tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca-fr/topics/humor-30583/articlesHumor – La Conversation2024-02-29T13:39:32Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2244572024-02-29T13:39:32Z2024-02-29T13:39:32ZClimate comedy works − here’s why, and how it can help lighten up a politically heavy year in 2024<p>In a catchy <a href="https://youtu.be/UxLvTF_9jv4?feature=shared">YouTube video</a>, British comedian Jo Brand <a href="https://theconversation.com/jo-brand-translated-my-science-im-certain-that-comedy-can-connect-people-to-climate-change-223745">translates a scientist’s long-winded description</a> of the fossil fuel industry’s role in the climate crisis this way: “We are paying a bunch of rich dudes 1 trillion dollars a year to f--- up our future,” she says. “Even the dinosaurs didn’t subsidize their own extinction. <a href="https://twitter.com/SRTurtleIsland/status/1727843781880209794">Who’s the stupid species now</a>?”</p>
<p>Although there is nothing funny about the subject, the way she says it is funny.</p>
<p>She speaks truth to power. She relieves the heaviness of the rhetoric. And she’s dropping f- and s-bombs with a British accent. At the start of the video, Brand comments, “If people like me have to get involved, you know we’re in deep s---”.</p>
<p>We all need some refreshing levity nowadays – especially this year.</p>
<p>Around the world, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/is-climate-change-on-the-ballot-paper-in-2024/id1538415261?i=1000643262165">voters will be choosing</a> national leaders <a href="https://time.com/6550920/world-elections-2024/">in countries representing nearly half the human population</a>. In many cities, states and counties, those decisions will directly affect how the world deals with climate change. Outcomes, including from another U.S. presidential race with Donald Trump vowing to promote fossil fuels and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/06/trump-climate-change-fossil-fuels-second-term">undermine climate policies</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-election-how-trump-and-his-followers-use-offensive-humour-to-make-prejudice-acceptable-221364">democracy itself</a>, will reverberate across the planet. That’s heavy.</p>
<p>At the same time, the planet just came off its warmest year on record in 2023, and ocean temperatures are still abnormally high. Heavier yet, the <a href="https://www.noaa.gov/news/2023-was-worlds-warmest-year-on-record-by-far">10 hottest years since record-keeping began</a> have all occurred in the past decade.</p>
<p>Not only does the world need to cool down, it also needs to lighten up. As <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/chancellor/cu-boulder-where-you-are-stand-climate-change-using-power-humor-start-conversation">professors who study climate comedy</a>, we can tell you that the need for levity is one reason climate comedy works.</p>
<h2>Lightening up to engage with tough stuff</h2>
<p>For many generations, comedy has been an effective pathway to not only lighten things up but to propose unlikely solutions.</p>
<p>In ancient Greece, comic playwright Aristophanes took on the crisis of his times – the Peloponnesian War – <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27549461">with a comedy</a> in which women from both sides of the conflict enact a sex strike until their men agree to a peace treaty. As you can imagine, sexual innuendo abounds.</p>
<p>Brand, the British comedian, teamed up with <a href="https://theconversation.com/jo-brand-translated-my-science-im-certain-that-comedy-can-connect-people-to-climate-change-223745">climate scientist Mark Maslin</a> to find novel ways to communicate effectively about the climate crisis. In a video, they <a href="https://youtu.be/SA87n9jrWU0?si=iZEilVCj8oEsAcy1">effectively communicate together</a> about climate change causes and consequences. Humorously drawing out their contrasting communication styles, they find the funny as Brand pops up with observations like, “If you liked climate crisis, you’re going to love climate complete f---ing collapse.”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">British comedian Jo Brand and scientist Mark Maslin play off each other to educate the public about climate change.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Their mix of clever timing, absurdity, scatology and full commitment to each of their roles as scientist and comedian <a href="https://youtu.be/9ZGjEHxoDiQ?si=rBbq6Ob1byWT9i2L">gave their climate comedy traction</a>, with over 3 million views.</p>
<p>In South Africa, the group <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/PoliticallyAweh">Politically Aweh has been producing creative content</a> about climate change and other connected issues in the run-up to their general election this year.</p>
<p>In one <a href="https://youtu.be/N3n1HgwW8jg?si=FHDuGU8pAzMGgRCK">YouTube video</a>, host Zipho Majova creatively compares our collective avoidance of dealing with climate change with avoiding our mothers’ texts. She then says, “You can’t ignore messages from mom forever. And by mom, I mean mother Earth!” The skilled editing of news media clips and popular TV shows woven into Zipho’s commentary makes this climate comedy take an effective one.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Political Aweh takes on ignorance of climate change.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In the U.S., creative collectives such as <a href="https://www.climatetownproductions.com/">Climate Town</a> in New York, <a href="https://yellowdotstudios.com/">Yellow Dot Studios</a> in Los Angeles, the <a href="https://cmsimpact.org/">Center for Media and Social Impact</a> in Washington, D.C., and our <a href="https://insidethegreenhouse.org/">Inside the Greenhouse</a> project in Boulder, Colorado, are working to alleviate climate anxiety and activate people to discuss climate change and do something about it.</p>
<p>With elements of exaggeration, innuendo, witty recognition of truths, suspense and ultimate honesty, climate comedy from groups like these and on late-night shows <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p8zAbFKpW0">like John Oliver’s</a> “Last Week Tonight” resonates.</p>
<h2>Why climate comedy works</h2>
<p>Comedy has the ability to transcend science-speak and open up conversations with new audiences while helping “keep it real” and identifying solutions.</p>
<p>It can also provide emotional relief as it lowers people’s defenses and allows them to find promise and possibility for envisioning positive change.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Comedians discuss climate change using comedy.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Through our research, we have found that comedy can help college students <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/2040610X.2019.1623513">work through negative emotions</a> associated with climate change. In one <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSKgpVnv6xM">Earth Day show</a>, a fashionista student at the University of Colorado-Boulder, craving a loophole for satisfying her clothing addiction, discovers thrifting, and comically quips, “Nothing says ‘I love Planet Earth’ more than wearing someone else’s clothes.”</p>
<p>Creative movies like “<a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-look-up-hollywoods-primer-on-climate-denial-illustrates-5-myths-that-fuel-rejection-of-science-174266">Don’t Look Up!</a>” and TV shows like <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81500842">“Unstable,” starring Rob Lowe</a>, comedically address themes such as climate change and science denial by making fun of some behaviors while bringing serious problems into everyday life. Lowe’s biotech billionaire character’s efforts to capture carbon from the atmosphere in cement got people talking about carbon capture and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/concrete-traps-co2-soaked-air-climate-friendly-test-2023-02-03/">similar projects in real life</a>.</p>
<p>Introducing ridiculous ideas into an otherwise logical world like comedians <a href="https://www.chucknicecomic.com/">Chuck Nice</a> – co-host of “StarTalk” with Neil deGrasse Tyson – and <a href="https://www.kashapatel.com/">Kasha Patel</a> each do can also get people laughing. So can imitation and playfulness with social inversions, which you’ll see from comedians <a href="https://www.nicoleconlan.com/">Nicole Conlan</a>, who writes for “The Daily Show,” and <a href="https://www.rolliewilliamscomedy.com/climate-town">Rollie Williams</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Rollie Williams explains how your money is funding Big Oil behind your back.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Although some of the solutions put forth by comedians may seem ridiculous, history can tell us that such antics can draw attention and lead to change.</p>
<p>The Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. and the Hip Hop Caucus have <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0k9R4DWtuU&t=225s">teamed up with comedians</a> for years to engage audiences on climate change. Their new documentary with comedian Wanda Sykes mixes in comedy while documenting the rising risks of sea-level rise <a href="https://hiphopcaucus.org/hip-hop-caucus-short-film-underwater-projects-selected-for-social-justice-now-film-festival-and-dc-environmental-film-festival/">in Norfolk, Virginia</a>.</p>
<p>Comedy can run the risk of merely distracting people from the serious climate challenges before us or trivializing the problems. However, the transformative and subversive power of comedy as a vehicle for social, political, economic and cultural change is proving to be strong.</p>
