On Pop-Culture Reference Humour in Fanfiction

I've been encountering a lot of this in stories that I've been reading lately, so I thought it a good idea to share my observations and thoughts on this particular entertainment device. Basing a story's humour on pop-culture references is a dangerous thing to do, as it can very easily break immersion, alienate readers, and turn an otherwise enjoyable story into an effectively unreadable one. Unfortunately, pop-culture references are extremely popular among novice writers, as it's an all-too-convenient device to inject a moment of humour with a minimum of effort and writing skill.

(As an aside, obviously not all pop-culture references are intended for humourous purposes, but as that is their most common purpose, I'm focusing primary on humour for the purposes of this essay.)

There are three key factors to consider when using pop-culture references in fanfiction: commonality, subtlety, and tone. Handle any one of these three qualities badly, and and the story suffers.

1. Commonality
The most common problem is one of commonality, how well known your references are. It's a given that not everyone is going to be familiar with every aspect of American pop culture, despite its ubiquity in the US and many parts of the world. Some pop-culture phenomena are very well known and continue to pick up new fans — Monty Python's Flying Circus and its spinoffs, the Star Wars movies (especially the original trilogy), J.R.R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings books, classic cartoons such as Looney Toons or Scooby Doo, and mainstream Marvel and DC superhero comics, to cite a few examples. Some of them have become integrated into the larger culture, and many people will recognize the references even if they are not familiar with the original sources. Other widely-known cultural phenomena can serve as common references as well, such as McDonald's fast food restaurants, which are ubiquitous nearly worldwide.

Most other sources will be considerably less known, some of them can be outright obscure, depending on the audience, and their inclusion can be off-putting for unfamiliar readers.

Note: This is just as true for references to "classical" culture, such the plays of William Shakespeare (some being better known than others) or stories from Greco-Roman mythology, as it is for modern popular culture.

However common knowledge of these sources may be, there will always be people who simply have never been exposed to them, or have no interest in them, and therefore will not "get" the reference. The younger the audience, or the more recent the pop-culture property, the less likely the reference will be recognized or understood, and the more likely the humour will simply fail.

Now, if one is targeting a specific, narrow audience demographic (crossover stories being the obvious example here), then using more obscure references can make sense; but one also has to keep in mind that anyone outside that demographic is going to miss that reference, and their enjoyment of the story will suffer as a result.

An audience that fails to pick up on a reference is going to miss the humour, and may also end up confused by more obtrusive examples. Such a reader is much more likely to dislike and downvote a story accordingly. This is something even good writers can screw up. Joss Whedon and Quentin Tarrantino are notorious for their pop-culture-based humour, some of which works very well, some of which simply falls flat.

2. Subtlety
One of the most important factors in using pop-culture humour successfully is subtlety. The best use of this humour is as a bonus to an existing gag, or otherwise-humourous scene. Such a reference needs to work on multiple levels — there should be a basic level to the joke that is accessible to all audiences, and an additional level where the reference enhances the humour of the scene. A good example is a seemingly non-sequitur comment or action from Pinkie Pie, something that can be treated in-universe as "just Pinkie being Pinkie"; which is funny on its own because of her normal quasi-randomness, but where those who actually get the reference will find an additional layer of humour on top of the existing gag. Simple throw-away and background gags that do not impact the flow of the narrative are another common way to sneak in subtle pop-culture humour.

I've encountered too many examples of this where the references are painfully obtrusive and form the entire basis for the comedy of the scene. In one case, the reference was actually italicized to ensure that the audience was aware of the reference (there was no other reason to italicize the passage). Doing that breaks immersion, it thrusts the reader out of the world of the story, jars them out of their suspension of disbelief, and makes it difficult to "believe" in the narrative and flow with it. A pop-culture reference should never be a make-or-break point in a scene; because if it is, it will more often break the scene than make it. Keeping such references in the background ensures that your readers will enjoy the story even if they do not pick up on that particular reference.

An important technique is to simply sit down and ask one's self "Does this scene work without the pop-culture reference?" If necessary, re-write the scene without it, and see if it still flows well, if it is still funny. If it doesn't work without the reference, then you're going to lose a lot of readers at that point, and gain some negative responses in the process.

3. Tone
Assuming that the pop-culture reference is sufficiently common for the overwhelming majority of your readers to recognize, and is subtle enough that the average reader will enjoy the story even if they do not pick up on the reference, then one is now facing the problem of tone. How well the specific reference fits in with the tone of the scene where it occurs. Even if everything else is done right, the wrong tone can utterly destroy the humour, and again break immersion and enjoyment.

This is probably the most tricky of the three factors to get right, because it's also the most nebulous, so it's the one that much more than the others makes pop-culture humour so dangerous to use. When I talk about matching tone, I'm referring to three main qualities: "high" vs. "low", light vs. dark, and context. There are others, but these are by far the most critical.

High vs. Low humour could also be referred to as intellectual vs broad. The former consists of humour that require a bit of thought to process; complex word plays, witty repartee, irony, satire, observations on life and the nature of humanity (equinity). The latter consists of more simple and common gags that can be appreciated on a more visceral level; slapstick, horseplay, and other forms of physical comedy, boasting and boisterousness, bodily functions. A scene which embodies a "high comedy" tone can easily be ruined by a reference to a low-comedy gag. Interestingly, the reverse is less often the case, a subtle high-comedy reference in a slapstick scene may feel a bit out of place, but just as easily can add a layer of depth that previously did not exist, or serve as a "genius bonus".

Light comedy vs. Dark comedy is fairly self-explanatory. A light-hearted reference is going to feel out of place, even clumsy, in a darkly ironic scene; while an allusion to a bit of dark humour is going to be rather jarring in a light and fluffy scene, and can feel like a punch in the face to the reader.

Context is probably the most complicated aspect of maintaining tone. When one makes a pop-culture joke, one has to keep in mind that the reader is not only going to have that specific reference in mind, but very likely the entire context of the reference, the original movie, book, game, etc. from which the reference was taken. Even if the reference itself works in isolation, often the conflict between the context of the story and the context of the reference can break the joke and thereby break the scene. This is really the hardest aspect to explain or guard against, and the one which is going to see the most variation in reader response. Remember, fanfiction exists in a larger, self-contained world which operates on specific rules. Introducing an entirely different set of rules is going to engender some conflict on some level.

And, of course, tone is also the most subjective aspect of any humour, so there will be a much wider range of responses. What one reader might find jarring, another may find only mildly immersion-breaking, and another perfectly acceptable. It comes down to the author estimating how the majority of readers are likely to react, and thereby deciding how much risk one wants to incur with the reference.

Like anything else, all three of these rules can be broken to make a more interesting story. Blatant and unsubtle references can tell us something about a particular scene or character that a more subtle form of humour may not. Abrupt but subtle shifts in tone can add layers of depth and complexity to simple but otherwise enjoyable stories, enabling appreciation on multiple levels. Or they can lighten up a scene which would otherwise be brutally dark.

My personal advice for anyone wanting to use pop-culture reference humour in their stories is, first, don't. Concentrate on learning to write well first. One needs to have a firm grasp of the rules to understand how and when to break them. Learn to be funny on your own before borrowing humour from others. If you're convinced that you're able to do this well, you're probably not. Relying on pop-culture gags encourages laziness and sloppy writing. If you do feel the desire to resort to pop-culture humour despite all that, keep it simple, keep it subtle, and remember that you're going to risk losing or annoying readers in the process.

Comments

[QueenMoriarty]

If/when I use pop culture references, I tend to do subtle references that still work and look natural even if you have no idea it's a reference.

And yeah, I agree on most every one of your points.