iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

Many theories of comedy say the unexpected twist of the punchline creates the laugh. Shock comics get laughs because of how unexpected the shock is, even if it lacks a proper punchline. A better comedian creates laughs through puns, clever incongruities, script overlaps, etc.

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Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

The big reason actual comedians dislike these folks is that they don’t really tell “jokes.” Compare the two: Comic A: What is up with [slur]? They’re always [stereotype]! Comic B: Did you know jalapeños are considered berries? So, y’know, be careful if you ever ask me to make you a fruit smoothie.

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Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

Getting back into comedy, I’m reminded that the recent trend of “edgy comics for edginess’s sake” isn’t new, where punchlines are replaced with shock and crudeness. Andrew Dice Clay and his ilk were an example of the last generation of these, and it didn’t last. Neither will this generation’s.

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Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

First Impressions - Delta Force 2025: Delta Force used to be one of the early ultra-real shooters akin to Operation Flashpoint or Ghost Recon. You’d think with new games like Arma, Insurgency, or Ready Or Not, they’d hit it out of the park. Instead, it’s just a poor Battlefield 2042 clone. 😞

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Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

I wrote that into one of my comedy shows, funnily enough. 😋

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Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

12 trash bags and a ton of cleaning supplies later, I’m done. After talking it over with some buddies, turns out losing a roommate may have affected me more than I thought. Moral of the story: IRL social support is super important, more so than you’d think.

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Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

I finally figured out the secret to keeping a clean house. Keep inviting people over until you start feeling guilty about how messy it is. 🙂‍↕️

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There’s one more not included, only implied, in Raskin’s theory: Context, or how it all fits together. While all of an LLM AI’s joke outputs are painfully unfunny, a performance that makes them the butt of a joke can turn them into something so unfunny that they become funny. So, Humans: 7, AI: 0. 😏

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So that makes Humans: 6, LLM AI: 0. This study on jokes is also why LLM’s can’t tell stories and why its creative writing output is so awful: creative writing all involves playing with language in ways AI cannot for a very, VERY long time. Once again, I remind everyone: your creative tasks are safe.

Lastly, there’s Language, the individual words, and if we learned anything from George Carlin to Steven Wright to Patton Oswalt, playing with words is something comedians specialize in. And despite scraping terabytes of data, quite a bit of which violate copyright laws, LLM’s somehow don’t.

Thanks to an LLM AI’s stubborn architecture, it has very little wiggle room to vary its joke strategies. It cannot do the faux mistake of Punchline A or subtle sarcasm of Punchline B. It can only do, “I take antidepressants like lifesavers—now my psychiatrist is judging me.”

Next, Narrative Strategy has to do with ordering/meaning. Compare the two versions of a joke by Miguel Porfirio: Setup: “Anti-depressents are lifesavers!” Punchline A: “Wait, I mean I’ve been taking anti-depressants like lifesavers!” Punchline B: “Because I’m devouring them like candy!”

Next is Target, the butt of the joke, subject of praise, or simply point of weirdness. Only humans can explore this range of possibilities. If you haven’t noticed, LLM AI can only do, “My ____ is judging me,” “jokes.” It can’t do the nuance of puns or positive incongruencies.

But LLM AI cannot utilize all these props because it cannot think semantically: it just autocompletes the sentence via the shortest possible route, resulting in, “I played ‘What’s New Pussycat?’ 27 times in a row on a diner jukebox—now everyone’s questioning my musical tastes.” Seeing a pattern?

Next is Situation: a good joke uses all of its props in the same way a good fight scene uses its arena. Take John Mulaney’s routine about endlessly repeating “What’s New Pussycat?” on a diner jukebox, describing a man pounding a table in rage, “And silverware flied everywhere, and it was FANTASTIC!”

Once again, the limited structure of LLM AI cannot compete with human intuition. While humans can vary their structure, AI can only do a strict setup-punchline order, often separated by dashes. The result? “I went to a Japanese restaurant—now I wonder of the cook is questioning my health choices.” 😑

The next layer is the Logical Mechanism: is it a riddle (“I went to that place where they cook the stuff in front of you. What’s it called? Oh yeah! Meth!”), a pun (“I sprayed some spot remover on my dog, now he’s gone.”), a story (“‘Are you Ron ‘Tater Salad’ White?’”), etc.?