<p>When unleashed into our collective consciousness, jokes can be healing contagion as they elicit laughter and open the mind. In that moment, rigidity is relaxed, the single solution is bifurcated, hypocrisy is exposed and delight intoxicates.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224457/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maxwell Boykoff receives funding from National Science Foundation, the National Parks Service Climate Change Response Program and the Argosy Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beth Osnes receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Argosy Foundation. </span></em></p>Jokes can be a healing contagion as they expose hypocrisy, spark laughter and open minds.Maxwell Boykoff, Professor of Environmental Studies and Fellow in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado BoulderBeth Osnes, Professor of Theatre and Environmental Studies, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2224612024-02-12T13:22:05Z2024-02-12T13:22:05ZLorne Michaels, the man behind the curtain at ‘Saturday Night Live,’ has been minting comedy gold for nearly 50 years<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573576/original/file-20240205-29-bcz58h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=120%2C7%2C4916%2C2303&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lorne Michaels holding one of his Emmy Awards in 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/74thEmmyAwards-TrophyTable/6c56e4ccbc7647aca4d123b7de872dd6/photo?boardId=37be9465fcce45d283d5431cccb20a6a&st=boards&mediaType=audio,photo,video,graphic&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=492&currentItemNo=2">Danny Moloshok/Invision for the Television Academy/AP Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On April 24, 1976, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0584427/">Lorne Michaels</a>, the creator and producer of the late-night NBC comedy program “Saturday Night” – it had not yet changed its name to “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072562/">Saturday Night Live</a>” – appeared on camera in hopes of luring the Beatles to reunite on the program.</p>
<p>The Fab Four’s last concert had been eight years earlier in San Francisco, and the <a href="https://www.thebeatles.com/abbey-road">band had stopped recording together in 1969</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL3Foo7ZokY">Michaels addressed</a> the band members by name – John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr – and then acknowledged rumors that the group might get back together. </p>
<p>“It’s also been said that no one has yet to come up with enough money to satisfy you,” Michaels said. “Well, if it’s money you want, there’s no problem here.”</p>
<p>Michaels then held up a check.</p>
<p>“Here it is right here. A check made out to you, the Beatles, for $3,000. All you have to do is sing three Beatles songs,” he said. “‘She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.’ That’s $1,000 right there. You know the words – it’ll be easy.”</p>
<p>Among the 22 million viewers was Lennon.</p>
<p>Lennon had watched the program from his home a few miles away from the NBC studio. A week later, he was watching the next episode with McCartney and told him about Michaels’ recent proposal.</p>
<p>“So John said, ‘<a href="https://www.theglassonionbeatlesjournal.com/2014/05/mccartney-talks-beatles-nirvana.html">It’s a hoot</a>, you know what would be great, we can go down there now.’” McCartney later recounted in an interview. </p>
<p>“For about five minutes, we were going, ‘We’ve got to do it.’ Then it was like, ‘Are you kidding, let’s stay in and watch the show,’” McCartney recalled. “It would be a great story, but we decided against it.”</p>
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<h2>‘It’s like he created Yale or NASA’</h2>
<p>No television program in history has chronicled American politics, culture, fads and tastes like “SNL,” which has mirrored and critiqued society over its half-century run by mocking it. “Caricatures,” <a href="https://www.humanitiesforwisdom.org/uploads/5/8/9/8/58987361/lampooning_injustice-__paul_conrad%E2%80%99s_perspective_on_civil_rights.pdf">Ralph Waldo Emerson</a> said, “are often the truest history of the times.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0275486">Tina Fey</a>, who appeared on the program from 1997 to 2006, <a href="https://www.eonline.com/news/1393319/lorne-michaels-reveals-who-may-succeed-him-at-saturday-night-live">reportedly might succeed Michaels</a> as its producer when he retires.</p>
<p>“Lorne created a show that’s impacted culture for decades,” Fey said of the man who has been the program’s producer, showrunner and mastermind for most of the program’s nearly half-century run. “No one has ever really successfully been able to replicate it.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aox7YP1Fr1I">Comedian Mike Myers</a>, who served as a cast member on “SNL” from 1989 to 1996, is another big fan. “It’s like he created Yale or NASA.”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">SNL’s ‘needs more cowbell’ spoof of the band Blue Öyster Cult is among its most-watched sketches.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Unmatched track record</h2>
<p>Michaels <a href="https://horatioalger.ca/en/haa_members/lorne-michaels/">grew up in Toronto</a> before immigrating to the U.S., where he <a href="https://walkoffame.com/lorne-michaels/">first worked as a writer</a> for “Laugh-In” and “The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show.” He has received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement – Canada’s highest honor in the performing arts. He also won the <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/campaign/medal-of-freedom">Presidential Medal of Freedom</a>, the highest civilian honor in the U.S.</p>
<p>He’s also been nominated for <a href="https://www.emmys.com/bios/lorne-michaels">102 Emmy Awards</a>, <a href="https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/credits/creator/lorne-michaels?lang=es">setting a show business record</a>, and he’s won more than 20 of them. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/list/ls083322620/">“SNL” has won more Emmys</a> than any other TV show.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.kennedy-center.org/artists/m/ma-mn/lorne-michaels/">Michaels’ long list of awards</a> includes the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, two Peabody Awards and the Kennedy Center Honors.</p>
<p><a href="https://screenrant.com/snl-best-skits-ranked/#olympia-caf-eacute">“SNL”‘s skits</a> and its humorous “<a href="https://www.nbc.com/nbc-insider/snl-weekend-update-hosts-in-order">Weekend Update</a>” news segments have tracked America’s politics, fads, foibles and scandals from the era of disco fever through the COVID-19 pandemic and today’s <a href="https://youtu.be/pGO1hC4iIb8">trepidation about artificial intelligence</a>.</p>
<p>Whether it was <a href="https://youtu.be/puJePACBoIo">John Belushi</a> gruffly taking orders at a dive that’s only serving cheeseburgers at breakfast time, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgZukeisGwU&ab_channel=MsMojo">Fey impersonating Sarah Palin</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwPQn7i-6JQ">James Austin Johnson</a> caricaturing Donald Trump, “SNL” has served as the nation’s laugh track through the last half-century.</p>
<p>That’s in large part because Michaels <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/how-snls-lorne-michaels-became-179894/">recruited some of the best comic minds and actors</a> of the last half-century to work for “SNL,” including, but hardly limited to, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, Amy Poehler, Fred Armisen, Will Ferrell, Jason Sudeikis, Kristen Wiig, Adam Sandler, Kate McKinnon and Kenan Thompson.</p>
<p>“There has never been anything in show business <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/feb/17/lorne-michaels-kingmaker-comedy-saturday-night-live">like his track record for discovering stars</a>,” said Doug Hill, the author of “Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live.”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Gilda Radner as Emily Litella, a recurring character, and Chevy Chase, the original Weekend Update anchor.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>No reunion necessary</h2>
<p>Michaels’ enduring success is like that of a top college football coach who remains successful year after year even though his players frequently have to be replaced. But then again, how many <a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/longest-tenured-college-football-coaches-023305426.html">college football coaches</a> have remained at the top of their game for a half-century?</p>
<p>At some point, Michaels, who <a href="https://www.famousbirthdays.com/people/lorne-michaels.html">turns 80 on Nov. 17, 2024</a>, will retire.</p>
<p>When asked about retirement rumors in January 2024, he said he intended to remain with the program for at least another year.</p>
<p>“We’re doing the 50th anniversary show in February of '25,” <a href="https://www.eonline.com/news/1393319/lorne-michaels-reveals-who-may-succeed-him-at-saturday-night-live">he told “Entertainment Tonight</a>.” “I will definitely be there for that, and definitely be there until that, and sometime before that we’ll figure out what we’re going to do.”</p>
<p>No matter when Michaels retires, his legacy is secure. So are his contributions to comedy, <a href="https://www.nbc.com/nbc-insider/first-saturday-night-live-cast-snl-season-1">beginning with the original cast</a>, known as the Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Players. The roster included Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Chevy Chase, Laraine Newman, Jane Curtin and Garrett Morris.</p>
<p>A movie about the behind-the-scenes mayhem before the show first went on the air, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27657135/">SNL 1975</a>,” is in the works.</p>
<p>It was near the end of the first season of “SNL” when Michaels offered the Beatles $3,000 to appear on the program. </p>
