More Snowmen, Less Stupidity

And Your Survey Results--Not Much Was Learned

Cartoon from The American Bystander magazine.

I have for you the long-awaited survey results (3 days) to the humor survey in the last issue. Thank you to all who participated.

1. Late night talk shows

2. very close second, Friends (the people not the TV show)

3. The New Yorker magazine

4. Books

5. Facebook

6. Substacks

Bringing up the rear with the lowest response was: live comedy shows, Zooms, news outlets, TV shows, family. and podcasts. Car insurance commercials beat out them all.

What was learned? I would make these unfounded conclusions:

I didn’t include Facebook as an option but it was pointed out to me later that it is a favorite humor source for some. I would not have guessed that as it seems so often people are leaving the platform, many blaming the site as being too toxic politically.

I was a little surprised to see that The New Yorker is still on so many’s radar (I have a subscription). Maybe my audience just leans that way. It was sweet to see so many consider their friends funny. I’m certainly in the minority in that podcasts are my place to go when I need a laugh. And boy, TV comedy sitcoms are really a thing of the past. I, myself, can’t name one that’s not animated. Well, don’t want to bore you and so I’ll leave it at that. More importantly more snow-people…

Cartoon appearing in The West Side Rag.

Rare Vintage Snowmen

Here are a couple of snowmen from my personal collection. The last item I just purchased the rights but it’s an historic photo, one of the first ever in the world.

From my private collection. Origins unknown.

The first photo of a snowman. By Mary Dillwyn (ca. 1845). By permission The National Library of Wales and included in The Illustrated History of the Snowman.