Take a moment to think about the last time you laughed. Were you laughing because you thought it was funny or because you felt the need to belong? Certainly there was a kind of magic moment when you felt like part of a larger whole, something today’s tech-centric society seems to crave. While it may feel good to fit in, people must balance the need to belong with the need to discover one’s true self. Consider the simple tasks of viewing art, telling jokes, interacting with technology and reading stories, they intertwine to help us reach a deeper meaning of who we are through the process of deciphering something for what it is.
In “Laughing with Kafka,” David Foster Wallace provokes many questions about the way we think of comedy. According…show more content… Now, thanks to the rise of social networks, the pervasiveness of silly pictures of cats is simply our way of creating a unified reality out of nothing. Humor is the heart and soul of the web. It makes it the place we want to be. This place may also be an AMC theater where spectators are watching “ba-bing ba-bang reversals of modern sitcoms,” as Wallace refers to them, joining together in what sounds to be a chorus of laughter (160). What I find funny and what others find funny is definitely not the same, therefore how is it that we reach this harmonious melody where we momentarily lose our individuality? Through Wallace’s exploration on the idea of “the contemporary U.S amusement,” a humor that Franz Kafka doesn’t employ in his writing, I’ve come to realize that people have been conditioned (160). This conditioning stems out of generations, environments, and experiences. Human beings are social animals, we love the feeling of reassurance, love, and welcoming. Think back to Wallace’s reason for writing his essay on Kafka’s peculiar humor. He is writing in search of acceptance; assuring the reader that Kafka’s stories, really are funny, or so he argues. There’s something very uncomfortable in the way we feel when we find ourselves laughing alone, it urges us to share it with someone, someone who will hopefully see the humor and unite with our perspective, reaching an approval that we naturally