<p>Former Beatle <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0694666/">Harrison</a> did make an appearance later that year. <a href="https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/the-chris-farley-show-paul-mccartney/2868143">McCartney later made several appearances</a>, and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0694472/">Starr</a> hosted an episode in 1984. But neither “Saturday Night Live” nor Michaels, as it turned out, needed a Beatles reunion to make their mark on popular culture.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222461/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The show has served as the nation’s laugh track for decades. Who will take over when he retires?Chris Lamb, Professor of Journalism, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1932792023-07-25T12:23:48Z2023-07-25T12:23:48ZLaughter can communicate a lot more than good humor – people use it to smooth social interactions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539054/original/file-20230724-14014-5js0is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=964%2C554%2C7074%2C4796&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A well-deployed laugh can help grease a social interaction, even if nothing is funny.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/three-young-people-sit-around-a-table-and-giggle-as-royalty-free-image/1391836113">Catherine Falls Commercial/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Laughter is an everyday reminder that we humans are animals. In fact, when recorded laughter is slowed down, listeners <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2014.03.003">can’t tell whether the sound is from a person or an animal</a>.</p>
<p>We throw our heads back and bare our teeth in a monkeylike grin. Sometimes we double over and lose our ability to speak for a moment, reverting temporarily to hooting apes. And just as hoots and howls help strengthen bonds in a troop of primates or a pack of wolves, laughter <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2012.07.002">helps us connect with others</a>. </p>
<p>Laughter is <a href="https://doi.org/10.4161/cib.3.2.10944">evolutionarily ancient</a>. Known as a “play signal,” mammalian laughter accompanies playful interactions to signal harmless intentions and keep the play going. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0lV838pvdU">Chimps</a> laugh. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-84UJpYFRM">Rats</a> laugh. <a href="https://www.petalk.org/petalk.org/LaughingDog.pdf">Dogs</a> laugh. Perhaps even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1578/AM.31.2.2005.187">dolphins</a> laugh.</p>
<p>And laughter is an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JONB.0000023654.73558.72">essential feature</a> of human social interactions. We laugh when we’re amused, of course. But we also laugh out of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.122.3.250">embarrassment</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0310.1993.tb00478.x">politeness</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.39.1.39">nervousness</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000156">derision</a>.</p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pdDe_8wAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">psychology researcher who studies</a> how people use laughter to connect, and sometimes disconnect, with others. For humans, laughter has expanded from its original function as a play signal to serve a variety of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12383">social functions</a>.</p>
<h2>Laughter smooths social interactions</h2>
<p>Amused laughter is a response to <a href="https://theconversation.com/science-deconstructs-humor-what-makes-some-things-funny-64414">what scholars of humor call</a> a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000041">benign violation</a>” – a situation that could represent a threat but that the laughing person has concluded is safe. (Psychologists love to ruin good things like comedy by overexplaining them.) </p>
<p>Laughter is a way to communicate that an interaction is playful, harmless and unserious. It’s often not a reliable sign that a person is having a good time, even though people sometimes laugh when they are enjoying themselves. An awkward exchange, a misunderstanding, a mocking joke – all these potentially uncomfortable moments are smoothed over by laughter. </p>
<p>My colleagues and I were curious about whether the tendency to laugh is a trait that is consistent for each person regardless of context or whether it depends on whom they’re interacting with. In one study, we had people talk to 10 strangers in a series of one-on-one conversations. Then we <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0187">counted how many times they laughed</a>.</p>
<p>To our surprise, we found that how often a person laughs – at least when talking to strangers – is fairly consistent. Some people are laughers, and others are not. Whom they were talking to didn’t have a strong effect. At least in our sample, there weren’t hilarious partners who made everyone they talked to laugh.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539055/original/file-20230724-17-fu7dml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man smiling sitting beside a woman with an uncomfortable expression" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539055/original/file-20230724-17-fu7dml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539055/original/file-20230724-17-fu7dml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539055/original/file-20230724-17-fu7dml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539055/original/file-20230724-17-fu7dml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539055/original/file-20230724-17-fu7dml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539055/original/file-20230724-17-fu7dml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539055/original/file-20230724-17-fu7dml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Laughter can be a response to an uncomfortable interaction.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/awkward-conversation-among-coworkers-man-thinks-hes-royalty-free-image/980443052">corners74/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We found that the people who tended to laugh more enjoyed the conversations less. If you intrinsically enjoy talking to strangers and feel comfortable doing so, you may not feel the need to laugh a lot and smooth out the interaction – you trust it is going well. However, people felt they had more in common with these big-time laughers.</p>
<p>So in conversations between strangers, laughing a lot is not a sign of enjoyment, but it will make your partners feel similar to you. They will be likelier to agree that the two of you have something in common, which is a key ingredient in social connection. I suspect people borrow and transform the play signal of laughter to influence situations that, on their face, have nothing to do with play. </p>
<h2>Laughter sends a message</h2>
<p>We humans have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2016.01.002">remarkable control over our voices</a>. Not only can we speak, but we can also alter the meaning of our words by modifying our vocal pitch, vowel placement, breathiness or nasality. A breathy “hello” becomes a flirtatious advance, a growly “hello” becomes a threat, and an upturned, high-pitched “hello” becomes a fearful question. </p>
<p>This got me thinking: Maybe people change the sound of their laughter depending on what they want to communicate.</p>
<p>After all, while some forms of laughter are considered uncontrollable – the kind that leaves you <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(99)80023-3">physically weak</a> and running out of oxygen – <a href="https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/icphs-proceedings/ICPhS2011/OnlineProceedings/RegularSession/Tanaka/Tanaka.pdf">most everyday laughter</a> is at least somewhat under your control. </p>
<p>It turns out that there are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2016.04.005">already</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/ICASSP.2019.8683566">a lot</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2014.09.002">of studies</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JONB.0000023654.73558.72">looking at</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1524993113">different</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/TAFFC.2017.2737000">forms</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1121/1.1391244">of laughter</a>. Although their perspectives and methods differ, researchers agree that laughter takes many acoustic forms and occurs in many different situations.</p>
<p>The most popular approach for categorizing the many forms of laughter is to sort them by the internal state of the person laughing. Is the laughter “genuine,” reflecting a true positive state? Or is it the result of embarrassment, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-does-it-feel-good-to-see-someone-fail-107349">schadenfreude</a> or mirth?</p>
<p>I wasn’t satisfied with those approaches. Laughter is a communicative behavior. To me it seems we should therefore categorize it according to how it influences the people listening, not based on how the person felt while laughing. The word “cat” transmits the same information to a listener regardless of whether the speaker loves or loathes felines. And the effect of a giggle on a listener is the same regardless of how the giggler feels, assuming the giggle sounds the same.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539056/original/file-20230724-29-atdae0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="three men talking and laughing in an office setting" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539056/original/file-20230724-29-atdae0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539056/original/file-20230724-29-atdae0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539056/original/file-20230724-29-atdae0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539056/original/file-20230724-29-atdae0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539056/original/file-20230724-29-atdae0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539056/original/file-20230724-29-atdae0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539056/original/file-20230724-29-atdae0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There are different flavors of laughter, and context matters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/co-workers-laughing-together-at-meeting-royalty-free-image/645973081">Klaus Vedfelt/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Pleasurable, reassuring or threatening</h2>
