A study on the property of Shortform Contents of 'Sketch Comedy’: Focused on the YouTube channels, “Short Box” and “Nerdult”

Abstract

This study analyzes the concepts and characteristics of American sketch comedy and examines the re-conceptualization, characteristics, and empathy of Korean sketch comedy through YouTube channels “Shortbox” and “Nerdult.” The American sketch comedy, which began in the late 1950s, appeared through various media such as TV, movies, comedies, and live performances. The themes were mainly political satire, identity, ideology, and parody. The characteristics of the American sketch comedy can be summarized into 'simplicity', 'restrictiveness', 'completeness', 'diversity', 'recursivity', and 'tendency'. The change in content consumption of modern people, defined as Homo Mobilicus and Homo Telephonicus, is changing along with the mobility culture. Therefore, there was a change in the method of enjoyment and composition of Korean sketch comedy with American sketch comedy as a blind child. Through this, Korean sketch comedy can be reconceptualized as a “comedy in the form of short form content consumed only on SNS.” In addition, the characteristics of Korean sketch comedy include 'autonomy', 'shortening', 'visibility', 'volatile', 'limited', and 'daily'. Simplicity and crackdownability can be seen in common with US sketch comedy, and limiting them to SNS media is the biggest difference. The method of inducing empathy, which is a characteristic of Korean schema comedy, could be divided into two. The channel “Nerdult” focuses more on setting and describing situations than setting characters through daily expressions. The channel “Shortbox” uses a method of expressing the triviality of everyday life through the verbal and non-verbal content of the character and the description of the situation.