As always, a website has those dark corners that sooner or later you would find. I guess this is a great thing too, because it will help a lot of people who wants to be humorous. But there are a lot of people who are just starting out (or possibly have no talent whatsoever). Sucks to be them, but they'll find their way. As for those who know true humor, they should just step aside and bear with the newbie.

Yes, yes, yes. Awesome use of story examples. And just an overall handy guide at humor writing. I loved the last line, too, great way to end things.

I love you so much. This is hilarious and TRUE as HELL. The Santa Claus strip was so... oh Jesus, this was awesome and I'm showing it to all my friends.

this was a pretty good piece. i love the part where you went on about "Randomus retardicus" and the mating success rate haha. but yeah, i understand how that "Sugar High!" thing is very random and frankly quite annoying. but one piece of criticism, homeless people fighting to the death for scraps of beef, is not funny. seriously.

A hearty THANK YOU for defending humor! Your last line was AMAZING in this essay. (I know this story was from way back, but everyone lines reviews!) Do you think that ALL randomness is bad? I mean, there is a certain element of randomness and surprise in most humor...just when 'randomness' turns into filling in the blanks of a MadLib you KNOW you've taken it too far. I don't think my "Beautiful Taco" story was 'MadLib' ish...but then, perhaps maybe it is. WHATEVER.
Thanks for adding ammunition in the war against silly-fourteen-year-old-girls-who-can't-write!

For some reason I find unintentional humor (that is, one that results from bitterness rather than an actual attempt to be funny) funnier than anything else.

Man, this is a good essay. You've made a great point that some people just don't get. I like the way you took excerpts from crappy "humor" stories, made the essay funny and a good read.

--Samuel

I enjoyed reading this, and really agree with you. So much of the stuff in the humor section turns out to be just random junk. It would be better if people focused on writing humorous stories, instead of just "humor." But, enough of my little rant. :D

I think that if more stories followed what you said here it would make them a lot more funny. I liked it when you taked about how a lot of stories dont give enough background info. to make it funny. the more you know about the person they funnier it is when they mess up. good job it made perfect sence to me!

Oh, so you expected a point to just form out of an exercise where one writes constantly just to keep the words going. Bravo, really, because you are clever.

Homeless people fighting to the death over scraps of beef? That WOULD be funny. Do I have your permission to organise it?

You Chinese people are so smart. *sighs*

Whoa, kinda harsh. Don't cha think?

Well, can't you put some "good" examples of humor? Because I would like to know. =)

Nevertheless, this was a very interesting piece of writing.

This is so, so awesome. Like, it's totally excellent, right? And then you just had to throw in a Maddox reference... WHICH MADE IT UBER-FANTASTIC! Joy. There is joy in my heart. All because of this beautiful, stunning piece of work, which says exactly what I have been trying to say about all the stupid p-o-s "humor" crap that has been clogging blogs and writing sites alike. And giving middle-schoolers another mindless craze to rally around, which is something they really do NOT need. So, yeah, mucho kudos for YOU.

Well...yeah, pretty much. You're right.

"Randomness" used to be funny, when it was employed by stoners and was actually, y'know, random--now it's usually most often used by 14-year-old girls who are forcing it. Completely. And everyone can tell.

Really, though, the best thing about this really is that it isn't about gay marriage. The second best thing is that it's not a "conservatives are bad/liberals are icky" rant.

However, I am disappointed that you did not include a paragraph or two concerning sporks. They're the lame joke upon which all lame "LOL RANDOM" humor was founded.