<p>With the communicative nature of laughter in mind, my colleagues and I proposed that laughter can be boiled down to three basic <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12383">social functions</a> – all under the cloak of playfulness.</p>
<p>First, there’s reward laughter. This type is most clearly linked to laughter’s evolved role as a play signal. It is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00346">pleasurable</a> to hear and produce, thus making a playful interaction even more enjoyable. </p>
<p>Then there’s affiliation laughter. It conveys the same message of harmlessness without delivering a burst of pleasure. People can use it to reassure, appease and soothe. This is the most common laughter in everyday conversations – people <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0310.1993.tb00478.x">punctuate their speech</a> with it to ensure that their intentions aren’t misconstrued. </p>
<p>Finally, there’s dominance laughter. This type turns the nonserious message on its head. By laughing at someone, you are conveying that they are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.01.012">not worth taking seriously</a>. </p>
<p>My colleagues and I have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0183811">identified</a> acoustic properties of laughter that make it sound more rewarding, friendly or dominant. I have also found that people change how their laughter sounds during conversations that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-020-00022-w">emphasize those three social tasks</a>. The changes are subtle because the context – the situation, the people’s relationship, the conversation topic – does a lot to clarify a laugh’s meaning. </p>
<p>There is no such thing as a fake laugh. All laughter serves genuine social functions, helping you navigate complex social interactions. And because you look and sound so silly while doing it, laughter ensures no one takes themselves too seriously.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193279/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrienne Wood receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>Laughter is so fundamental that animals like chimps, rats and dogs share the ability with humans. But in people it serves more serious social functions than just letting others know you’re having fun.Adrienne Wood, Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2060482023-05-26T12:28:31Z2023-05-26T12:28:31ZNot all political comedy is equal – how comics can either depress turnout or activate voters in 2024<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528359/original/file-20230525-22956-3hhbom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=119%2C119%2C4528%2C3143&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former President Donald Trump's many missteps made him an easy target for amateur jokesters.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protester-dressed-in-a-trump-costume-at-washington-square-news-photo/1229152211?adppopup=true">Ron Adar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Biden is old. Trump has weird hair. Biden mangles the English language. Trump barely seems to understand it. </p>
<p>There’s no question that it is easy to make fun of the two top presidential candidates for 2024. </p>
<p>But as I explain in my new book, “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Trump-Was-a-Joke-How-Satire-Made-Sense-of-a-President-Who-Didnt/Mcclennen/p/book/9781032278018">Trump Was a Joke: How Satire Made Sense of a President Who Didn’t</a>,” not all political comedy is equal. </p>
<p>Jokes that focus on physical traits – fat bellies, bald heads, bumbling speech – foster negative candidate views that can exhaust voters, as does mocking scandals, whether it’s the mishandling of classified documents, sexual misconduct or family drama. </p>
<p>In contrast, satire – which centers on faulty logic, abuses of power and flawed thinking – can compel citizens to volunteer, donate to campaigns and vote.</p>
<h2>Averting apathy</h2>
<p>A key factor to watch this election cycle is voter fatigue. </p>
<p>There was <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/01/28/turnout-soared-in-2020-as-nearly-two-thirds-of-eligible-u-s-voters-cast-ballots-for-president/">record turnout</a> during the 2020 election. Nearly two-thirds of eligible voters cast a vote, 7 percentage points higher than in 2016. However, <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/639900087/Yahoonews-Toplines-Crosstabs-20230417">recent polling data</a> suggests that 2024 may be different, with 38% of voters saying they were already exhausted at the prospect of another matchup between Trump and Biden.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2016.12.003">Voter fatigue</a> typically translates into lower voter turnout, and low voter turnout correlates to weaker democratic institutions. </p>
<p>This is where comedy comes in. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2011.577087">Humor can alleviate</a> depression, fear, sadness and other negative emotions.</p>
<p>The catch, though, is that even if humor combats exhaustion, it might replace it with negative views of the candidates and cynicism about the entire democratic system.</p>
<h2>Mocking leads to burnout</h2>
<p>Political comedy is complex and highly varied, but it can be divided roughly into two camps: <a href="https://bigthink.com/articles/its-not-just-a-joke-the-ethics-of-mocking-someone-appearance/">mockery</a> and <a href="https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/what-satire">satire</a>. Mocking comedy tends to negatively affect political participation in two ways. It can create negative views of candidates, and this, in turn, can lead to voter apathy.</p>
<p>Communications professor S. Robert Lichter and political scientists Jody C. Baumgartner and Jonathan S. Morris surveyed years of joke data in <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Politics-Is-a-Joke-How-TV-Comedians-Are-Remaking-Political-Life/Lichter-Baumgartner-Morris/p/book/9780813347172">their 2015 book</a>, “Politics is a Joke!” They concluded that the political humor on late-night television was inherently negative and tended to focus more on scandals than on policy. What’s more, they found that there was a connection between negative jokes and negative public perceptions of candidates.</p>
<p>The catch, though, is that voter apathy will happen only if voters feel burned out by both candidates, because that leads to exhaustion with the system they represent.</p>
<p>During the 2008 election, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin found herself the butt of countless jokes, while then-presidential candidate Barack Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, were largely able to duck the searing critiques of comics.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vSOLz1YBFG0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Tina Fey’s first impression of Sarah Palin aired on ‘Saturday Night Live’ in September 2008.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41345969">Research shows that</a> Tina Fey’s impression of Palin on “Saturday Night Live” as a fool who was ill-equipped for national office changed perceptions of Palin – and, most importantly, were even more likely to negatively affect the views of independents and Republicans.</p>
<p>After Trump was elected in 2016, <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2017/0512/Is-edgier-political-comedy-making-America-worse">some worried</a> that late-night comedy had become too partisan, which could make it less effective and more divisive. </p>
<p>Yet, concerns that late night leans too much to the left – and therefore has a negative effect on politics – may miss the fact that jokes that mock Trump can help remind Democrats that they don’t want him back in office. Similarly, right-wing memes and mockery of Biden – the sort of humor that can be found on <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23440579/comedy-wars-greg-gutfeld-jon-stewart-stephen-colbert-liberal-conservative">Greg Gutfeld’s comedy show on Fox News</a> – can motivate Trump voters to support their candidate. </p>
<p>In the end, it is the jokes that suggest that both candidates are not worth voting for that have the highest risk of depressing turnout.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man in suit sits in chair while grinning." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528366/original/file-20230525-15-y0cn12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528366/original/file-20230525-15-y0cn12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528366/original/file-20230525-15-y0cn12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528366/original/file-20230525-15-y0cn12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528366/original/file-20230525-15-y0cn12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528366/original/file-20230525-15-y0cn12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528366/original/file-20230525-15-y0cn12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some see ‘Gutfeld!’ as a conservative answer to the left-leaning bias of late-night television.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/greg-gutfeld-hosts-fncs-gutfeld-at-fox-news-channel-news-photo/1466195423?adppopup=true">Steven Ferdman/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Satire spurs voter engagement</h2>
