Abstract
This study investigates comic techniques employed by Taaooma and Kiekie in their comedy skits. The study adopts Kant’s (1790) model of incongruity theory of humour and McGraw and Warren’s (2010) Benign Violations Theory as the theoretical underpinnings. The skits were randomly selected and downloaded from the Facebook accounts of these popular skit makers. The video skits were transcribed for thorough analysis, which led to the selection of the dialogues used for the research. The choice of data was made to ensure that the videos did not exceed 5 minutes duration. The study employs qualitative research design for content analysis of the selected skits. From the analysis of the excerpts in the sampled comedy skits, the comic techniques observed were: absurdity, sarcasm, rhetorical questions, retorts, satire, pun/wordplay, and slapstick. It also reveals that comedy skit makers employ these satiric elements to pass a strong message on societal change and through the means of comedy, they are not confrontational rather subtle in their critique.
Keywords: Comedy skits, social media, humour, comic strategies and techniques, incongruity theory of humour, Benign ViolationsTheory
