The Funniest Internet Comedians

It wasn't so long ago that to be doing something on the internet was instantly an admission to being an amateur. The professional goes through the proper channels and succeeds in 'real life'; the amateur plays with his little hobby online with varying degrees of skill. That's been changing for a long time, starting with the rise of the blog and the prominence of youtube. Most will admit that today the internet is simply a choice of medium in which one may work and there are indeed some who choose to restrict themselves entirely to that medium. In this article, I'll be focusing on such people who have chosen to practice comedy--in one form or another--online and are worthy of some accolades.

I should also note that there is an awful lot of internet out there; I don't know every single internet comedian and therefore may be skipping over your favorite entirely by chance. I am only listing six that I find particularly enjoyable.

There is a whole slew of funny people online who can be categorized as 'nostalgia' comics. Something about growing up in the '80s and early '90s seems to affect the brain and cause exquisite nostalgia. I say this because there is a whole generation of people who are obsessed with the paraphernalia of '80s and '90s culture in a way no other generation seems to have experienced. The shared appreciation for this paraphernalia has made it a fertile source of comedy for those in-the-know. One well-timed Ghostbusters reference is all it takes to get a laugh. As will be seen as we go along, nearly all internet comedians rely on nostalgia to some degree. This is easily explained: both '80s nostalgia and internet humor are "geek phenomena" and consequently overlap considerably. In this section I'll go through the best of those comedians relying entirely on nostalgia.

The Angry Video Game Nerd

The AVGN is a character concocted by a Mr. James Rolfe to perform distinctly splenetic, profanity-laden reviews of miserable, mostly-forgotten video games of the '80s and early '90s. An expletive in and of itself is not particularly amusing; a baroque concatenation of well-timed expletives directed at a trivial video game, on other hand, would appear to be quite amusing, because it sure makes me laugh. Most of the humor here comes from Rolfe's witty, acerbic and usually scatological commentary on the game he's playing, stunned reaction shots to stupid or bizarre game moments, and the aforementioned expletives. He also performs skits based upon the games under review in some of his videos, leading to two epic battles with Bugs Bunny, a robot Jesus tank of sorts, and some forced Atari gaming by the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family, amongst other things. While originally novel and very entertaining, there is a certain predictability that encroaches on the enjoyment of Rolfe's videos after watching up to episode seventy-something. Or perhaps he has simply lost his edge. The character of the AVGN tends to be eroding as Rolfe himself relates to his fans on a personal level. Some of the more recent reviews are more well-reasoned--as though genuine reviews--profanity is becoming infrequent, and stretches of the videos are not particularly humorous. Nevertheless, his videos remain some of the funniest material online for the right audience.

The Nostalgia Critic

The Nostalgia Critic is also a character, this one created by a Mr. Doug Walker. Perhaps it is wrong to single out just "the Nostalgia Critic," as Walker has in fact created several amusing characters and also has some non-character-based videos that are very witty. However, it is the Nostalgia Critic videos for which he is best known. Unlike the AVGN, the Nostalgia Critic focuses primarily on film and television. While there is that same sense of schadenfreude based on reviewing (usually) bad movies, there is considerably less profanity and more outraged yelling. His style of humor is also quite different than the AVGN, though both base their humor off contempt for awful products. Simply gathering bad films or games and yelling about them is not enough to create comedy; it takes some talent, wit, and hard work. Generally, the videos consist of Walker, in character, sitting at a table and speaking directly into camera interspersed with select clips from the film. These clips go in order, taking one through the entire film. The Critic picks apart the flaws in humorous manner and mocks them in a variety of ways. One of Walker's most powerful tools is his video editing abilities, which he uses to good effect, sometimes seeming to interact with characters in the films he's reviewing or even bringing in images and footage from outside the film as commentary. One also need not be a particularly 'nostalgic' person to enjoy his videos; they give the experience of watching a bad movie with a witty friend, which is something a very wide audience could appreciate. Also on his site are his 5-second edits of films that tend to offer novel and amusing interpretations of the film's content, and reviews of recent films by a hobo character who reviews the films in a manic fashion that allows for a lot of understated humor. Walker is, in my opinion, possibly the finest comedian online and certainly well-worth a look.