<p>In contrast with mocking, negative comedy, satirical comedy uses ironic wit to engage critical thinking about the status quo. This means that there is a marked difference between most late-night comedy and the specific genre of political satire, which can be found on “The Daily Show” and “Last Week Tonight.”</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2014.891133">Research by communication professors Hoon Lee and Nojin Kwak</a> indicated that satirical comedy engages viewers and makes them more interested in being politically active. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqaa041">Another recent study</a> found that humor increases the likelihood to share political information with others and enhances information recall – both of which increase voter engagement. And audiences of political satire <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X05280074">have been shown</a> to have more confidence in their political views and a better understanding of the issues.</p>
<p>Furthermore, satirical comedy creates a community ready to engage and participate in politics. In her 2011 book “<a href="https://iupress.org/9780253222817/satire-and-dissent/">Satire and Dissent</a>,” English professor Amber Day explains that satirical comedy has “an integral community-building function, which is a crucial component of nurturing a political movement.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Porta potties with signs reading 'Joe Biden voting booth.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528363/original/file-20230525-15-t2j71z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528363/original/file-20230525-15-t2j71z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528363/original/file-20230525-15-t2j71z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528363/original/file-20230525-15-t2j71z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528363/original/file-20230525-15-t2j71z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528363/original/file-20230525-15-t2j71z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528363/original/file-20230525-15-t2j71z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joe Biden is targeted with some good old-fashioned toilet humor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/toilets-labels-joe-biden-voting-booth-sit-at-a-trump-news-photo/1229014777?adppopup=true">Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After Trump was elected in 2016, left-wing filmmaker and activist Michael Moore called for Trump’s critics to <a href="https://twitter.com/mmflint/status/828878620563222528?lang=ga">form an army of comedy</a>. He knew from his own work as a satirist and activist that politically engaged comedy can help mobilize communities. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12501">Academic research confirms</a> Moore’s instincts, showing that people who consume satire are more likely to attend rallies, discuss politics, donate to a political party, wear political buttons and vote than viewers of traditional late-night comedy shows.</p>
<p>When actor Kal Penn guest hosted “The Daily Show” in March 2023, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDye3lPbXYg">he did a segment</a> on how the Republican Party is fixated on “woke culture.” He performed a spoof of the hit TV series “House,” in which he tries to diagnose a patient with “woke mind virus,” asking the patient questions like, “Are you pissed off that Mr. Potato Head doesn’t have a penis?”</p>
<p>He then jokingly explains that being woke “is the greatest threat facing civilization” – a position held by many on the right, but one that becomes especially absurd in the context of Penn’s skit. </p>
<p>These kinds of bits have the potential to help the young voting demographic watching these clips engage with the election and vote. They also help frame political positions in ways that make the stakes of the next election easy to grasp. </p>
<p>So, as an exhausted electorate heads into the 2024 election, the question won’t be whether there will be political comedy – it will be whether it mocks the country’s democratic system or helps make it stronger.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206048/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sophia A. McClennen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While derision and mockery permeate airwaves and social media feeds, satire holds the key to creating a more informed, engaged electorate.Sophia A. McClennen, Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1920532022-10-25T12:29:40Z2022-10-25T12:29:40ZThe creepy clown emerged from the crass and bawdy circuses of the 19th century<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491176/original/file-20221023-56557-sw642f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=327%2C635%2C6299%2C4947&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Clowns in American circuses were once considered a form of adult entertainment.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/evil-clown-royalty-free-image/471874489?phrase=circus clown vintage&adppopup=true">ArtMarie/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The scary clown has become a horror staple. </p>
<p>Featuring Art the Clown as the main villain, Damien Leone’s film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10403420/">Terrifier 2</a>” is so gruesome that there are reports of viewers <a href="https://ew.com/movies/terrifier-2-fainting-vomiting-art-the-clown/">vomiting and passing out</a> in the theater. And every Halloween, you’ll see vicious clowns <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L4-qRaLilY">stalking haunted house attractions</a> or trick-or-treaters dressed as <a href="https://www.partycity.com/group-costumes-pennywise">Pennywise</a>, the evil clown from Stephen King’s “It.”</p>
<p>It can be hard to imagine a time when clowns were regularly invited to children’s birthday parties and hospital wards – not to terrorize, but to delight and entertain. For much of the 20th century, this was the <a href="https://festival.si.edu/blog/american-clowns-performance-history-and-cliche">standard role of the clown</a>. </p>
<p>However, clowns have always had a dark side. Before the 20th century, clowns in American circuses were largely considered a form of adult entertainment. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://womenalsoknowhistory.com/individual-scholar-page/?pdb=2865">my own research</a> on the history of the 19th-century circus, I spend a lot of time in archives where I regularly come across vintage photos of clowns. </p>
<p>Now, I don’t consider myself afraid of clowns. In fact, I always try to remind folks that today’s clowns are <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/yw3g3b/everything-you-learn-in-clown-college">serious artists with an enormous amount of training</a> in their craft. But even I have to admit that the clowns I come across from old circuses give me the heebie-jeebies.</p>
<h2>Drunken, lewd clowns in drag</h2>
<p>For most of the 19th century, circuses were relatively small, one-ring events where audiences could hear performers speak. </p>
<p>These shows were <a href="https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2011/septemberoctober/statement/the-circus-you-never-knew">rowdy affairs</a> in which audiences felt free to yell, boo and hiss at performers. Typically, clowns would engage in banter with the stoic ringmaster, who was often the target for the clowns’ pranks. Borrowing comedic traditions from the <a href="https://library.brown.edu/cds/sheetmusic/afam/minstrelsy.html">blackface minstrel show</a>, circus clowns used puns, non sequiturs and exaggerated burlesque humor. </p>
<p>One very popular clown act, which <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/76/76-h/76-h.htm">Mark Twain depicted</a> in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” involved a performer disguised as a drunken circus patron who shocked the audience by entering the ring and clumsily attempting to ride one of the show’s horses before dramatically revealing himself to be part of the show. Famous 19th-century clown Dan Rice was <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/famous-american-clown-was-probably-model-uncle-sam-180961852/">known for including local gossip and political commentary</a> in his performances and impersonating prominent figures in each town he visited.</p>
<p>The jokes they told were often misogynistic and full of sexual double-entendres, which wasn’t a problem because circus audiences at this time were mostly adult and male. Back then, circuses were a <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807853993/the-circus-age/">stigmatized form of entertainment</a> in the U.S., considered disreputable for their association with gambling, grift, scantily clad female performers, profanity and alcohol. Church leaders regularly warned their congregations not to attend the circus. Some states even had <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3787111">laws banning circuses altogether</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491177/original/file-20221023-26-w39tra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A circus poster featuring clowns engaged in various hijinks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491177/original/file-20221023-26-w39tra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491177/original/file-20221023-26-w39tra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491177/original/file-20221023-26-w39tra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491177/original/file-20221023-26-w39tra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491177/original/file-20221023-26-w39tra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491177/original/file-20221023-26-w39tra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491177/original/file-20221023-26-w39tra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Clowns in the 19th century were often sinister, vulgar characters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/ppmsca/55100/55150v.jpg">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Clowns played a part in the circus’ seedy reputation. </p>
<p>Showman <a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820344379/the-big-tent/">P.T. Barnum noted</a> that part of the appeal of the circuses “consisted of the clown’s vulgar jests, emphasized with still more vulgar and suggestive gestures.” Clowns also subverted gender norms, with many appearing in drag, often exaggerating the female figure with cartoonishly big fake breasts.</p>
