On pages 7 and 8 of his essay, Adam Kotsko explains the phenomenon known as “everyday awkwardness”, and explains that the awkwardness arises from particularly ‘awkward’ individuals. In these awkward situations, an awkward person can be identified as someone who does something inappropriate for the given context (p. 6). However, although originating from awkward people, Kotsko believes that the analysis of awkwardness should focus on the social situation in which awkwardness makes itself known. This is because in all social situations, there is a certain unspoken/unofficial norm – one that is commonly acknowledged and known in all people in a given context; awkwardness then is a violation of said norm, broken by these awkward individuals (p. 7-8). This idea of everyday awkwardness is what Tim Robinson, creator of I Think You Should Leave, bases his entire comedy on, and is able to perfectly capture this idea of how any given situation can be awkward and why.
The sketch above portrays a common situation of a baby crying as soon as someone holds them, and the slight awkwardness that follows it. Typically in a situation like this, the norms dictate that one should just brush it off and not take it so seriously as it is just a baby, and there is no deeper meaning behind a baby crying. Tim Robinson’s character, however, breaks this norm completely by insisting that its because the baby knows he use to be a piece of shit. Additionally, he continuously talks about it with multiple people, defending his position as if he is being attacked, and ends up creating a scene over nothing. This awkwardness can be seen by the others in the room as well as us watching, but interestingly it seems like Tim’s character is oblivious to the awkwardness that he’s creating. Similar to Kotsko’s hypothesis on analyzing awkwardness, we acknowledge the norms that dictate how he should act and then see how he violates them, ultimately making this setting and extremely awkward one.
Adam Kotsko, “A Brief Introduction to the Study of Awkwardness,” in Awkwardness: an essay (Winchester: O Books, 2010), p. 2-29.
Tim Robinson is such a good example of modern television in “the awkward age” as Elif Batuman termed it, because pretty much every sketch involves him behaving in a comoletely indefensible way, and making the situation worse by doubling down at every turn. The hotdog car sketch is another good example of this, I think.
I completely agree with the idea of Tim Robinson’s sketch show being innately centred around Robinson’s particular visible awkwardness in his sketches! I always find that the little additional things he does to his comedic performance tries to encapsulate a relatable albeit absurd position of awkwardness that is familiar to us, certainly achieving a kind of ‘everyday awkwardness’, although some sketches tend to arguably fall in the category of ‘radical awkwardness’.
I haven’t seen a lot of I Think You Should Leave but from what I have seen it seems to be perfectly exemplary of this awkward humor. The game show one with the Chunky (??) seems to be a sort of turn on this where the Chunky is the “everyday awkward” of a game show gimmick character who has no idea what his gimmick is yet.