Authors: Writers of CollegeHumor.
Editors: Street Seidell, Jeff Rubin and Susanna Wolff
Illustrator: Caldwell Turner
Designers: Amir Cohen and Derek Winegar
Publisher: Da Capo Press – 266 pages
Book Review by: Nano Khilnani
Begun in 1999 by two college freshmen, www.CollegeHumor.com now in 2012 has an astounding 15 million absolute unique visitors (AUVs) per month, according to its press release. You can check the site’s web traffic data on various sites that measure it.
It also has 1.5 million subscribers, which I suppose refers to those who have opted in to receive its newsletters. This makes the website more visited than any magazine’s website except the website of AARP, as indicated on its back cover.
This book is a compilation of mainly humorous comics and other illustrations, along with some humor presented in text form. Reaction to humor is typically subjective and not all humor presented by the same person or coming from the same source is funny.
The age, background and occupation of the person viewing the images or reading the jokes has a lot to do with whether he or she thinks the material is funny or not. I think it is extremely funny.
The site appeals most to the 18-34 group, which is he age group of the writers and cartoonists who know what is going on in the minds of younger adults. This makes it easier to attract millions of visitors.
As press release states, “the writers of CollegeHumor.com have discovered the perfect balance of sarcasm, raunchiness, humor and the truth that has readers coming back again and again.”
When 15 million people go to its website on average per month, that shows you its popularity, reach and pulling ability, which is impressive. It features many unusual , creative and imaginative types of humor, including: Drunk-O-Vision, Heaven’s Suggestion Box, Honest Cyber Sex, Instant Messaging With Mom and Great Historical Pick Up Lines.
One of the most interesting entries in this book is entitled “Conversations That Led to the invention of Facebook. Some samples from that entry on page 240:
Mark: Hey, do you know anything about that cute girl from the bar?
Chris: Not really, all I know is she’s friends with Jared.
Mark: Ah! I wish I could use that knowledge to learn more about her and see pictures of her and her friends!
Chris: You could ask Jared, I guess.
Mark: Well I don’t really want to make it public that I’m trying to find out about her.
Chris: Whoa, have you been at the computer all day? Didn’t you have classes to go to?
Mark: Yeah I did. I’m so sick of this. I spent all day trying to get information on that girl from my econ class. I looked at her AIM profile to get her favorite quotes; Googled her and got some high school field hockey stats; looked through her Webshots page to see the kind of crowd she hangs out with – cuties, by the way – and I searched the university’s clubs website to see if she registered with any. Man, all this research took forever! My life would be so much easier if there was one website that has all her information compiled in an easy-to-read format.
So that’s how Facebook came into being? Well that’s the version provided by Clara Morris, a writer.
Much of what is enjoyable to grin at or even have a hilarious is in the form of images.
We are not able to provide many images. So I suggest to all of you to go and get this book.
