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SiriusShenanigans t1_ixenrc8 wrote

My philosophy of humor class in college was a treasured memory. The professor would make us watch the weirdest YouTube videos and if anyone laughed he would pounce on them and demand us explain ourselves. Truely the peak of academics. Explaining why a joke is funny kills it, but having to do so academically makes it horseshoe back around to being funny again.

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rattatally t1_ixexeeg wrote

Why does that make it funny again? Can you explain?

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My3rstAccount t1_ixfgzhe wrote

You realize what you missed and it becomes funny. You're essentially learning someone else's humor.

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MaxChaplin t1_ixh85ro wrote

Explaining a joke is cringe. If someone kills a joke, they're being annoying, but if someone is forced to kill a joke then they are the one being humiliated.

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bildramer t1_ixi66q0 wrote

If a professor started asking me why I'm laughing at a YTP I'd just leave.

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ImmoralityPet t1_ixh030d wrote

I'm imagining Joe Pesci as that professor.

"Like funny how? Like a clown?

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SiriusShenanigans t1_ixhc3xa wrote

This is exactly how it went down. Our intro to relief theory was with our professor going "why is this funny? You laughed at this man. He is hurt, is pain funny to you?"

When the video in question is that of a man wrapping his dick in tin foil and sticking it into a electrical socket and incongruity theory is not helping because shit goes down exactly as you would expect for a man sticking his dick in an electrical outlet.

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My3rstAccount t1_ixfgwin wrote

I always said the funniest jokes are the ones that need explaining. It means you missed something.

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jaaval t1_ixgylyz wrote

Any joke is improved if you follow it up with “and this was funny because…”

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[deleted] t1_ixdh1ev wrote

[removed]

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Mesrour t1_ixe477t wrote

I feel like Superiority theory, and Relief theory are more or less subsets of Incongruity theory. This doesn't help the idea that incongruity is unfalsifiable, but having a theory that perfectly describes all humour would be bounded only by the non-humourous, so I'm not sure what to think there.

In the case of Superiority, perhaps the thought that this person could be superior to you is incongruous to you. Personally, I find very little humour in this category, and might choose to call it scorn instead, where laughter might be an aspect of glee or amusement rather than comedic. This certainly makes me wonder how this article/author might define the term humour.

As for Relief, it seems that the emotions aren't quite built up as expected. Expectations being subverted might involve a tonal shift, rather than pressure; a relatively serious setting leads one to expect serious discourse, so something comical disrupts that, more like a pressure change.

It's interesting how this article only briefly eludes to the function of humour in society, as I think that is the place to look for a falsifiable and scientific theory of humour.

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precursormar t1_ixg3h2x wrote

You're looking for the word 'alludes' rather than 'eludes' in your last paragraph there.

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Mr_BongeSpob t1_ixed4up wrote

The question what makes something funny on the one hand intrigues me and on the other hand always reminds me of this E.B. White quote:

Dissecting humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies.

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smurficus103 t1_ixdzljb wrote

If i had to guess, #3 applies to most things. Id add in "irony" as a more generalized #3.

The fact that we're being tortured to death slowly, all of our ancestors watching our every lay, for everything to end with zero consequence gives a sense of irony. Heh...

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ImReallyAnAstronaut t1_ixgk13o wrote

That's my favorite kind of humor. The kind that makes you really think about why we're still living this hellish facade. I also find big loud farts pretty good

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Honest-SiberianTiger t1_ixexu5o wrote

To respond to the problem of laughter in response to already known jokes, I think the guiding principle behind such reaction is in contrast of seriousness. Incongruency itself isn't funny on it's own, but when you add a grounded or serious context to it, it starts to gain shape.

In Monty Python (which this article refers to in notes), extreme care was put into making it look authentic at a glance, but they carefully break that serious setting to introduce humour. If you take a look at sitcoms, they do the same thing in principle, just focus it on different elements.

