{"id":5275,"date":"2024-08-19T16:38:34","date_gmt":"2024-08-19T16:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/algorithms-and-arts\/?p=5275"},"modified":"2025-03-17T01:09:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T01:09:06","slug":"adaptation-and-amusement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/algorithms-and-arts\/2024\/08\/19\/adaptation-and-amusement\/","title":{"rendered":"Adaptation and Amusement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I couldn\u2019t pick just one, but I want to think about Danny Lavery\u2019s parodies of poems by Lord Byron<\/a>. I\u2019ll eventually pick one to look at closely in this post, but it\u2019s hard to choose just one because they all appeared on the website The Toast<\/a><\/em>, and that\u2019s how I found them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Did I Learn about this Story?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not sure exactly when I first started reading The Toast<\/em>. Looking back now, I\u2019m guessing it was just as others were also finding it amazing (the website was very successful, launching the careers of its co-creators, who met in the comments section of a different humor website, The Hairpin<\/a><\/em>). The Toast<\/em> still exists today even though there hasn\u2019t been new content since 2016; I\u2019m guessing I started reading it right as I was finishing my dissertation and starting to teach here as an English professor. I\u2019m pretty sure I found it because a friend shared a link on Facebook. So, my best guess is that this was a social-media enabled friend recommendation. When I was on Facebook, I was friends with lots of people I met in graduate school and at conferences\u2014we had a shared set of interests (literature and art history\u2014much nerdier than mainstream) and The Toast<\/em> created content that played around with those interests. Danny Lavery seemed to focus on the authors I most admired and he showed his love for these authors by making fun of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So, how to describe my experience of reading short parodies on The Toast<\/em>? The best word I can use to describe it is amusement or joy because I was often smiling and occasionally laughing out loud when reading. I remember immediately wanting to share it with my friends who I knew would be delighted as well. I could spend hours on the site scrolling through posts and feel better about life when I was done. If I\u2019m honest, a bit of the experience was also the pleasure of \u201cgetting it.\u201d I think the emotion associated with \u201cgetting it\u201d might be confidence. I was aware that I knew things about literary history that not everyone knew and there was something satisfying about being in on the joke. I think that\u2019s pretty common when people form communities around specific areas of interest (I don’t really get the truck jokes below, but it’s the same sort of thing)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/path><\/g><\/g><\/g><\/svg><\/div>
View this post on Instagram<\/div><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/a>

A post shared by Jerry Wayne Longmire (@jerrywaynelive)<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n