There are layers of absurdity. It’s some kind of a porcupine appreciation club, and everyone has one. And then his deflated. Do porcupines deflate? Is that a thing that happens? They have little sharp pokey bits, maybe that’s something that happens. Is he embarrassed? Angry that someone might have deflated his porcupine?
Or was his a fake, inflatable porcupine? Was he pretending to have one, and why? Peer pressure? Are people with procupines so popular in this scenario that it would be worth pretending?
Or maybe he’s infiltrated the group. Perhaps his cover is now blown, like his fake porcupine. Maybe he’s giving everyone the side eye to see if they will attack?
Ultimately, I think the joke is us, sitting here, wondering about a deflated porcupine, trying to figure it out.
The joke, IMO, is that no matter how crazy a social norm is, violating it causes us to feel shame and embarrassment. Comedy = tragedy + time. By taking the absurdity of the social norm to an extreme, the shame is all that is left to relate to unless you also love porcupines like I do and regularly hang out with other porcupine enthusiasts.
I laughed really hard at this, but I can’t really tell you why. Maybe just the absurdity of the situation?
There are layers of absurdity. It’s some kind of a porcupine appreciation club, and everyone has one. And then his deflated. Do porcupines deflate? Is that a thing that happens? They have little sharp pokey bits, maybe that’s something that happens. Is he embarrassed? Angry that someone might have deflated his porcupine?
Or was his a fake, inflatable porcupine? Was he pretending to have one, and why? Peer pressure? Are people with procupines so popular in this scenario that it would be worth pretending?
Or maybe he’s infiltrated the group. Perhaps his cover is now blown, like his fake porcupine. Maybe he’s giving everyone the side eye to see if they will attack?
Ultimately, I think the joke is us, sitting here, wondering about a deflated porcupine, trying to figure it out.
The joke, IMO, is that no matter how crazy a social norm is, violating it causes us to feel shame and embarrassment. Comedy = tragedy + time. By taking the absurdity of the social norm to an extreme, the shame is all that is left to relate to unless you also love porcupines like I do and regularly hang out with other porcupine enthusiasts.
That’s absolutely why