A slight semiotic journey through humor, musement and unexpected revelation

Abstract

In this article, I aim to revisit the thought-provoking analysis of humorous communication developed by Rafael Núñez Ramos from the perspective of the triadic semiotic of C. S. Peirce. Some notions used by the Spanish scholar such as grace, epiphany, play, possible worlds and rules that challenge rules in order to describe the semiotic process that brings about a smile and laugher in various texts are discussed in the light of Peircean concepts such as musement, iconicity and the phenomenological categories with which the founder of semiotic analyzes experience in all its modes. So as to work with the analysis proposed by Núñez Ramos, I bring an audiovisual example, the Uruguayan web series Tiranos Temblad. Una semana de acontecimientos uruguayos (2012-). In its last edition, the series presents what it typically and humorously calls “an overview” of the year 2020. In a wholly unusual way, the editing of the series combines a genuine event – the outbreak of the pandemic – with the usual funny sequence of normalemes. The grace of its signs generates an epiphanic moment of humorous resistance against the anomie of the declared New Normal.