Internet Comedy

An unsubjective look at why its good and nice.

Internet comedy used to be viewed with suspicion by some live comedians.

Social media as we knew it was mainly Facebook which on the whole was used for uploading digital photos from nights out and random pictures of meals with some kind of lighthearted caption like “dinner with this one xoxo”.

While I am not a historian, I would say that Vine was the real catalyst of internet comedy as we know it today. Before Vine, I do remember things like Devo, Homestar Runner, Rather Good dot com, but in terms of laying out the template for what internet comedy would become, Vine seems to have the biggest claim. The biggest TikTok stars of today tend to be Vine stars who transitioned to a new platform and refound their audience. The closure of Vine is also a great lesson in the adaptiveness of online comedians. Rolling with the ongoing changes of platforms and algorithms with fluidity.