Clearly, humour is a serious topic. I couldn’t stop thinking about how the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team struggled to explain to the media, and probably their WAGs and friends and family, why they laughed when their president invited them to the White House, and groaned that he would now also need to invite the Women’s team. I’m curious to hear your take on this!
Glad to see this write up. I did a "vibe read," Kling style, of your paper last week, sparked by your recent podcast guest appearance (the read was better spent time). Pretty thought provoking and generally convincing. Felt like a stretch on the absurd humor, but maybe I missed something.
I had a friend who was studying how to use humor in advocacy for climate change action and he said there was research/evidence that people were more open and able to listen and learn in the context of humor. Which is the whole functional purpose of the "ice breaker" joke at the beginning of a speech, etc. I'm interested if you know about such research. Also - he clearly distinguished between humor and laughter. Humor doesn't have to evoke a laugh - but rather puts a different, amusing, frame on interactions.
Another gem! I have two observations and a question. First, it seems that unpredictability is a sine qua non for humor. A joke where the punch line is obviously coming isn't as funny as a surprising punchline. Similarly, the unexpectedness of someone's misspeaking seems to be part of what makes it funny. The second observation is that perceived lack of conscious intention helps us to laugh at/with someone's misspeaking. Intending to laugh out loud at the death of a loved one is cruel rather than funny. (However, conscious intention might be undermined by unconscious intention, à la Freudian slips, as "I hooked up with your mother last night" might be interpreted.)
My question concerns the suggestion that well-designed mirth should prevent illusory dangers from sending either party into a panic: "Insofar as mirth is well-designed, it might produce a general deactivation of emotions that process costs, in order to stop the wildfire of negative representations from spreading throughout the brain and disrupting the process of mutual cost defusal." I understand that this claim has to do with panics over the relationship between speaker and listener being potentially undermined. But what I am wondering is, does this also apply to cases where the speaker/writer seems to want to make the listener/reader laugh about a scary, horrible situation that is external to both of them? In particular, political satire about dangerous politicians. Even more specifically, I am thinking about the Substack "Are you f'ng kidding me?" where Jo Carducci describes the horrible behavior of politicians with brilliantly funny metaphors.
Great article; any reminder that language itself is a coordination game gets a like!
What do you make of the fact that not all faux pas get met with laughter-as-forgiveness? Sometimes laughter gets used both as a signal of group membership (laughing with) for those coloring within the lines and group exclusion (laughing at) those who committed the faux pas, literally in the same breath.
Clearly, humour is a serious topic. I couldn’t stop thinking about how the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team struggled to explain to the media, and probably their WAGs and friends and family, why they laughed when their president invited them to the White House, and groaned that he would now also need to invite the Women’s team. I’m curious to hear your take on this!
It’s ok to give me a smack if you’ve already covered this!
More please 🙏
Glad to see this write up. I did a "vibe read," Kling style, of your paper last week, sparked by your recent podcast guest appearance (the read was better spent time). Pretty thought provoking and generally convincing. Felt like a stretch on the absurd humor, but maybe I missed something.
I had a friend who was studying how to use humor in advocacy for climate change action and he said there was research/evidence that people were more open and able to listen and learn in the context of humor. Which is the whole functional purpose of the "ice breaker" joke at the beginning of a speech, etc. I'm interested if you know about such research. Also - he clearly distinguished between humor and laughter. Humor doesn't have to evoke a laugh - but rather puts a different, amusing, frame on interactions.
Another gem! I have two observations and a question. First, it seems that unpredictability is a sine qua non for humor. A joke where the punch line is obviously coming isn't as funny as a surprising punchline. Similarly, the unexpectedness of someone's misspeaking seems to be part of what makes it funny. The second observation is that perceived lack of conscious intention helps us to laugh at/with someone's misspeaking. Intending to laugh out loud at the death of a loved one is cruel rather than funny. (However, conscious intention might be undermined by unconscious intention, à la Freudian slips, as "I hooked up with your mother last night" might be interpreted.)
My question concerns the suggestion that well-designed mirth should prevent illusory dangers from sending either party into a panic: "Insofar as mirth is well-designed, it might produce a general deactivation of emotions that process costs, in order to stop the wildfire of negative representations from spreading throughout the brain and disrupting the process of mutual cost defusal." I understand that this claim has to do with panics over the relationship between speaker and listener being potentially undermined. But what I am wondering is, does this also apply to cases where the speaker/writer seems to want to make the listener/reader laugh about a scary, horrible situation that is external to both of them? In particular, political satire about dangerous politicians. Even more specifically, I am thinking about the Substack "Are you f'ng kidding me?" where Jo Carducci describes the horrible behavior of politicians with brilliantly funny metaphors.
Great article; any reminder that language itself is a coordination game gets a like!
What do you make of the fact that not all faux pas get met with laughter-as-forgiveness? Sometimes laughter gets used both as a signal of group membership (laughing with) for those coloring within the lines and group exclusion (laughing at) those who committed the faux pas, literally in the same breath.
Fantastic! Well done :)