Day 255, Invisible comedy, the new black?

What is it with comedians these days, they're never there when you want them to be.

Is this the new alternative, we cannot see them, the alternative to visibility?  Oh yes this is a funny joke I think I can carry it on for a bit - no, wait, it doesn't make any sense to anyone else due to lack of context.

My running joke, if indeed that is what it is (and if anyone other than me is aware of it) is that whenever I go to see a show I take a photo of the 'live activity' with my phone.  My phone has an Instagram filter which removes the comedian from the image, and often much of the audience may be removed too.  This is because the picture is taken before they, etc...

Yes, I know, it isn't particularly amusing.  However it amuses me whenever I'm at an event about to see a comedian and I take a picture of the empty stage which I then tweet with the Instagram filter 'line'.

My theory is that if I persevere with it long enough then it will eventually become funny.  Eventually may even be years, that isn't a problem, I'm prepared to front it out for that long, the laugh will eventually be worth it, probably.

So who is the invisible comedian tonight?

It's Stewart Lee.  And as it happens he has for many years done a similar version of this 'joke'.  Not the 'invisible comedian' but the repetition of something in itself not funny until it eventually becomes funny, then stops being funny, becomes funny again, etc.

Of course when he does the joke in that form it genuinely is funny, eventually, but then he has been doing it a long time and is pretty damn good at it.

Me on the other hand, well I'm just dicking about, and the premise of this joke is automatically time-limited by the naming of a specific technology from a world of high turnover, here today, gone tomorrow technology types.

There is also the fact that his audience understands the context of all of this and so it needs no explanation, or for the bulk of the audience that are familiar with his work at least.  This often leads onto another routine of his with regard to those that aren't as familiar with his work, but I'll say no more.

Anyway, the picture above shows Stewart Lee on stage in a packed Lyceum Theatre.  However, an intrusive Instagram filter has yet again rendered the comedian invisible, why does that keep happening?

Obviously this Instagram joke contains a subtext about technology being used to create an inauthentic representation of events with the intent of creating a response to that of something which is greater than the actuality.

Is that being overly verbose and pretentious for the sake of it, or is it because in the limited time available it is not easy to be concise?

Will we ever know?

And is it funny.

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