YOW! I FEEL GOOD

Instagram, being the great reflector of ‘all-the-things-you’ve-recently-searched-for’ has started showing Sammy endless reels of people suddenly shocking other people with a sudden loud blast of James Brown’s ‘I Feel Good’. It’s the latest fad. And it is (apparently) hilarious.

A man is carefully sifting flour in the kitchen. “YOW!” screeches James Brown out of nowhere. Up goes the cloud of white and away go the arms flailing as he topples backwards and then emerges from the pile like a painted ghost. The woman in the foreground shakes with laughter.

Here’s a guy in a hammock by a pool. He’s clearly relaxing. But wait… what’s this… his significant other raises a finger to her lips and smirks behind a shush. “YOW! I feel good…” the hammock jolts with arms and legs as he leaps with adrenaline. By the time we’re into “I knew that I would” the guy’s sliding on the wet floor and tumbling into the pool with an angry splash. The hammock swings empty.

A lady sits at a desk. It looks like she’s invigilating an exam. Not for long. Yow! Papers everywhere. 

On it goes. Grass, water, boxes, flour, tomatoes, arms, hands, angry scared faces, prankster in stitches. Same every time. Angry man. Wife (including my wife) in stitches.

Honestly, Sammy finds this kind of thing disproportionately funny. She was squealing on the sofa, eyes close to watering, breathless with hilarity. 

For her, the funniest thing ever is a dog running off with a man’s trousers, or a guy showing off about something and then falling over in a whirl of limbs. I don’t think we can risk an episode of You’ve Been Framed without an ambulance standing by.

By the way, she doesn’t like seeing people get hurt; that’s not what I mean. But a harmless cartoon banana skin pratfall - that’s her humour.

Meanwhile I am unmoved by such slapstick antics. And I’m particularly baffled by the Yow craze sweeping the Internet. All I could think was, “Someone’s got to clean that up,” or “Well that’s just mean!”

But humour’s like that I suppose. Irony, wordplay, jibing are often funnier to me but sometimes just as painful or scathing. And someone has to clean those things up too, eventually, if you think about it. 

I like that she finds slapstick so funny. It makes it easier for me to know how to make her laugh. Though in the wake of this current fad, I guess I’d better be on my guard when I’m quietly eating my cornflakes.