Bonus 11 - What's so Funny? by JJ Leath

            Humor is really quite strange. While there may be many theories on what makes something funny, there really can never be a solid definition of what makes something funny and what is acceptable to joke about because both of these are unique to every individual. What I believe makes something funny comes down to the unexpected happening, and what is acceptable comes down to context, who is saying it, and who he is saying it to.

            First, what makes something funny at all? In the question originally posed, it is stated that “Humor usually violates personal norms that tie into cultural norms.  For instance, fart jokes.” I think there is a lot of credence, but I don’t think that this is the very thing that makes something funny. For instance, consider puns. These are not funny because they go against cultural norms. These are funny (to some people) because they use words or phrases in unexpected ways.  Further, consider Trevor Noah’s end to the “black Hitler” bit. This was funny because he previously mentioned wanting to be black, so when the German yelled “black Hitler!”, Trevor ended the bit by saying “at least she said I was black.” That’s hilarious. I would call this clever humor. You didn’t expect that to be what he said after this encounter. I think that if you were to boil humor down to its essence, I think it is just when something happens or is said that you didn’t expect. This explains why personal or cultural norms being violated is funny – you don’t expect it. It also explains why seeing someone fall down or stub their toe is funny – you expected them to walk with no issue, but issues arose regardless. Humor is a response to surprise similar to shock.   

            Secondly, what makes something okay to joke about? I think this comes down to three things: context, who is saying it, and who it is being said to. Consider Gabriel Iglesias’ bit about the “racist gift basic.” The context was a comedy show, so this is pretty harmless. Imagine, however, if he was speaking at the funeral of a black individual killed by white supremacists. The same thing said by the same person is no longer funny. With the same skit as an example, consider if Gabriel was a white man. I think that the audience would have thought it to be less okay. Because Gabriel is a minority himself, even though he’s not black, it is likely to go over better. This comes down to the history of cultures. There is a history of white people being oppressive towards black people, so further oppression is not going to be funny. The Hispanic and black community do not have the same scarred history. Finally, who you are saying the joke to is going to influence what is okay to joke about and what is funny. If you tell a joke that is about how stupid Trump is, it would probably go over well with the audience at the Democratic National Convention. However, it would likely offend many and be unfunny to the audience at the Republican National Convention. Your audience matters as well.   

            There are a lot of variables into what makes something funny and what makes something okay to joke about. These variations create a broad spectrum of comedy. You have comedians using all types of comedy (clever tie-ins, clever social commentary, puns, or “fart jokes”) appealing to all types of audiences. John Mullaney’s dry, story-telling comedy is vastly different than Daniel Tosh’s extremely crude, offensive comedy. Both are professional comedians, but an audience member of one comedian’s crowd is probably unlikely to think the other comedian is very funny at all. There will never be a formula for what is funny, there will never be a strict definition. And in a world where most things have definitions and in a world governed by the formulas of physics, this is unexpected. Isn’t that funny?