Adam Sobel Week 15 - My Thoughts on Humor

     With so many types of people in the world, a lot of different types of humor and comedy have been created and enjoyed by people everywhere. I, for one, love comedy of all kinds and I wanted to give my thoughts on which types of humor were best.

    Dumb humor is the type of humor that just makes no sense. This is the kind of thing where you see somebody laughing because of someone saying something that to most would be considered "dumb", like "goated with the sauce" or "me and the homies lookin for beans". This type of humor doesn't really have a lot behind it, it is mostly just saying a phrase that you made up and having it catch on. It's really easy to catch on to this humor on the internet because so many phrases are made every day, and popular ones get more exposure through algorithms on social media so they spread like wildfire. Personally, I like this humor because it is always able to make me laugh and put a smile on my face without much effort behind it. It's just always reliable in cheering me up because it doesn't require a lot of thinking. It's just so stupid that it's funny.

    Dad or Uncle humor is the type of humor that makes sense but just isn't as funny as real jokes. Examples are "What do you call a cow with no legs? Ground beef!" or "A guy walks into a bar. Ow." You can recognize the joke, and usually you'll go "Oh, ha! That was funny". But it never really makes you laugh. It's just something you recognize as funny. I still like it, though, because these types of jokes can be creative and are still funny, even if I don't laugh aloud.

    Wit is a kind of humor that requires more thinking or understanding of references. This is the type of humor common in shows like Family Guy or Rick and Morty that uses a lot of references to other people or events to make their jokes. For example, Rick and Morty made an episode about how they thought spy or heist movies were stupid and made the whole episode like a typical spy or heist movie in order to make fun of their view of those types of movies. These jokes can reference pop culture, history, science or math, personal events, or anything else you can think of. I like this type of humor because there is usually more critical thinking about the joke in order to understand it, and it usually has more depth to it that makes the joke really funny in comparison to a normal knock-knock joke. Additionally, you sometimes learn something if you hear a reference joke that you don't at first understand after it is explained to you. The depth of these types of jokes is what makes them so original and funny and is why they are my favorite type of joke.

    Dark humor is a more controversial type of humor that typically targets a group of people based on age, race, gender, sexuality, religion, nationality, ethnicity, physical traits, political status, or anything else you could think of. A lot of people don't like these kinds of joke, and for good reason. You basically insult a group to get others to laugh. They can be quite offensive. However, I think that these jokes are okay to make as long as you are aware of your audience. For example, I love to watch South Park which has a lot of dark humor in it. They've made jokes about Jews, obesity, hippies, republicans, democrats, Christians, Germans, Disney, Americans, and so, so many more people or groups. But the number of people that they've made fun of is why I think that it is okay to make these jokes. They don't actually hate any of these groups, they are just trying to point out ironies or inconsistencies in certain groups or be so ridiculous and outlandish just to get people to laugh at the stupidity. I like this kind of humor, but only around certain groups. I wouldn't make these jokes around people I know would get offended, only with friends that are comfortable with it. And it's also important to make sure that you never actually mean the joke, you just want to say something ridiculous for some laughs or point out a hypocrisy with a joke. These types of jokes I think are fine, but you really have to know your audience and it's only funny as long as the joke is intended and received as a joke, not an insult. This isn't my favorite type of humor because it can be complicated to make it funny and I don't want to hurt people by my jokes, so I usually avoid it. However, I do think it can occasionally be funny under certain circumstances or contexts.

Do you like comedy? If so, what kind of humor is your favorite?