Puns and Pick-up Lines Will Save This Generation

My love for you is like diarrhea: I just can’t hold it in.

There will always come a time when the individual will find themselves in a situation where they’re secretly gawking at a potential love interest in a public setting. It’s impossible for the individual to quell their desire to initiate conversation yet there exists a nigh-insurmountable obstacle: this love interest is a complete stranger. There is a lack of any conversation material! Under such dire circumstances, the individual is forced to resort to their secret weapon. After suavely approaching their target, the individual utters the above pick-up line…and they receive a blank stare. This blank stare soon turns into the anger that is akin to the rage felt when a companion steals the fries that came as a side order. It is at this point that the individual wisely retreats.

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I once ate a watch. It was time consuming.

In a different scenario for the same individual, the individual is standing with a group of friends. Stale discussions over the tastiest food that has been tasted by a member of the group are occurring today. Nothing new. A change in atmosphere is required – humour is the fastest way to escape the boredom that is induced by the repetitive nature of the discussions. The individual, however, doesn’t want to seem like the type of person who would arbitrarily change the subject in order to inject comedy into the discussion. Eventually, a witty remark presents itself in the mind of the individual, and they blurt out the above pun without giving it a second thought. Hysterical laughs are expected from the fellow group members. It’s a clever joke after all! In place of laughter, there is dead silence.

 

Image result for badum tss

 

Puns and Pick-Up lines are often met with varying levels of hostility. At best, they’re tolerated; at worst, the individual affiliated with either is shunned or lowered to the bottom rungs of the social hierarchy. There’s really no opportune moment for them, and it can be quite challenging to find high quality in random puns and/or pick-up lines. Some of the really clever one-liners may even go unnoticed to the untrained eye. Overall, there just doesn’t seem to be any use to them. They’re worthless.

But let me tell you: puns and pick-up lines will save this generation.

I understand that they can be tasteless. I understand that they can be obnoxious. I understand that they don’t serve any purpose. I also understand, however, that they require a great deal of creativity, both in conception and in delivery. I don’t mean creativity in the sense of utilizing one’s imagination to depict a graceful image; I mean creativity in the sense of thinking uniquely, in a way that you’ve never thought before. To me, creativity means to “think outside the box”. As the only noticeable positive aspect of both mentioned devices, creativity emphasizes originality of thought. For this sole reason, the single positive aspect outweighs the various negatives of puns and pick-up lines.

Puns require you to think outside of established norms, while pick-up lines involve abnormally initiating conversation with a potential romantic interest. This is where creativity comes in: no perfectly sane individual would allow themselves to be associated with cheeky one-liners, and therefore there is an excess of comedy material for those few who are willing to traverse this ridiculed pathway. Venturing outside of social norms results in an expansion of the horizon of human knowledge – albeit in a rather questionable direction. There lies the significance of puns and pick-up lines: people begin to think differently.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

-Erich Fromm

The bane of today’s generation (people born in the 1990s and up) is the lack of creativity, from the way I see it. Sure, this era has seen major advancements socially and ergonomically (relating to health and safety in the workforce), and people are certainly more accepting and open-minded towards other people; however, people still aren’t willing to think outside of social conventions. Individuals will cling to “tried and tested” methods for success to the extent where I wonder if they’ve received their life lessons from Willy Loman from Death of A Salesman. People want to have the certainty of success. They don’t want to try to think of an unconventional path to success because of the lack of certainty. The problem with this is that originality is lost in the process. When originality of thought is lost, development of the human race will cease – people will stop trying new things! Practitioners of those “cheeky one-liners” are able to avoid this fate – they are willing to be entirely different from the expected social norm. When an individual makes use of a pun or pick-up line, there’s no certainty as to whether they’ll be tolerated or shunned; regardless of the risks, the individual has the courage to proceed despite the lack of certainty.
Image result for starry night

Above is a painting by late 19th-century artist  Vincent Van Gogh was known as Starry Night. During his short lifetime (he died at the age of 37 when he commit suicide), Van Gogh was highly unsuccessful: he created over 900 art pieces and was said to have only sold a single art piece. A reason for this is that his paintings were different from the dominant impressionist paintings (paintings that are brightly coloured, with clear brush strokes, and the portrayed scene seems to spread beyond the borders of the painting), which can obviously be seen in Van Gogh’s above work. During his time, Van Gogh was regarded as a failure; today, he’s a misunderstood genius. He is revered as the leader of the post-impressionist movement. Van Gogh made use of creativity to build further on the techniques of impressionist artists – this transgression against the conventions of art in the 19th century resulted in a lack of success. Thinking differently greatly damaged his career while he was alive yet it ultimately rendered him as one of the most memorable artists of human history after his death.Van Gogh is a hero to modern art as the practitioners of puns and pick-up lines are unsung heroes to today’s generation.

I’m not saying that people need to start making use of puns and pick-up lines – I mean to say that people should embrace the ideology behind them. From the way I see it, both devices are used in today’s society to be different from other people. People tend to shy away from anything that makes them appear to be “freakish” or “unnatural”. Completely respectable. Completely understandable. I also acknowledge that people have an innate drive to walk their own path; people want to be regarded as individuals. The way I see the aforementioned ideology changing this generation is by inspiring unorthodox thinking. An individual may walk their own path while only following “tried and tested” methods of success. If everyone were to do this, the development of new methods for success would cease. The overused methods would become saturated by the number of people who are all wanting to achieve the same stale version of success that everyone is able to achieve.