Expectation is a part of humour but not the whole story. Comedy is about contrast. Contrast between the elements and the personal experience of the individual is what allows this funny business to exist.

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Historicmetal t1_ixexfb0 wrote

If anybody knows humor, it’s Kramer

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PaperWeightGames t1_ixfkwjy wrote

I didn't understand the superiorty theory explanation and the other two seemed to both be forms of nervous laughter, subversion of expectation.

I study game design and a popular book on this subject, 'A Theory of Fun', poses that laughter is a communicative behaviour to attract the attention of those around us.

This ties into my understanding laughter (somewhat built on the youtube channel 'Charisma On Command which did a video on how to be funny easily); we laugh to draw other people's attention to what we are witnessing. We cheer / applaud for the same reason.

It seems to often be the case that people laugh at something when it presents itself, is unusual / contradicts their expectation of normal behaviour, and then is not responded to in a negative way by the observing community.

We are then updating our knowledge of what is socially acceptable within that community, and broadly bt more vaguely within our society. This usually relates to slapstick and behavioural comedy.

Or maybe someone tells a bizarre story, or acts out an absurd character. We then might be laughing as we update our understanding of human capacity for creativity and exploration of ideas. And we laugh to draw others nearby towards that too.

Maybe something terrible happens to someone, but a) their misfortune as stopped and they are stable and b) we are not at risk of the same misfortune. Very often people find these situations hilarious. Crying and screaming are reserved for different, more urgent or severe messages, but laughter is the 'look at me' reaction. it signals that a stable, safe and observable article of misfortune is present.

All of this could be considred 'learning directive humour / laughter'. Nervous laughter seems to be something else, where we laugh to communicate to others that we've decided to approach a seemingly threatening (physically, socially, whatever) situation by assuming good intent on those in our company. Maybe someone makes an odd comment about knives whilst waving one around. As I recall, nervous laughter only usually comes from those 'in the line of fire'. No nervous laughter = "I'm not putting up with any nonsense". Nervous laughter = "It's ok everyone, I'm going to act as a guinea pig and leave myself vulnerable so we can all see how this plays out".

That's probably not the best explanation of how I view nervous laughter, but I think it's signalling intend / consent to those around us to steer their expectations of an awkward situation.

I talk a lot about a lot of stuff. If you wanna read it, look here; https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LBTqx4krO2hDrM8yuAeIcHBrg9Owoc9OcHhewbfKb2c/edit?usp=sharing

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Todayjunyer t1_ixfsmme wrote

I don’t laugh to attract others. I laugh hardest when I’m alone in fact. Not sure about that one. I watched dave chappelles stand up on snl three times by myself and was barely able to breath it was so funny

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PaperWeightGames t1_ixgr4xg wrote

Your evolutionary design can't see whether there are others that are can see you. It has to operate on the safest assumption. It's better to laugh when no one is there than not laugh where someone is, from the perspective of the above theory.

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Todayjunyer t1_ixjqu26 wrote

I have evolved eyes and ears to tell if someone is near me. Nice try though. Behavioral “evolution” is really complicated, even more so than functional evolution. In fact, different cultures can have complete opposite behavioral “evolutions” as you claim. The behavior of laughter, is not like the function of eyesight. I have evolved to be able to decide when I want to laugh, what i think is funny, and when to laugh loudly or quietly. Humans, all humans regardless of culture, evolved to have two eyes with the general upper limit being 20/20 vision. So no. To your theory on behaviors being evolved. No. Mastication is an evolved function. But different cultures chew differently and make different noises when they eat. Alone with others. It’s called culture. Not evolution

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NotEasyToChooseAName t1_ixkjatp wrote

My thought exactly. Humour is a way to validate assumptions about other people. It is a way to probe them in search of common hermeneutical grounds. If we can laugh together and eat the same things, then chances are we can also have a constructive relationship together. I think its main evolutionary purpose is the production of pleasant shared experiences, to add positive feelings to the memories of others - and others' memories of us. I have a better chance of our relationship being beneficial to me if you remember laughing every time you see me. And if I can make a lot of people laugh on the regular, then I stand a better chance of building beneficial relationships with my peers than those who can't, thus increasing my chances of survival.

