Humor is sooo context-dependent
Published by marco on
I was chatting with a friend about mistranslations and “false friends” (words that sound like a word in another language, but have a completely different meaning).
He sent me a link to Slowly down the feathers floated… (Imgur), an image without context. Still, in the image, you could see that a menu item on a Chinese menu had been translated to “Fuck the duck until exploded”, which is humorous, but only on a pretty superficial level, if we’re being honest. Using the word “fuck” without seeming to understand its connotations is the funny bit there.
The poetic and somewhat mysterious title, though, lent the image a greater allure. So, I asked the great Internet search engine where I could find other references and the link Slowly down the feathers floated… (Reddit) appeared. Now, there’s a bit more context, but you have to work to find it.
The image was posted on “boottoobig”, a highly specific subreddit where people include “posts where the title sets up a joke as the first half of a poem and an image delivers the punchline as the second half.” This is what it looks like, in context.
boottoobig: Slowly Down the Feathers Floated…
Now that we know this, we can get another layer of humor,
“Slowly down the feathers floated…
Fuck the duck until exploded.”
It’s a poem. It’s funny because poems are supposed to be profound, not profane.
I dunno. Sometimes it’s the whole package that makes it extra-amusing. It’s kind of like Monty Python? You know? Just silly and a bit over-the-top, but funny nonetheless. No attempt at being political and probably cross-culturally appealing.
There’s no need to get carried away with it, but sometimes things online are just funny. And then you carry on with your day.
Boottoobig
But where did that adorable chihuahua come from?
The post that started it all explains.
he Boot Too Big For He Gotdamn Feet
The photo is clear enough, but the text is inexplicably grainy and JPEG-ed to death, which only makes it funnier? The prose’s absolutely nihilist approach to grammar, spelling, and capitalization seems so deliberate that it’s funny rather than infuriating.
Enough people were so taken with this concept that they launched an entire forum based on it. The provenance of the image is lost to the mists of time. It’s not even the original. The following image, posted into the comments, shows a more believably JPEG-ed rooster in blue farm boots.
The author photo is the same and the matching blurriness indicates that this is “more original” than the “original” shown above.
It’s funny and cute, but not as funny and cute as the hyperthyroid and somewhat concerned-looking chihuahua.