Unclear on the concept

Vort · December 10, 2011

http://www.motivateusnot.com/resize.php?name=LzM3OC9MT0wtTm8sLUknbS1ub3QtdGFsa2luZy1hYm91dC1Ud2l0dGVyLi1JLWxpdGVyYWxseS13YW50LXlvdS10by1mb2xsb3ctbWUtNGU4OWZmMDY1NDEyZS5qcGc=&w=550&h=9999&extension=.jpg

john doe · December 10, 2011

That's a sig pic a guy on another board I frequent uses.

RescueMom · December 11, 2011

Follow Jesus on Twitter - or what it would have been like :-) - YouTube

Vort · December 11, 2011

That's a sig pic a guy on another board I frequent uses.

What board?

annewandering · December 11, 2011

I have been seeing a lot of posters lately with 'Jesus' sayings that are made up. Most are funny and make you think. Still, does anyone find them to be even just a little bit off putting since they assume that Jesus would agree with them? It would make me very nervous to put words in Jesus' mouth.

john doe · December 12, 2011

What board?

Cougarboard, a forum for BYU football discussion.

Vort · December 12, 2011

Cougarboard, a forum for BYU football discussion.

That's where I saw it, too. What's your name there? (Respond privately, if you prefer.)

December 12, 2011

I think the poster is simply about commitment. It's distinguishing "following Christ" with "following Celebrities" on Twitter. Following someone on Twitter is something you do for entertainment, and requires no real commitment on one's part. Following Christ on the other hand means changing your life -- something you can't do with Twitter. I think that's the point of this poster.

The LOL part doesn't make sense to me though -- I don't see it as fitting, other than simply alluding to technology in our day to make the poster appealing to internet users.

Vort · December 12, 2011

At the risk of overanalyzing a fairly simplistic joke:

The humor lies in the tension between the Lord's admonition to "follow" him and the pop-culture interpretation of the rather shallow idea of "following" someone on Twitter. The "LOL" reinforces the shallow interpretation, another virtual elbow to the ribs, in effect saying, "I realize you're too stupid to understand that this is a joke without me explicitly saying something, so I'm cluing you in right now that this is intended to make you laugh." In other words, basically a smiley. (If I had searched a little harder, I would have found one that didn't have the "LOL", but I was too lazy. lol.)

The main problem with the humor is that the Lord does not "literally" want the guy following him; rather, he wants the guy to follow his teachings. So the joke actually fails as written.

But at this point we have overanalyzed the joke, so we might as well go suck the life out of something else.

December 12, 2011

At the risk of overanalyzing a fairly simplistic joke:
The humor lies in the tension between the Lord's admonition to "follow" him and the pop-culture interpretation of the rather shallow idea of "following" someone on Twitter. The "LOL" reinforces the shallow interpretation, another virtual elbow to the ribs, in effect saying, "I realize you're too stupid to understand that this is a joke without me explicitly saying something, so I'm cluing you in right now that this is intended to make you laugh." In other words, basically a smiley. (If I had searched a little harder, I would have found one that didn't have the "LOL", but I was too lazy. lol.)
The main problem with the humor is that the Lord does not "literally" want the guy following him; rather, he wants the guy to follow his teachings. So the joke actually fails as written.
But at this point we have overanalyzed the joke, so we might as well go suck the life out of something else.

If you didn't want to discuss its meaning, and already knew what it meant, then why did you imply you weren't getting the concept in your opening post???

Vort · December 12, 2011

If you didn't want to discuss its meaning, and already knew what it meant, then why did you imply you weren't getting the concept in your opening post???

The idea was that the young man being invited to "follow Jesus" was unclear on the concept. But now that I understand you were making a gentle attempt to explain it to me, thanks. I appreciate the effort.

john doe · December 12, 2011

If you didn't want to discuss its meaning, and already knew what it meant, then why did you imply you weren't getting the concept in your opening post???

I thought it was pretty obvious. The young guy in the poster was unclear on the concept of 'following', not Vort.

unixknight · December 12, 2011

But at this point we have overanalyzed the joke, so we might as well go suck the life out of something else.

