https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40Wu2R6KHFw
In the ‘Machine-age Comedy’ reading, Michael North points out the parallels that can be drawn between the repetitive nature of a machine and certain comedic performances. He compares Chaplin to a “wind up toy”, something I believe is in part due to the choreographed nature of Chaplin’s comedic skits. Something interesting brought up by North, here, is the fact that comedy has usually been thought of to “depend for much of its effect on surprise”. As such, it seems contradictory that part of the appeal of some of these emerging early comics was the “repetitious aspects” of their performances. For Chaplin, he highlights “the squared-off turns, the hackneyed flourishes of the arms”, and his never changing outfit as comedic aspects that are repeated throughout his work.
The repetitive nature of comedic gags and skits is not something that was exclusive to early on screen comedies. I believe that this repetitive nature is similarly present in more modern comedic forms, such as TikTok. TikTok is known for being a place where users recreate popular trends, adding to their viral nature. These trends are usually variations of a joke that is paired with music and actions (or dance moves). As each person recreates the video, it is changed slightly to become more applicable to them, and perhaps to become more relatable for their viewers. In the video I have linked (of the ‘Hit you with the blicks’ TikTok trend), this can very clearly be seen, as each video is incredibly similar with the same premise, ‘punch line’, and movements performed by the ‘TikToker’. The only thing that changes is the actual joke written on the screen, and even still, the jokes are all slight variations of the same thing.
I found the correlation you made between what Michael North said about repetitive gags and TikTok very interesting, but I also think the repetition you find in TikTok is a little bit different: every time a trend goes viral on TikTok creators have to think of something more creative and funnier than the original video so that their content can go viral as well.
I think repetition in TikTok videos also has to do with being relatable and new to the audience. In my opinion repetition, in this case, has become a form of mechanization as well: most of the time TikTok creators follow viral trends just to gain notoriety and popularity and comedy is the easiest way to achieve that.