Hi I'm Joel and I'm Lia and we are gunna be talking to you about British humour.
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British humour is something that is so much a part of British people, it would be silly
to ignore it on this channel.
As you can tell we are very funny ourselves, but quite often I think our humour doesn't
come across especially when a viewer isn't from the UK.
And even just the way you said that then, like, apologising for like "we are a little
bit funny, aren't we?
Aren't we?
Love me!".
It's like your classic, kind of, if anyone wants to watch some really self-deprecating
humour or stand-up watch like Simon Amstell.
What would you describe that as?
It's like awkwardness, that's funny, that's also sort of like self-deprecating, because
you're constantly sort of apologising for yourself being British.
I've got a friend who does it all the time.
You've mentioned it: self-deprecating, we like to poke fun at each other and ourselves.
So it's seen as 'mean' I guess, to some people, but most British people make fun of each other.
Some people might call it self-sabotage, but British people just see it as part of their
identity.
There's a really good Twitter account that I think captures this so well, I think it's
called @VeryBritishProblems.
Yeah that's good!
We're gunna put loads of links in the description to anything that we refer to in the video.
We all say we can afford to be a bit more American and a bit more bold and a bit more
kind of like, stop apologising for yourself.
It's just part of like, British identity.
So that's one thing I noticed, I was thinking about it, and there's a TV series in the UK
- it's finished now - it's called 'Miranda', where Miranda Hart is the star of it, and
the whole premise of that series pretty much is Miranda making fun of the fact that she's
fat and she's big and she's clumsy and tall, and I was thinking actually in America if
you take 'Girls' (which you can't compare it really but) Lena Dunham essentially is
just being like "I'm fat and I'm embracing it and I'm allowed to be fat" (even though
she's not that fat) "I'm a bigger woman, and that's great", whereas a British sense of
humour is: "oh, I'm fat and I'm ugly".
Yeah, yeah, you're so right, like the American sense of humour would be to just own what
you are, but the British one would be: how many jokes can you think of about being tall
and a bit large, and big-boned?
Like, more, more, they'll push it further.
It's weird and like, lots of comedians, I remember one comedian, one of my favourites,
Shappi Khorsandi, and I remember she started one of her stand-ups saying about how she
ticks every box of a minority, she was like "I'm a woman, I'm Iranian, and a comedian"
and all these things and I think lots of British humour is picking things in yourself and being
like "okay, what are my weaknesses or what are bad things about me that I can turn into
a joke?".
She's like the BBC's wet dream in terms of box-ticking!
She's just absolutely everything, tick tick tick, tick.
There's not necessarily a right way and a wrong way of doing things this is just what
we've noticed is the British way.
Also it does change, like, I think American humour is getting a bit more British and also
British humour is getting more American.
Lots of British humour is now trying to be more American because obviously America comedy
is very popular even over here, we really love it.
And that's where the money's at!
And even in America, when you watch old SNL clips you do see them a bit, like, looking
to camera like: "Ooo, I've said a funny line" whereas in the UK that doesn't happen.
But now you watch SNL and they are a bit more like, "what I've said is really serious" even
though it's not, they're better at doing deadpan.
It's really true and even in British stuff like, Fleabag, which is an incredible like,
British, would you call it like a tragedy and a comedy at the same time, it's like Tragi-Comedy.
Great series on BBC.
She often breaks the fourth wall, which is like, really American, and she'll just - say
this is the scene, and we're in a coffee shop she'll just turn to camera and deliver her
inner-monologue to camera, which is so, rare to find, and I think it was a breath of fresh
air for British comedy coz we were all like "OMG this is great".
So, with British humour you've also got the deadpan thing going on.
Even just talking to friends in a social situation in the UK, it's not unusual for someone to
deliver a line of speech with no emotion whatsoever attached to it, as a way of making everyone
laugh.
That's true, like if you've gone through something really bad, and then someone goes "brilliant",
just brilliant, like if something awful has happened or something great's happened, as
a way of under-mining whatever's just happened, someone will say something in a really deadpan
way.
With deadpan, I think it'd be important to remember if you're not British and you're
speaking to someone who is, and if they are to use like a sarcastic, deadpan response
to something you say, it's just never take that personally.
No, and I don't know about your culture coz I have friends - two Polish friends of mine,
both of them speak English as a second language and both of them are so sarcastic and so funny
and I remember saying to them like "No offence, but how are you this funny?
And using sarcasm when you don't even speak English completely fluently?"
so it might be because in Poland, maybe sarcasm is a thing over there aswell?
SO we're just interested to know in what countries do we share the same sort of comedy?
It's certainly not that way in Greece.
Really?