The Spoony Experiment

This is yet another comedian who thrives on the bad, in this case both movies and games. Generally this comedian, a Mr. Noah Antwiler, directs his attention to the nostalgic aspect as well, but he tends to branch out into geekdom in toto. A  few of his videos are in fact straight-forward reviews of bad games and humorous primarily due to how awful the games are--it would be more difficult not to get a laugh out of them. He makes this list by virtue of a single series of videos: his play-through of Phantasmagoria 2. Antwiler plays the entire game, from beginning to end, with a running commentary for a total of five hours. One wouldn't expect watching someone play a sci-fi/horror S&M themed video game for five hours would be amusing--or perhaps one would--but it certainly is. This commentary is firmly in the tradition of Mystery Science Theater 3000, even using some of the same joke templates. Unlike Mystery Science Theater, however, it is actually very funny; it's as good as any stand-up in regards to jokes-per-minute and it lasts for five hours! Again, the audience might have to be right for a portion of the humor to work, but the bulk of it is solid comedy anyone could get, mocking the events in the game or undercutting grave scenes by enunciating fantastically mundane thoughts the characters could be having. Watching somebody else play a video game has never been so fun. It should have you saying "I heard that, Curtis."

While there are a lot of comedy magazines online--The Onion is online, and so is National Lampoon--the purpose of this article is to single out content created from scratch, as it were, online. There is only one online comedy magazine I can recommend and that is I-Mockery. Online for at least ten years now, I-Mockery is the creation of a Mr. Roger Barr. He has a few other writers, the best of which goes by the monicker 'ProtoClown'. The content is largely nostalgic as well, but not exclusively. The website's mission, as it were, is mockery of pop-culture in general; and while the portion of pop-culture that gets mocked on this site is often the portion with geek-appeal, it mostly succeeds in its mission. Some of the best articles on the site are actually photo-tours of various unusual places discovered by Barr with his snide comments beneath each photo. There isn't much more to say about this site: it's simply the best comedy writing to be found online by an "amateur," or to use a term from the world of digital cameras, "semi-pro."

The realm of internet-based cartoons is dominated by Homestar Runner and with good reason: it is easily the equal of any Fox animated series, including The Simpsons. Made entirely by two brothers and the wife of one of them, the series comes in short (2-5 min.) segments on a single subject or covering a single scenario. The humour consists of a unique blend of surrealism, reference comedy, one-liners, and slapstick. Having been online for nearly a decade now, one's first encounter with the cartoon will result in slightly bemused puzzlement; the more one watches and becomes accustomed to the characters, the stronger the effect of the jokes. One will also note the absence of profanity or anything resembling raunch. Don't let the G-rating turn you off, though; Homestar Runner, or to be more specific, the "villain" character Strong Bad, is the single funniest thing on the internet.

Chad, Matt, and Rob is a collection of gentlemen named, you guessed it, Dylan, Harry, and Glenn. Just kidding. Chad, Matt, and Rob are three guys who make some pretty sophisticated comedy sketches on youtube. Full of surreal and deadpan humor, their videos are the cream of the youtube comedy crop. Rather than working with proper punchlines, the videos present situations that are so bizarre, without the slightest hint that they're not taking it seriously, that one is struck with a sort of holistically comic experience.

So there you have it. Six people or groups of people who have really mastered comedy on the medium of the internet. As in stand-up comedy or television comedy, they've succeeded through a combination of talent, skill, and hard work. Hopefully you enjoy these comedians. And if you're inspired to try your hand at internet comedy, perhaps you'll be inspired.

I'd love to know what you think or what are your own favorite internet comedy sites. Feel free to tell me in the little comments section below. Cheers!