Comment by _vercingtorix_ on 13/01/2025 at 13:11 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies (showing 0)

View submission: When is a joke not a joke?

There was a good ted talk a few years ago that points out that basically *everything* that makes us laugh is actually a "softened threat".

Even primal things that cause laughter like tickling are "funny", because they represent non-threatening touches to areas that are pretty vital on the body.

Same for verbal jokes -- you're more or less making a "softened" threat.

Something is thus not funny under two conditions:

1. there is no threat at all. because of this, there is nothing to soften and thus no "punchline". The joke is just corny and not funny to begin with.

2. the threat isn't sufficiently softened by the punchline. In these cases, the joke becomes offensive.

Replies

There's nothing here!