There's none of it, yeah there's not really like sarcasm or - their level of humour is
like, horrific.
As in they get a laugh out of anything?
It's literally like poo jokes.
or like, sex jokes, or like, misogynistic.
It's awful, like I'd rather not associate myself with it.
Hence why there's no super famous Greek comedians or Greek kind of - you know I think the fun
in that comedy would come from an English person taking the piss out of Greek culture,
i.e.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Do you know what I mean?
So they're the butt of the joke rather than you're laughing at their joke.
Yeah, yeah 100%.
So I'd be intrigued to know aswell.
Like isn't that impressive if someone's coming over here, learning the language and then
able to meet you on that level of like "Oh I can be in on this, like I can joke with
you on that".
We were saying over lunch that like England is probably the only country when a compliment
is not really a compliment, I dunno, like if someone was to say to you "great jacket,
great shirt", that could mean anything, that could mean that is the most ridiculous shirt
I've ever seen.
A bit like that scene in 'Mean Girls' actually, Americans do it aswell, "Hey nice skirt, that
is the most fugly skirt I've ever seen", but that's the other thing, in America, not necessarily
in America, but in that film they had to refer to the fact like "that is the ugliest effing
skirt I've ever seen" whereas in the UK they would just leave it at like "Nice skirt, nice
shirt".
Yeah and it would just all be in the delivery.
Whereas like, in any other country, in Australia it's like "hey nice shirt mate" they'd be
like "Oh cheers, thanks for liking my shirt" not like "nice shirt, wanker".
Has that happened to you where someone says a compliment and you're like "sorry do you
actually mean that, coz....?"
Of course!
Always!
"Coz I don't know if you're joking but I really like it".
We find that we can't often say the things we wanna say as jokes because like, they are
quite offensive or like our friends will get the wrong end of the stick, and think that
we're being mean about them where actually our sense of humour is just like taking the
piss basically.
100%.
We're piss-takers.
Absolute 'pisst-takers', that's how my dad says "don't taking the pisst out of me", that's
an exaggeration.
"Pisst", I'm not taking the pisst!
We should explain the word piss-taker, go!
Piss-taker: is to make fun of.
Your humour is to make fun of something else, but it's different to being a bully.
Bullying: is when you... the reason it's different is because, the intention behind it.... none
of your intention is to hurt or to like upset anyone it's just to like, make light of, extract
the funny from it, extract the fun and heighten the fun of whatever's amusing.
Whereas bullying would be you wanna hurt that person's feelings.
Yeah, exactly.
But then it can backfire because often sometimes if you do take the piss out of someone, then
their feelings ARE hurt, which is why we sometimes have to rein it in, coz we're like "oh, don't
know if you're gunna respond well to that so we'll just keep it to ourselves".
Usually people respond well to it, but not when you first meet them!
Often the piss taking is always kind of, highlighting the obvious, if there's an 'elephant in the
room', so to speak, if everyone's thinking is said, we'll all laugh and relax.
So you know, I think just, when you're around British people don't ignore the obvious.
Also another extreme example, just before we wrap-up: a woman outside work the other
day was hit by a bus and run over by the front two wheels and was trapped underneath, in
the end, miraculously, she only had a fractured hip and went to hospital, she's supposedly
fine, she's survived.
About 5 hours after that people at work started like making a joke relating to that, I can't
remember an example, but then they'd also be like "ooo is that too soon?" and most of
us would be like "yeah I think that's a bit too soon", but that's classic British person,
like taking something that was so awful and stressful and turning it into a joke, but
I think they only turned it into a joke because they knew she was okay, if she'd died I don't
think anyone would have touched it, but because they were like "phew she only had a fractured
hip and she's like ok (in hospital but fine)" people were like "ok, maybe I can make a joke
about this?".
Yeah, like making light of horrific situations is often like a survival technique for Brits.
It's like the only way to get through it, and there's loads of, like really tragic plays
that you see that are really, really funny.
Yeah you find that don't you?
Like, everything is really heartbreaking and then they ruin the moment by like kicking-in
a joke, but then it kind of doesn't ruin it coz it lightens it.
Yeah and I think that's always the best kind of stuff you see on stage or on screen, when
you're like, "OMG this is so tragic but it's so funny".
We're a huge paradox, and impossible to understand we don't really understand ourselves, that's
why there's so much comedy, yeah definitely.
OK.
So, we've spoken a little bit about sarcasm, deadpan comedy, awkwardness, self-deprecating
comedy.
We'd be really intrigued to hear if you guys have anything similar where you're from, and
yeah I think that's it.
Yeah I think that is it.
It feels like the end.
It does feel like the end.
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