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Naturally, thinking differently will create adversity against you in the short term, but success you achieve will be of a much greater magnitude if you are able to overcome that adversity. Continue to persist in traversing in your own creative pathways. In this manner, you’ll embrace the ideology of puns and pick-up lines. Perhaps there may even come a time when you’ll be gratefully listening to a one-liner liner from another individual…or you may even get into that very practice that will be renowned as the practice that saved this generation.

SOURCES:

Image 1 (Facepalm): Sculpture titled Cain by Henri Vidal

http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4e3aca4feab8ea025a00000b-506-253/tons-of-investors-are-thinking-one-thing-we-all-know-this-will-end-in-tears

Image 2 (Ba Dum Tss):

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/glee/images/5/53/Ba_dum_tss.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140317225556

Image 3 (Starry Night): Painting titled Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

https://www.art.com/products/p12013471-sa-i2784742/vincent-van-gogh-starry-night-c-1889.htm

Image 4 (Two-Sided Mountain):

http:/bibleblender.com/2015/bible-stories/new-testament/matthew/narrow-wide-road-gates-bible-bad-behavior-christian-higher-standard-matthew-7-13-7-14

CITATIONS FOR PUNS AND PICK-UP LINES

PUNS: https://www.rd.com/jokes/puns/

PICK-UP LINES:  http://www.pickuplinesgalore.com/cheesy.html

 

 

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2 thoughts on “Puns and Pick-up Lines Will Save This Generation

  1. Dearest Rehman,
    Thank you for this! Your blog title immediately caught my attention as I love a good pun and pick up line (only ironically). Though the ones that you had at the beginning of your post made me giggle I loved that you were able to develop your blog into a more mature conversation after hooking your audience. I too believe in the power of puns & pick up lines but not really for the ideas you presented and I am always grateful to be introduced to new ways of thinking. I viewed them as great ways to break the ice or make someone cringe-laugh but your suggestion that they encourage creativity was really cool to me. I guess, it’s nice that someone FINALLY recognizes the intelligence and creativity it takes to be a witty individual – fascinating! (that was sarcasm, please do not take it as me being serious)

    Also, your bit about our generation (gen. Z, I believe) needing to think outside of convention was an interesting notion as I think we get really comfortable, with our gizmos and gadgets, comparing ourselves to older generations and claiming excellence. However, we are sort of riding the coattails of those before us. Very cool point!

    If I may suggest any improvements it would be the implementing of more puns throughout the duration of the post. Though it could really quickly make your blog sound juvenile, if well done, it could also add a level of sophisticated humour that may be appreciated. Though some may see it is a sort of (pun)ishment their complaints will be laughable when compared to your skills. Other than my desire for jokes, maybe a brief clean up of GUMPS would be beneficial.

    Once again, I really love the blog! ’twas A1!

    Much love,
    Ibukun

    P.S Here’s a pickup line for you: *ehem* I know you said you’d like to think outside the box but I sure wouldn’t be mind being stuck in one if you were there too. 😉

  2. Dear Rehman,

    I must say, first, that I rather like verbal humour, but I never really thought of why that was the case. I’ve found that your blog has given me incredible insight into the importance of such humour; this post has really given me clarity on a topic I didn’t even realize I had such little understanding of! Thank you.

    I want to draw this to a close quickly, but sadly, my pencil is unsharpened. So it’s pointless. (Please do not shun me.)

    Much like Ibukun, I found myself groaning internally at the set up to the opening pick-up line and then smiling at how truly awful the diarrhoea line is. I can’t possibly imagine anyone attempting to open a conversation with such a joke, which made the fact that it was the hook in your blog even more perfect.

    The way the blog morphed from the scenarios to the “matter” at the heart of this topic is really effective – and the fact that the matter was supported by examples satisfied my inner essay-lover. I think it really added to the blog because of the somewhat absurd nature of the topic; the logical structure and understanding of conventional views made it much easier for me to accept the significance of the blog. I must commend you for your excellent handling of the topic.

    Also, thank you for mentioning Van Gogh (one of my favourite artists!) in all of this; I realize there were numerous choices in this, and yet I can’t help but think that Van Gogh is incredibly appropriate. You do not romanticise his starving-artist situation, which I really appreciate – when people become so famous, we don’t treat them humanely. I can only imagine the kind of torture he went through, with his own art, the thing he loved, being seen as a sign of failure. So thank you for how you spoke of him.

    As for “grows”, I have a couple of small suggestions; there are a couple of GUMPs issues – for example, in “Vincent van Gogh” the “van” shouldn’t be capitalized if a part of his name precedes it. Like Ibukun, I also think perhaps the incorporation of more puns would have been beneficial (maybe towards the end to achieve a full-circle effect?)

    To finish off, I would like to challenge you on one of your ideas – that puns are worthless. Though I agree that a good joke is a matter of timing, I also believe – given that the people around you are also pun connoisseurs – a sudden, uncalled for pun may start a conversation (or at least a pun-rally). Look no further than our very own Tim.

    Thank you again for posting this! I really appreciate how much I have learned from you in these last two years.

    Sincerely,
    Tarannum

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