“This Is Awkward” by Alexandra Plakias explores awkwardness as a social phenomenon emerging from instances when people lack clear scripts or guidance for their behavior in a given situation. Instead of being a personal trait or just a feeling, awkwardness is presented as a property of social interactions that arises when norms, roles, or expectations are ambiguous or fail to align with people’s actions.
Dependent on the misalignment of norms and situational scripts, the hidden-camera comedy show Impractical Jokers involves four friends competing in public dares and challenges designed to embarrass each other. Guided through an earpiece, the friends take turns performing absurd tasks which must be completed without breaking character. The person who fails the most challenges typically faces a punishment at the end of each episode. For one of the punishments, Joe poses as a restaurant manager tasked with finding the eight fake tables disguised among the normal ones. To do so, Joe falls and jumps on the tables he suspects are not real in front of unsuspecting customers.
As Joe nonchalantly destroys furniture mid-conversation, the customers find themselves in a situation where the norms of polite public behavior no longer apply and there is no alternative script to guide them. As such, the customers become visibly confused and uncomfortable; they are unsure how to respond, whether to intervene, laugh, or ignore it. Thus, the atmosphere becomes awkward for both the people at the tables and the witnesses.
Not only are the customers subject to feeling awkward, but so is the audience. However, the viewers experience a different form of awkwardness. Despite being aware of Joe’s task, the audience still feels the tension of the disrupted interactions, particularly when Joe jumps on a table that does not break. When he is successful in finding a fake table, the audience feels a sense of accomplishment for Joe. Part of the awkwardness can be attributed to Joe’s initial embarrassment about his actions. As Joe becomes more comfortable with deviating from manager-customer social norms, the audience becomes increasingly accustomed to watching his disruptive behavior. And as a result, the viewers’ experience develops from just awkwardness to include amusement.
Overall, the scene creates its humor through discomfort and surprise, thriving on awkward social situations, breaking norms, and disrupting everyday scripts. It is the viewers’ awareness of the intentional norm-breaking, in combination with Joe’s increasing ease in deviating from those norms, that allows the scene to embody both awkward and comedic properties.