<p>In the early 19th century, some circuses also featured a separate tent that contained a “cooch show.” Male patrons were invited, for a fee, to watch women dance and strip. </p>
<p>Circus historian <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807853993/the-circus-age/">Janet Davis notes</a> that some of these performances included clowns in drag “playing gender-bending pranks on dumbfounded men who expected to see nude women.” In a shocking revelation, Davis also notes that at some cooch show performances, gay clowns had sexual encounters with male audience members “during and after anonymously crowded scenes.”</p>
<p>These clowns, suffice it to say, weren’t for kids.</p>
<h2>Clowns clean up their act</h2>
<p>It wasn’t really until the 1880s and 1890s, when entertainment impresarios like <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-selected-letters-of-p-t-barnum/9780231054126">Barnum made efforts to “clean up”</a> the circus to draw in a larger audience, that clowns truly became associated with children.</p>
<p>After circuses started traveling by railroad, they could carry more equipment, allowing them to expand from one ring to three. Audiences could no longer hear performers, so the clown became a pantomime comedian, eliminating any potentially vulgar or suggestive language. </p>
<p>Circus owners, aiming to make as much money as possible, tried to court a broader audience, including women and children. That necessitated the removal of any scandalous acts and strict monitoring of their employees’ behavior.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491175/original/file-20221023-19-skgs8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Circus advertisement featuring drawings of clowns and animals." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491175/original/file-20221023-19-skgs8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491175/original/file-20221023-19-skgs8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491175/original/file-20221023-19-skgs8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491175/original/file-20221023-19-skgs8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491175/original/file-20221023-19-skgs8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491175/original/file-20221023-19-skgs8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491175/original/file-20221023-19-skgs8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">At the directive of P.T. Barnum, clowns became palatable to families with young kids.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/poster-advertising-p-t-barnums-circus-greatest-show-on-news-photo/517292546?phrase=circus%20clown&adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The shows with the most staying power, like Barnum & Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth, were <a href="https://shop.wisconsinhistory.org/ringlingville-usa-paperback-edition">known as “Sunday school” shows</a>, free of any objectionable content. They successfully portrayed themselves as the purveyors of good, clean fun.</p>
<p>Clowns played a role in this transformation. With now-silent acts focused on physical comedy, their performances were easy for children to understand. Clowns remained tricksters, but their slapstick comedy was seen as all in good fun.</p>
<p>This had a lasting effect. Clowns entertained families at the circus, and, as entertainment moved to film and television, child-friendly clowns followed there too. Clowns became staples of children’s entertainment in the 20th century. A popular television program featuring <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0254011/">Bozo the Clown</a> ran for 40 years, from 1960 to 2001. Beginning in the 1980s, clowns became <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(06)69919-4/fulltext">regular visitors to children’s hospitals</a> to cheer up young patients. And companies <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ronald-mcdonald-facts-2014-3">like McDonald’s</a> used clowns as mascots to make their brands appealing to children. </p>
<p>But in the 21st century, there’s been a sharp turnaround. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7189401.stm">A 2008 study</a> concluded that “clowns are universally disliked” by children today. Some point to clown-turned-serial killer <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment-and-culture/2021/3/19/22338876/john-wayne-gacy-serial-killer-house-chicago-evidence-art-paintings-devil-disguise-peacock">John Wayne Gacy</a> as the turning point, while others may blame Stephen King’s “It” for yoking clowns to horror.</p>
<p>Upon examining the history of the American circus, it almost seems as if the period in the 20th century when clowns were beloved by children deviated from the norm. Today’s scary clowns are not a divergence from tradition, but a return to it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192053/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeline Steiner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Today’s creepy clowns are not a divergence from tradition, but a return to it.Madeline Steiner, Postdoctoral Fellow of History, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1856672022-06-29T20:29:14Z2022-06-29T20:29:14ZLet’s spare a few words for ‘Silent Cal’ Coolidge on July 4, his 150th birthday<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471452/original/file-20220628-14646-ondh6m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Calvin Coolidge stands with members of a nonprofit group called the Daughters of 1812.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/president-calvin-coolidge-stands-with-members-of-a-group-called-the-picture-id640478979?s=2048x2048"> Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A woman sitting next to President Calvin Coolidge at a dinner party once told him she had made a bet that she could get him to say more than two words. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/calvin-coolidge/">You lose</a>,” replied Coolidge, who served as president from 1923 until 1929.</p>
<p>During a White House recital, a nervous opera singer foundered through a performance before Coolidge. Someone asked him what he thought of the singer’s execution. “<a href="https://whatculture.com/offbeat/12-most-impressive-retorts-in-history?page=3">I’m all for it,” he said</a>. </p>
<p>Coolidge was so taciturn that he was known as “Silent Cal.” </p>
<p>Three U.S. presidents – all of them Founding Fathers, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe – <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/blog/three-presidents-die-on-july-4th-just-a-coincidence">died on July 4.</a></p>
<p>Only one was <a href="https://biography.yourdictionary.com/articles/who-is-the-only-u-s-president-born-on-july-4.html">born on July 4</a>. </p>
<p>Calvin Coolidge <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/calvin-coolidge/">was born</a> in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, 150 years ago, on July 4, 1872. He died in January 1933. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471453/original/file-20220628-14748-ptv14g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo depicts a man in a topcoat and hat gazing at a truck bearing images of two men and the words 'Two common sense Americans.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471453/original/file-20220628-14748-ptv14g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471453/original/file-20220628-14748-ptv14g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471453/original/file-20220628-14748-ptv14g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471453/original/file-20220628-14748-ptv14g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471453/original/file-20220628-14748-ptv14g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471453/original/file-20220628-14748-ptv14g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471453/original/file-20220628-14748-ptv14g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Calvin Coolidge inspects a campaign truck painted with images of himself and his running mate, Charles G. Dawes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/calvin-coolidge-inspects-a-campaign-truck-painted-with-images-of-his-picture-id104560171?s=2048x2048">FPG/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Getting to know Coolidge</h2>
<p>Fireworks rarely followed Coolidge during his political career. </p>
<p>Coolidge was balding, 5-foot-9 with a slight build, and he could walk into an empty room and blend in. He rarely smiled or changed expression. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, described Coolidge’s dour expression by saying <a href="https://libquotes.com/alice-roosevelt-longworth/quote/lbn2b5z">he looked as if</a> “he had been <a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=weaned%20on%20a%20pickle">weaned on a pickle</a>.”</p>
<p>Such a description would not have offended Coolidge. “I think the American public wants a solemn ass as a president,” <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2010643539/">he said</a>, “and I think I’ll go along with them.” </p>
<h2>Best known for a laugh or two</h2>
<p>The 30th president remains a footnote in the history of U.S. presidents. Coolidge was preceded in the White House by Warren Harding, whose administration was one of <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-schiller-harding-trump-20180802-story.html">the most corrupt in U.S. history</a>. Coolidge was succeeded by Herbert Hoover, who was in office when the country fell into the throes of the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/great-depression-history">Great Depression</a>, which began with the crash of the stock market in October 1929, several months after Hoover took office. </p>
<p>Coolidge is probably best known for his contributions to books of political humor. I included him in a 2020 book I edited, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Art-Political-Putdown-Comebacks-Politicians/dp/1452183856">The Art of the Political Putdown: The Greatest Comebacks, Ripostes, and Retorts in History</a>.”</p>