I believe humour is one of those evolutionary attractors, a sort of inevitable side-effect of the coexistence of communication and play. Obviously it has been rendered way more complex and nuanced through our development of language and all our social rituals, but most animals we regard as highly intelligent seem capable of both play and humour. They are both ways of testing different behaviours in safe contexts, as well as ways of getting to know other individuals. Humour lets me simultaneously play with a social situation (thus learning about its intricacies and trying new things), produce a pleasant memory of me in the other's mind (thus increasing my chances of building a beneficial relationship with them) and probe them to garner information on their culture, idiosyncrasies and reputation (thus making my relationship with them potentially safer).

These three direct benefits of humour are reason enough for this behaviour to have taken evolutionary roots. Starting from there, the behaviour has evolved through culture, like many other social behaviours, to become a sort of fractalized version (or, more exactly, versions) of itself. Now, humour feeds on itself ad infinitum into ever more incongruous and bizarre regressions. That's how we get memes that are surreal versions of sarcastic memes, that were themselves parodies of other popular memes laughing at completely ordinary real world situations.

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PaperWeightGames t1_ixm5r5b wrote

Laughing probably does play a role in memory recall and establishing beneficial social arrangements. I don't know if it's massively influencial in who we build friendships with, since it seems to be a general rule that we're drawn to people with similar values / tastes when it comes to finding freinds.

In other words, I'm not sure the purpose of laughter is to signal compatibility, because that function does not seem to be unique to laughter, and generally each evolved behaviour has at least one distinct purpose.

It probably is part of the process of matchmaking though.

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With regards to modern culture, I wonder if it is more the case that our humour is largely the same as it was 2000 years ago, but that the setting it is present in has changed. I moved to a wealthy city recently and one profound thing I noticed was that no one here is funny or laughing much. Humour is almost dead, but go to a comedy show and they laugh constantly and often at stupid things. Has people's sense of humour change much, or is it their environment that has changed? Probably a mix of both, but I think environment is a factor too. I think people are a lot more pessimistic then they would of been 2000 years ago (which initially seems silly, but we're able to percieve more threats in the modern world than we could back then).

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PaperWeightGames t1_ixm40ze wrote

Overconfidence leads to a higher rate of being wrong. You should discuss things more before making assumptions. I'll attempt to rephrase my point so you can better understand it.

The biological product of an extremely thorough process of trial and error, your biological design, cannot see. You can see, but you as a consciousness are not your body. The reason your body does not consult your eyes is because it is aware, most likely through the aformentioned process of trial and error, that your conscious mind is not fully perceptive. You might not know there are people watching you or within earshot.

I suspect the reason this is optimal is because breaking engagement with the thing making you laugh means you lose the information it is providing whilst you look to see if anyone is nearby, which would then warrant laughter.

Possibly more importantly, if we had to do a paremeter sweep before laughing, the source of the information / novelty / laughter might have expired by the time we've drawn other people to it. Laughter is immediate and distinct.

From the perspective of designing a biological organism in an optimal way, this makes a lot more sense than having to engage the conscious mind in a decision making process and commit its attention to another task (seeking peers to draw the attention of).

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On your points about yourself, you sound like you might be an extreme outlier. In my moderate life experience I've not met a single person who could consciously decide when to laugh, what to find funny and how loudly to laugh. People have some restraint, to a degree, in specific situations, but what you're reporting is completely unheard of in the human race to my knowledge. A comedian might learn how to not laugh at things they find funny, but laughing is still an instinctive behaviour.

I'm not sure how your comment onf Mastication is relevant.

