G E E K Y U K S
Dave Barry may find a few laughs
floating in cyberspace. But
Scott Adams knows that real humor
is grounded in human stupidity.
By SCOTT ROSENBERG
Illustration of computer by Zach Trenholm
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“Computer humor" isn't exactly a promising label — there's something oxymoronic about it, like "educational TV" or "friendly IRS auditor." It doesn't cause one's pop-cultural antennae to quiver the way satires of, say, celebrity venality or political duplicity can. The idea, in fact, seems almost as hopelessly un-hip as the high-tech hype it's usually aimed at. Life is way too short for more than a handful of RAM jokes. That hasn't stopped publishing houses from filling out their lists with quickie titles lampooning the same high-tech culture they're promoting elsewhere in their catalogs. Most computer-humor books are one-joke affairs — high-concept products that move directly from one-sentence proposal to easily-promotable title without ever stopping to accrue an actual, substantial text along the way. "America Off-Line" (Cader Books/Andrews and McMeel) is a typical example. Author A.J. Jacobs takes one mildly amusing joke — what if you inverted a typical America Online guidebook and introduced readers to the wonders of the real world? — and spins it out through every conceivable variation. "America Off-Line" invites readers to turn off their computers and enjoy the myriad pleasures of high-definition reality; provides guidance to using low-tech word processors (i.e., pencils) with their "delete buttons" (i.e., erasers); introduces such "interactive" experiences as writing letters to the editor and shopping via 800 number; and warns those accustomed to chat rooms against shouting "ANY HORNY FEMALES IN THE ROOM?" as they search for offline romance. Out beyond America Off-Line lies the even more exotic and diverse "Outernet," with its popular "World Wide World." You get the picture. Jacobs expands a single chuckle-worthy concept into an ultimately tiresome joke marathon. What might have made a reasonably funny back-page New Yorker humor piece has, by the logic of the publishing market, become bloated and unfunny. By the time you finish "America Off-Line," if you bother to, you find yourself resisting its initial funny insight; after all, though there are a fair number of online junkies these days, they haven't exactly forgotten how to dial a phone or read a newspaper. "America Off-Line" makes the mistake of targeting its satire at the inflated claims a service like AOL makes for itself, rather than at people's actual experiences with it. Veteran humorist Dave Barry is too adept to make such a goof; his new "Dave Barry in Cyberspace" (Crown) is plainly rooted in Barry's years of wrestling with unreliable hardware and appallingly buggy software. _________ NEXT: |