Arguably it isn’t a lower standard, but a more high concept standard. The humor is being generated from within the mind of the individual. Most jokes rely on novelty. People today are exposed to more jokes and are well acquainted from an early age with many “traditional” joke formats. They grow accustomed to those tropes and often can see the punchline coming before it lands dampening the joke. I’d argue that while it isn’t for everyone, and it defies the traditionalists definition to the art of humor, these more abstract jokes are an evolution. I’d compare it to the reaction of classic musicians to more modern composers like Beethoven, whom looking back from today is seen as dated and antiquated, and then looking at experimental musicians of the present for contrast. While these genres don’t follow the rules of classical forms, they follow their own rules and can only be judged within their genre.
The music one has an opposite effect in that I can usually guess with words and notes that are coming in most modern music but in some older styled pieces it's a moderately harder to do.
I believe part is exposure (most people aren’t exposed to older music as much as more modern music, especially when young) and part is style. Most modern mainstream music is mathematically constructed around simple and repetitive patters. Like the difference between a Frost poem and one which every last word of each line rhymes directly. The newer a song is, the more likely it is to follow an algorithm- and these algorithms tend to be recycled heavily within a time period before falling out and possibly popping back up later. Specific to the example it’s not necessarily direct predictability with art- but that waltz’s from a period will share commonality you can identify. Operas of a time follow certain rules etc. an example of movies. There are certain things you won’t see in movies from the 40’s, 60’s, etc. and certain shared elements because of the “rules” and limitations of the time.
Comments