^This.

john doe · December 12, 2011

That's where I saw it, too. What's your name there? (Respond privately, if you prefer.)

PM sent, not that it would be too hard to figure out.

December 12, 2011

I thought it was an ambigous title for the thread, but I appreciate Vort's appreciation nonetheless.

Magen_Avot · December 15, 2011

When I saw the poster, I did laugh out loud. Even harder when Vort then explained it. Made me think of my kids and the current generation. I appreciated the sense of humor. Sorry it you wern't joking though.

Captain_Curmudgeon · December 16, 2011

But at this point we have overanalyzed the joke, so we might as well go suck the life out of something else.

There's a smiley for that (wonder we don't see it more often):

john doe · December 16, 2011

There's a smiley for that (wonder we don't see it more often):

It's overused.

Vort · December 16, 2011

It's overused.

Plus it's not quite right. Overanalyzing a joke is not the same as beating a dead horse. It's more along the lines of overanalyzing the implications of a smiley.

EDIT: No one appreciates my self-referential humor.

Edited December 16, 2011 by Vort

mordorbund · December 16, 2011

Plus it's not quite right. Overanalyzing a joke is not the same as beating a dead horse. It's more along the lines of overanalyzing the implications of a smiley.

I may have one of those lying around.

The colon and closing parenthesis appear consecutively to form a human face turned sideways. The upper and lower dots in the colon are taken for a simple right and left eye respectively. The closing parenthesis represents a simple mouth, turned upwards in a smile. The remaining aspect of the face (head, nose, ears, eyebrows, hair, etc) are implied.

The presence alone of a colon and closing parenthesis is not sufficient to conclude that such is being used as a smiley. Context must be taken into account. As the symbol is used to connote warmth and humor, a friendly or jovial context suggests that such was the intent of the punctuation. For instance, finding the symbol at the end of a joke almost guarantees that the smiley marks the joke as humorous. It may also follow a statement to highlight the subtle, double entendric, nature of it. The symbol may also be found signalling the warmth and friendship intended by the writer. With this meaning, a smiley may be found at the end of a statement in general agreement with previous statements (by either the same, or a different author), or even stand alone as an agreeable response to a previous statement. It may also stand alone completely to signal kind thoughts and wishes to another individual (in this case, the context to consider is the lack of additional text as well as the recipient of the smiley).

Sometimes the colon and closing parenthesis are just punctuation. One indication of this case is an unterminated opening parenthesis. An additional clue is the lack of a personal tone in the writing, such as with technical documents. Another indicator is the date of the text. If the text predates the Internet, as with the Bible, then the marks are just for punctuation.

JudoMinja · December 16, 2011

I may have one of those lying around.
The colon and closing parenthesis appear consecutively to form a human face turned sideways. The upper and lower dots in the colon are taken for a simple right and left eye respectively. The closing parenthesis represents a simple mouth, turned upwards in a smile. The remaining aspect of the face (head, nose, ears, eyebrows, hair, etc) are implied.
The presence alone of a colon and closing parenthesis is not sufficient to conclude that such is being used as a smiley. Context must be taken into account. As the symbol is used to connote warmth and humor, a friendly or jovial context suggests that such was the intent of the punctuation. For instance, finding the symbol at the end of a joke almost guarantees that the smiley marks the joke as humorous. It may also follow a statement to highlight the subtle, double entendric, nature of it. The symbol may also be found signalling the warmth and friendship intended by the writer. With this meaning, a smiley may be found at the end of a statement in general agreement with previous statements (by either the same, or a different author), or even stand alone as an agreeable response to a previous statement. It may also stand alone completely to signal kind thoughts and wishes to another individual (in this case, the context to consider is the lack of additional text as well as the recipient of the smiley).
Sometimes the colon and closing parenthesis are just punctuation. One indication of this case is an unterminated opening parenthesis. An additional clue is the lack of a personal tone in the writing, such as with technical documents. Another indicator is the date of the text. If the text predates the Internet, as with the Bible, then the marks are just for punctuation.

This needs a laugh button... and lots of smilies!