or the fact that his professor felt the need to weigh in on the topic of "failed jokes."
Posted by: Confuzzled | October 06, 2006 at 05:06 AM
Confuzzled: Thanks for the comment, and for the shared perspective.
Maybe we should start and Irony 101 course at every major college?
Posted by: AndyC | October 06, 2006 at 11:45 AM