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Todayjunyer t1_ixnqgtd wrote

Everything you typed is not related to evolution whatsoever. Mastication is directly related to evolution. That’s the difference. Use a different word. It’s not evolution. Laughter has nothing to do with evolution of humans. It’s has to do with cultures. There are cultures in history who NEVER laugh. Laughter is not an evolutionary function of humans. It’s a learned social behavior based out of culture. It is absolutely NOT instinctive. When someone tickled you, your animal brain wants to murder them. SOCIETY and culture has taught you to laugh instead. That’s cultural dude. Tribes in the Amazon do not laugh. They murder things. That’s evolution.

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PaperWeightGames t1_ixrnil6 wrote

You seem incredibly comfortable in your ignorance so I'll just leave you to it.

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Vertigobee t1_ixfnxm3 wrote

What about relatability? Truthful insight?

And it’s silly to say there’s only one reason for all humor, there’s so many different reasons to laugh.

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HalfmadFalcon t1_ixfsb4z wrote

I had a friend who studied humor and we talked at length about it at times.

He ascribed to the “benign violation” theory, that something was funny when it violated some sort of social norm or expectation and when someone undeserving was not hurt emotionally or physically by said violation.

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Uncoolx2 t1_ixgl5i8 wrote

Seems like an ethical definition of humor. Not that it doesn't make sense.

Though I would also argue that humor may be repugnant as a form of persuasive speech: calling into attention acceptance of injustices.

Humor that offends can be meant to offend as a way to force you to reassess your view.

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narweezy305 t1_ixfhs4r wrote

They left out Miphat Theory…

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miseryenplace t1_ixg3wur wrote

Damn these three just need to die already. Truly shocking that they are still being written about.

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etherified t1_ixga3jx wrote

In my opinion on this article, one reason the subhead "It’s Funny, None of These Theories Seem Adequate " was necessary is because the article is clearly mixing up categories or levels of explanation. 1. and 3. are attempts to explain the "why" of humor from a logical or functional standpoint ("what are the criteria on which we decide something is funny?"), whereas 2. attempts to answer a totally different question, i.e. why do we laugh from a physiological standpoint (that is, what is the advantage or evolutionary benefit (because it gives us "relief"). In other words, for the purpose of this article, only 1. and 3. are relevant in the first place.

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wowie6543 t1_ixhf4i2 wrote

The idea of expectations/suprise/incongruity, must be more precise here.

When we see a comedy a second time, we still can laugh about some scenes. Not all, but some. So the old suprised expectation can still be suprised again, even when you encountered a different solution. Because our brain is not a computer. We still associate with the same old stuff, maybe weaker but the old expectations are still there, or should we say, archived. Not always, but in some cases. Some expectations are getting shifted and you cant laugh again about the same joke. Or not as much.

So it hink its possible to remember a suprise and still laugh about it, because it is still so unimaginable and unexpected.

And expectations and suprise is not restricted to verbal things.

And not everybody got the same expectations! So some jokes must be seen in a more specified subcultural context to understand the suprise or non-suprise.

So the concept of "incongruity" seems elastic, only because our knowledge about it isnt very precise. Its a pretty complex phenomena and so on, we need a lot psychology here, to understand it fully. So i wouldnt give it up.

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xFblthpx t1_ixhl987 wrote

Incongruence seems to fit the best with the assumptions baked into our language in my opinion. Considering irony in its definition is when something subverts it’s own meaning, and considering I am yet to get an explanation for why someone thought something was funny that didn’t have some irony baked in, I would say irony is the root of all humor, and therefore incongruence is the greatest explanation for it.

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contractualist t1_ixrdr8j wrote

Nice piece! I discuss these theories and my own theory that incorporates them here

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Martholomeow t1_ixekazf wrote

There are two basic kinds of jokes that are almost always good for a laugh:

  1. Unexpected stupidity.
  2. Unexpected sexual deviance.

Most good jokes fall into one of these categories. Keeping in mind that what makes for stupidity and sexual deviance vary across cultures and tend to change over time.

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corrective_action t1_ixe8q5s wrote

Can't help but think of Peter Griffin's "Oh my god who the hell cares" with stuff like this.

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