(Scholarly) Parodies for All

On June 27, 2014, in Being a GA/TA, Laughs, We Made It: It's Friday, by gregorynpaziuk

One of the reasons we follow sites like PhD Comics is because we’re of the mind that scholars take themselves too seriously. Seriously, just Google Image “Professors” and look at all those serious faces. And then look at this Shakespeare face made out of books. Which one do you prefer? Of course it’s the Shakespeare made of books! Scholarly parodies like the New Spice | Study Like A Scholar video are an important part of making sure that, as scholars, we don’t forget that learning is supposed to be fun.

But before the HBLL Multimedia Crew parodied deodorant commercials, a group of grade schoolers from Milwaukee converted Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” into “Scholar Ladies“. Clever, right?

 

And speaking of HBLL, have you seen their other video, “Gotta Be Scholar“? Anything that extols the virtues of quality time in the library in a comical way is alright in our books.

 

There’s a scholarly purpose to all of these shenanigans, too. There are scholars out there studying the way people respond to comedy in order to learn more about human psychology. Read Richard Restak’s article “Laughter and the Brain” to get a sense of what researchers are discovering about the way we laugh and what it means.

Happy Friday!