<p>Coolidge, a Republican who believed in <a href="https://coolidgefoundation.org/resources/essays-papers-addresses-17/">small government, low taxes</a>, morality, thrift and tradition, rose quickly – but quietly – in Massachusetts politics, where he became <a href="https://malegislature.gov/VirtualTour/Artifact/90">president of the state Senate in 1914</a>. While serving in this capacity, two senators got into a bitter exchange of words in which one told the other to go to hell. The recipient of the remark demanded that Coolidge take his side. “I’ve looked up the law, Senator,” Coolidge told him, “and <a href="https://coolidgefoundation.org/resources/essays-papers-addresses-17/">you don’t have to go</a>.”</p>
<p>Coolidge was elected <a href="https://malegislature.gov/VirtualTour/Artifact/90">governor of Massachusetts in 1919</a>. He soon earned a national reputation for being decisive by firing striking police officers in Boston and ordering the state militia to bring calm to the city after the strike had left its inhabitants vulnerable to violent mobs in September 1919. </p>
<p>Warren Harding, the Republican presidential nominee in 1920, chose Coolidge as his running mate. Harding and Coolidge won the election. Coolidge then became president when Harding died in 1923. </p>
<p>Early in his term, in December 1923, Coolidge <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/calvin-coolidge/">spoke to Congress</a> and pressed for isolation in U.S. foreign policy and tax cuts. He believed <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2011/11/calvin-coolidge-why-are-republicans-so-obsessed-with-him.html">in small government</a> and also benefited from the country’s strong economic position in the early 1920s. This helped his popularity rise, and he got more than <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/calvin-coolidge/">54% of the popular vote</a> in the 1924 election.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471459/original/file-20220628-14286-ejcf8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Calvin Coolidge eats ice cream off a plate next to his wife, in front of a group of men dressed formally in suits and a Navy uniform in this black and white photo" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471459/original/file-20220628-14286-ejcf8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471459/original/file-20220628-14286-ejcf8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471459/original/file-20220628-14286-ejcf8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471459/original/file-20220628-14286-ejcf8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471459/original/file-20220628-14286-ejcf8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471459/original/file-20220628-14286-ejcf8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471459/original/file-20220628-14286-ejcf8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Calvin Coolidge and his wife, Grace Goodhue Coolidge, eat ice cream at a garden party for veterans at the White House in an undated photo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/president-and-mrs-coolidge-eat-ice-cream-at-a-garden-party-for-at-picture-id640491357?s=2048x2048">Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>A genius for inactivity</h2>
<p>If it was Coolidge’s decisive action that brought him to national attention, it was his inaction as president that defined his presidency and won him the admiration of political conservatives. </p>
<p>Newspaper columnist <a href="https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2010/06/the-anti-propaganda-of-calvin-coolidge/">Walter Lippmann wrote</a> this about Coolidge in 1926: “Mr. Coolidge’s genius for inactivity is developed to a very high point. It is a grim, determined, alert inactivity, which keeps Mr. Coolidge occupied constantly.”</p>
<p><a href="https://css.cua.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Arnold-Calvin-Coolidge-Classical-Statesman-1.pdf">Historians, however, praise Coolidge</a> for presiding over low inflation, low unemployment and budget surpluses during every year of his presidency. He kept the country at peace and restored confidence in the government after the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Warren-G-Harding/Scandals">scandal-plagued Harding years</a>. </p>
<p>But being president and taking daily naps still apparently left Coolidge with a lot of free time. </p>
<p>Coolidge reportedly liked to <a href="https://nebushumor.wordpress.com/2020/03/26/stray-historical-thoughts-calvin-coolidge-edition/">press the alarm buttons</a> in the Oval Office, and when the Secret Service agents ran into the office to see what was wrong, he would be hiding.</p>
<p>Coolidge decided not to run for reelection in 1928. When reporters asked him why, he answered with characteristic succinctness. “<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2012/05/01/151762298/the-funniest-presidents-in-history">Because there’s no chance for advancement</a>,” he said.</p>
<p>If Coolidge had been reelected, he would have suffered Hoover’s fate of being president during the Depression. His political timing was as good as his comic timing. </p>
<p>Social critic H.L. Mencken once speculated on how Coolidge would have responded to the collapse of the stock market and the collapse of the nation’s economy. </p>
<p>“He would have responded to bad times precisely as he responded to good ones – that is, by pulling down the blinds, stretching his legs upon his desk, and snoozing away the lazy afternoons,” Mencken wrote. And yet the iconoclastic Mencken had this begrudging praise for Coolidge. “There were no thrills while he reigned, but neither were there any headaches. He had no ideas, <a href="http://www.perno.com/amer/docs/H%20L%20Mencken%20on%20Calvin%20Coolidge.htm">and he was not a nuisance</a>.”</p>
<p>When American writer Dorothy Parker, who, like Coolidge, could say much with few words, learned that the former president had died in 1933, she replied, “<a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/04/silent/">How could they tell</a>?”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185667/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>US President Calvin Coolidge hasn’t gone down in history for his triumphs or failures as president during the 1920s – but his dry sense of humor carries on.Chris Lamb, Professor of Journalism, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1705182021-11-02T12:26:47Z2021-11-02T12:26:47ZGo ahead, enjoy your memes – they really do help ease pandemic stress<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429639/original/file-20211101-17-lutbi3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=843%2C168%2C4271%2C3236&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A mini break with a humorous meme can take the momentary edge off during a stressful time.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/mixed-race-nurse-using-cell-phone-in-hospital-royalty-free-image/606353095">JGI/Tom Grill</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Zoom meeting after Zoom meeting, while trying to feed, entertain and beg-to-sleep an infant whose day care had closed, I needed a break but couldn’t really take one in April of 2020.</p>
<p>Enter memes. Between work, moving the laundry and taking care of my own dogs, I could sneak a peak at Instagram and chuckle at <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/05/01/funny-dogs-coronavirus-quarantine-moos-ebof-pkg.cnn">images of very excited pups</a>, psyched that their humans were now home all day, every day. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zuTHbzoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I study media processes and effects</a>, which is the psychology of how media messages can affect you. As the pandemic dragged on, I got more and more interested in how people were using social media – and memes featuring cute and funny pics, in particular – as a way to think and communicate with others about life during a global pandemic.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429591/original/file-20211101-19-ivtutt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="gratified looking kid clenches fist" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429591/original/file-20211101-19-ivtutt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429591/original/file-20211101-19-ivtutt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429591/original/file-20211101-19-ivtutt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429591/original/file-20211101-19-ivtutt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429591/original/file-20211101-19-ivtutt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429591/original/file-20211101-19-ivtutt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429591/original/file-20211101-19-ivtutt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The popular ‘Success Kid’ meme repurposed with a pandemic message.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://imgflip.com/i/4k1taa">imgflip</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/richard-dawkins-memes">Memes are little units of culture</a> that spread from one person to the next. They have existed since long before the birth of the internet, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcmc/article/18/3/362/4067545?login=true">but digital technology adds new dimensions</a>, given the ease of creating, editing and sharing memes online. Popular internet memes often develop their own names, such as “<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/distracted-boyfriend-meme-photographer-interview/">Distracted Boyfriend</a>,” “<a href="https://www.thefader.com/2018/04/03/squat-and-squint-meme-woman">Squinting Woman</a>” and “<a href="https://stacker.com/stories/2650/50-famous-memes-and-what-they-mean">Handshakes</a>.”</p>
<p>I partnered with colleagues <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Vj2kbFkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Robin Nabi</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bY-MeC0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Nicholas Eng</a> to investigate the potential effect of mini meme breaks on people’s <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2020/report">pandemic stress and emotions</a>. </p>
