I believe it is. Humor is the basis of all sorts of art genres, such as satire, limericks, and comic strips. Would you call Charlie Brown art? How could you not? It's as much a classic as the Mona Lisa, albeit in a different way.
Are you guys familiar with Demotivational posters? They're spoofs of the Motivational posters, full of jokes rather than inspiration. There are certainly totally stupid ones out there, but most of them I love, even if I'm not familiar with the character or idea being joked about in them. They have a finesse that doesn't require previous knowledge, it's just a joke, plain and simple, and it's funny. It's fun to look at, I enjoy them, people don't usually draw them themselves but they come up with the joke and put it all together. It takes effort, if that is a criteria for art, which this girl I'm going to talk about believes.
Long story short, lately on dA there has been a sudden Anti-Demotivational poster movement. Some popular artist said he didn't like them and suddenly no one does and they're going around flaming all the DMPs on the site.
I was looking at one and chuckling over it, and I scrolled down to read the comments to see how many others were enjoying it. Plenty. But there was a also a girl that was in the movement and had posted this (curses edited :P):
"this is a website FOR ART , NOT MOTIVATIONAL POSTERS. *** people are annoying. all these do is clutter up deviantart. you see, ART is in deviantart so obviously this doesn't belong here. i really want to go into a fit of rage right now"
I was irratited, and hit on two things in my reply,
"Said the person who's using her sig to beg and can't capitalize the letter I.
Honestly, is there a serious definition for art? No. If writing half a sentence about how someone is depressed about her love life is art enough to make the front page, I believe that attaching a joke to a picture is art enough to be allowed on dA. Humor is allowed in art. Humor is an art. It requires taste, tact, and at last a little effort, depending on the wit of the maker. Demotivational posters clutter up dA no more than near traces people make of anime characters or Pokemon, but practically by default are far more clever than those, even though the traces are considered drawing, aka a form of art. The Walmart smiley is a form of commercial art.
This is prose with a picture attached. It's art too. Maybe not to your taste, but that doesn't give you any right to bash it."
Because three things are going on here. One, in her signature she was begging for gifts and money. I looked at her profile and in her journal she was begging for gifts and money. Second, obviously her grammar sucked. When you're out flamin', that's a bad thing to do. Every semi-intelligent person on the site will see you getting after someone not only over something totally stupid, but in a totally stupid way. You really want to take chances with that? And combine it with begging, which makes you look even worse? So she got a couple warnings for the future as well as a fairly valid argument.
She replied as follows:
"OH BOO HOO. Yeah,
I can capitalize 'i' but maybe i didn't feel like it because I don't feel like wasting time making sure my grammar is absolutely perfect.
personally, i really don't care what your opinion is. i REALLY don't care if you don't care what mine is.
If the artist puts ABSOLUTELY ZERO EFFORT INTO IT then i do not consider it art. if she actually hand drew the picture or actually took it, i might change my opinion. you're just dragging this out."
Wow, that shows how worthy you are of being listened to. I care what her opinion is, obviously. I put the time in to argue it. I took it in and then stated my own opinion, with evidence to back it.
You all know that I'm argumentative to a fault, and my next reply was practically an essay so I'll summarize. Basically, along with pointing out that it you look a lot more intelligent when you capitalize I and that it shouldn't waste any time to push down the Shift key, I further explained that there is no definition for art and thus anything can be, and no one can honestly say that it isn't. There is no argument for what is
not art, only for what any random person feels
is. I pointed out that in history, humorous art has been viewed as low quality, and by some people it is still today, but it is still extremely popular today and only growing in popularity. Humor is an art. It requires thought and an understanding of language, which both take effort. Why should sticking a joke on a well known photo remove that?
Someone will always find something to be art, and by the definition of the word, anything and everything can be. I find DMPs to be art, just like a lot of other people.
A lot of people are on my side in the argument and are sympathizing with the artist too. There have only been two people that say the poster isn't art and shouldn't be on dA, the girl who did the original bashing and someone who got on and agreed with her and has been generally ignored since he never came back to say more.
Also... I'm just going to guess that the girl is going to say "im going to be the better person and stop arguing", which is really an extremely vain statement that I hate to hear from people, and it also means they can't think of a comeback so I think I'll probably win really soon. >.>
Edit: She said "tl;dr" aka giving up and slamming her fist on the keyboard. I win. :D
There are a lot of sides to art. I can pick up a rock and say, "This is art" and it won't be necessarily, but I can pick up the same rock and say, "This is a work of art that God put together for me to admire" and suddenly it is.
Taking a picture, which is art, and adding a joke to it, also art, does not remove the fact that one or the other is or is not art. A lot of people dislike DMPs because the pictures are "plagiarized", despite the fact that it is a free use picture with a source attached, which nulls that argument. Others think that it's because there's no effort put in, which is simply incorrect. The artist has to find the picture, put it on the template, come up with and write the joke, etc. That, I believe, is effort, even if in some cases it is minimal. Not that effort is a requirement for art in the first place. Others think they aren't art because they aren't funny... to them. To someone else it is, so the fact remains: art.
Humor has been a basis for art for a long time. It's the art of comedy.
What's your argument?
