Laughing Matters: Understanding Humor in Selected ASEAN Countries and Stand-Up Comedians Through Textual Analysis of Online Comedy Videos During Crisis

Abstract

Recently, ASEAN as a region faced another crisis since the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, which is the COVID-19 pandemic. There were several reports regarding the response in the member-state level wherein efforts are still “to each of its own” mentality as member-states resort to different approaches ranging from proactive ones to “draconian" ones (IID, 2020), and the need to maintain their relationships with the superpowers amid the pandemic (Wangkiat, 2022), while there were some regarding ordinary people coping with the situation mostly in the socio-economic aspect (Morgan and Trinh, 2021). More than ninety percent (90%) have felt that the pandemic has influenced their lives and three of the top five ways in coping with stress brought about by the pandemic is related to spending more time on their smartphones either through playing games, communicating through social media, or watching videos (Ito, 2020). In line with promoting shared culture and giving respect to it by recognition of its unity in diversity, the proposed study mainly focuses on understanding an interesting topic such as humor through stand-up comedy in the context of selected ASEAN member-states during a time of crisis faced by the region, particularly the COVID-19 pandemic. From the analyses on both the stand-up comedians as performers in the video and the audiences both live and online through social media it was found out that humor in selected ASEAN member-states during a period of crisis are "glocal" -- global in approach yet local in context, both a venue and an avenue for development, and a creative space for (virtual) ASEAN community- building.