Paper short abstract:

The paper explores stand-up comedy as an economy of attention and affect that depends on intersubjective capture (i.e. relatability) between participants of interaction. What are the methodological implications of this viewpoint in terms of the social formations and publics that stand-up thrives on?

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the performance form of stand-up comedy as an economy of attention and affect that depends on intersubjective capture (i.e. relatability) between participants of interaction. Stand-up is first elaborated on as an exceptionally harsh attention economy that thrives on capturing, holding, and purposefully managing the attention of (co-present) audience.

For stand-up gigs to succeed, as most stand-up comics emphasize, something has to "connect" or resonate across performer and audience. I suggest this something is equally affective as it is cognitive, for after all, stand-ups aim to resonate by evoking emotional response and by encouraging a modality of engagement that is primarily affective. By drawing from recent work on situated affectivity, I inquire into the kinds of affective resonances these performances trade on, framing stand-up broadly as an "affective arrangement" that patterns, channels, and modulates affects in recurrent and repeatable ways (Slaby et al. 2017; Slaby forthcoming).

In particular, I elaborate on the methodological implications of these perspectives in terms of the social formations and publics associated with stand-up comedy. As particularly affect-intensive sites of social interaction that thrive on a temporary feel of communality, how to approach stand-up performances in an analytical and critical register?

REFERENCES

Slaby, Jan; Mühlhoff, Rainer & Wüschner, Philipp 2017. Affective Arrangements. Emotion Review 2017, pp. 1-10.

Slaby, Jan (forthcoming). Affective Arrangement. In Jan Slaby & Christian von Scheve (eds.), Affective Societies: Key Concepts. New York: Routledge.