The architecture of LLM AI doesn’t allow for script opposition because it’s nothing more than a fancy autocomplete. It’s also why AI can’t write narratives, which rely on script violations. As a result, AI could take Mitch’s setup and write, “I had an ant farm—now I think my ants are judging me.” 😒

The first layer of a joke is Script Opposition. If you’re familiar with Incongruity theory or Benign Violation theory, then you’d know a joke happens when two seemingly opposite ideas fit together. For example, Mitch Hedberg’s, “I had an ant farm, but they didn’t grow shit!”

IceFairy @richardeffendi.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

If you want scientific proof AI cannot write a joke if its life depended on it, look no further than Viktor Raskin, whose ideas helped influence standup comedy teacher Greg Dean. According to Raskin, there are 6 factors that determine a joke’s effectiveness: all six of which an AI cannot pull off. 🧵

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The Touhou Popularity poll is now open! You can start putting your vote downs by accessing the site linked below! Be sure to turn on the page translation! Reminder that your 1st vote is worth 3 points and your 2nd vote is worth 2 points this year! toho-vote.info/vote

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Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

One of my favorite techniques in standup comedy, one I’ve borrowed from Chris Rock, is the rapid tag. Tags are additional punchlines. And a solid setup lets you use so many punchlines, you might need to reiterate the setup. Here’s the (NSFW) master at work: youtu.be/EQABSUtqoMc?...

youtu.be

Chris Rock on Drugs

YouTube video by Superman

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Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

First Impressions - Battlefield 6 Beta: Take the no-frills combat of Battlefield 3, the destructible environments of 4, and the chaotic large-scale battles of 2042, and you got a welcomed return to form. Looking forward to the full release, tweaks and fixes, and future maps.

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HTFCirno2000 @htfcirno2000.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

ah yes, bad apple bees

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Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

And there’s more: -If it’s a topic others feel strongly about, it can either get the audience on your side or challenge them. -If the response is more fitting than unexpected, it can get applause, but not necessarily laughs unless balanced out (like 75% fitting, 25% unexpected).

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Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

But for reals, there’s a simple method for deliberate joke writing: 1. Pick a topic you feel strongly about. 2. Look at the topic how the average person does. 3. Use your unique POV to find a detail others don’t see. 4. The unexpected-but-fitting switch in schemas/scripts creates the punchline.

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 08/08/2025

Reposted by Spaztique

We’re not sure who needs to hear this, but ‘blueberry’ has two b’s.

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Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Been getting back into comedy studies, and all arrows point to the late Amazing Jonathan’s advice: a good joke, no matter the theory of humor (superiority, tension, incongruity, etc.), is like a good magic trick. It’s all about misdirecting the audience, and occasionally cutting folks in two.

Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

An interesting concept I keep coming across in translations of Eastern storytelling guides (Japan, South Korea, China) is that you should be able to sum up every scene in an *image.* There should be a clear time, place, people, theme, motifs, and what’s going on, summed in images, not words.

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Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

Mini Review - The Naked Gun (2025): A throwback to the farcical spoof movies from ages past, with enough visual puns to do the original movies justice, but with modern cinematography and special effects. It’s pure silliness, balanced by a well-paced story.

Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

In fact, Project Wingman is so much like Ace Combat, from its music to its “Belkan War” style plot to its one-man-army silent protagonist, it’s basically accepted by AC fans as a non-canonical entry. Crimson 1 has unofficially joined the ranks of Pixy, Mobius 1, Blaze, and Trigger.

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Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

First Impressions - Project Wingman: An unabashed love letter to the Ace Combat series, especially Zero, filled with references galore and boasting massive battles. It also features a roguelike Conquest mode where you choose where to go next in dynamic missions while building your air fleet.

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Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

There’s debate in narrative theory over “are characters ‘real’?” As in, do they occupy space beyond their media, or are they just ideas? And perhaps the evidence *for* that is the story of how Mel Blanc went into a coma, and the doctor coaxed him out by asking to talk to Bugs Bunny, which worked!

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Chooks' Esotericposting Extravaganza (100% Orange Juice Edition) @chooks.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

Just because you or your peers don't recognise your successes dosen't mean they don't exist. Every day is an opportunity to improve, to do better, and most importantly to do it all at your own pace. <3

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Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

It is possible to play Helldivers 2 solo, especially on lower difficulties since some maps feature allied NPC’s, but as you progress, each new difficulty adds more enemy types and amounts, plus even more objectives to complete. It’s basically a modern sci-fi Left 4 Dead.

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Spaztique @spaztique.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

Mini Review - Helldivers 2: A straight-forward co-op shooter set in a Starship Troopers-esque comedic dystopia. It’s as simple as it gets: land in a mission area, clear main objectives & search for side missions before time/lives runs out, and escape. Higher difficulties add more enemies/objectives.