<h2>A meme experiment</h2>
<p>The first step in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000371">our research</a> was combing through hundreds of real memes we found in the wild on social media. We asked participants to rate them for how funny and cute they were, as well as how authentic they seemed as popular internet memes.</p>
<p>Using that data, we developed two pools of memes using the same images: One set had captions about COVID-19 and another set had captions unrelated to COVID-19. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1243507031480373248"}"></div></p>
<p>In our main study, we recruited nearly 800 participants to view a series of images using online survey software. One group saw the COVID-19 memes, while a second group saw the memes not about COVID-19. A third group saw image-free plain text that summarized the general idea of the memes, but was not in the least bit funny.</p>
<p>Then, no matter which set of content our participants saw, everyone next answered questions about how they felt in that moment. We asked particularly about how they felt about COVID-19 and their ability to cope with pandemic stress.</p>
<h2>Memes as mood boosters</h2>
<p>People who viewed just three memes rated themselves on a 1-7 scale as calmer, more content and more amused compared with people who didn’t see the memes. For instance, people who saw memes scored, on average, a 4.71 on our positive emotions scale, compared with an average of 3.85 for those who did not see a meme. In short, viewing a few cute or funny memes – regardless of their topic – provided a quick boost of positive emotion for many people. </p>
<iframe id="reddit-embed" src="https://www.redditmedia.com/r/memes/comments/i0if7b/me_when_i_order_a_pizza_during_the_pandemic/?ref_source=embed&ref=share&embed=true" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups" style="border: none;" height="431" width="100%" scrolling="no"></iframe>
<p>Moreover, we found that participants who rated themselves higher on the positive emotion scale were also more likely to feel confident in their ability to handle the stress associated with living through a global pandemic. There seems to be value in reframing something that is constantly stressful and scary into a more approachable topic by using humor.</p>
<p>The topic of the memes mattered. People who viewed memes about COVID-19 rated themselves as less stressed about life during a global pandemic. Those who saw COVID-19-related memes also reported thinking more deeply about the memes and their meaning – what media psychologists call “<a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/information-processing.html">information processing</a>.” More information processing was related to more confidence in their abilities to handle pandemic-related stress. It’s possible that exerting more effort thinking about the topic could lead to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.44.9.1175">mentally rehearsing ways to cope</a> with the related stress, instead of avoiding it entirely. </p>
<p>This work adds to a growing body of research demonstrating that people use media to help them deal with stress. For example, my collaborator Robin Nabi has found <a href="https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105/a000223">in previous work</a> that using media – whether television, books or social media – is one of the top strategies for managing stress. In her surveys of college students and breast cancer patients, people who choose media for stress management reported it as an effective way to cope. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B-IE5sUFeaf","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Together, these studies suggest that media use is not always <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.613368">the stress-inducing experience</a> or <a href="https://www.wired.com/insights/2015/02/is-social-media-a-waste-of-time/">waste of time</a> that it is sometimes portrayed to be. Instead, it likely depends on the specific type of media message you are consuming, the type of person you are and the situation in which you are consuming it.</p>
<p>The pandemic, with its accompanying restrictions on travel, work and socializing, has been <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2021/02/adults-stress-pandemic">an uncommonly stressful time</a>. Taking a break to view and share bits of cute or funny pop culture commentary in the form of COVID-19-related memes can be a quick and easy way to connect with others and address pandemic stress head on through laughter.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Myrick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Social media during the pandemic is not all doom scrolling and despair. Lighter memes have psychological benefits.Jessica Myrick, Professor of Media Studies, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1668672021-09-24T12:35:33Z2021-09-24T12:35:33ZHow conservative comic Greg Gutfeld overtook Stephen Colbert in ratings to become the most popular late-night TV host<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422032/original/file-20210920-47336-1rxw8xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C206%2C2973%2C2187&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In August 2021, comedian Greg Gutfeld's weeknight talk show 'Gutfeld!' became the highest-rated late-night talk show in the U.S.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/greg-gutfeld-performs-as-part-of-the-tailgate-series-news-photo/1229019352?adppopup=true">Gary Miller/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In August 2021, Fox News’ “Gutfeld!,” a late-night comedy-talk show hosted by right-wing pundit Greg Gutfeld, overtook “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/gutfeld-ratings-win-colbert/">in overall ratings</a>.</p>
<p>Surprised?</p>
<p>We weren’t. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MuSNiy4AAAAJ&hl=en">As media and</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=U2lRoo4AAAAJ&hl=en">comedy scholars</a>, <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520382138/thats-not-funny">we’ve been tracking the recent ascension of right-wing comedy</a>, which has flourished thanks to shifts in media industry economics and political ideologies.</p>
<p>Gutfeld’s success might come as a shock because it punctures long-standing assumptions about what comedy is, who can produce it and who will enjoy it. These prejudices obscure an important truth: Right-wing comedy has become both a viable business strategy and a crucial element of conservative politics.</p>
<p>Yes, “Gutfeld!” is on Fox News, the cable channel known for partisan, right-wing political perspectives and news commentary. But it has all the markers of late-night comedy, too. The opening monologues are filled with <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2014/02/06/showbiz/tv/jay-leno-best-quotes/index.html">Jay Leno-like punchlines</a> that draw laughs from the studio audience, and the interviews with conservative politicians, pundits and other comedians frequently center on “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/21/owning-the-libs-history-trump-politics-pop-culture-477203">owning the libs</a>” with one-liners.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1C3njWq88mE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The opening monologue of the Sept. 17, 2021, episode of ‘Gutfeld!’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then, of course, there are the silly “Saturday Night Live”-like sketches. One recent episode broke from a panel discussion on cancel culture in order to imagine what a politically correct James Bond would look like. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmuhuXH4ZUA">In the prerecorded bit</a>, a crudely costumed actor chases down a thief and pulls a banana on him instead of a gun. Then “Bond” heads to a bar to order a latte – a soy latte – instead of a martini. You get the idea. </p>
<p>Regardless of whether or not this comedy is to your taste, it’s working for Gutfeld and his audience.</p>
<h2>Hiding in plain sight</h2>
<p>Despite its growing prominence, right-wing comedy remains largely invisible in both mainstream and scholarly discussions of media and humor. In part, this has happened because social media algorithms <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1329334">don’t send users jokes likely to challenge or offend their political sensibilities</a>.</p>
<p>There are also intellectual trends that make it possible for Greg Gutfeld to spend two decades sneaking up on the Colberts of the world. Comedy theorists tend to diminish, or at least distinguish, right-wing humor from what they deem to be more authentic, liberal humor. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110848717.1/html">Philosopher Umberto Eco</a>, for example, demotes joking that fails to critique power structures to the status of mere “carnival.”</p>
<p><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/odd-one">Others</a> <a href="https://www.routledge.com/On-Humour/Critchley/p/book/9780415251211">make similar arguments</a>, saying “true” liberal comedy is more likely to “punch up,” while dismissing conservative comedy as mere mockery that reaffirms unjust systems of power.</p>
<p>This effort to use ideology in order to categorize comedy can lead audiences, political analysts and even comedians to downplay or outright dismiss right-wing humor.</p>
<p>But even if conservative comedy doesn’t fit liberals’ tastes, it’s still comedy. And it’s increasingly becoming a feature of right-wing politics. Even “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah noted how <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/trevor-noah-compares-trump-stand-up-comedian-984690/">former president Donald Trump’s performances at rallies mirrored those of stand-up comedians</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190913083.001.0001/oso-9780190913083">Some studies</a> go as far as to identify innate, psychological differences that explain why liberals are more likely to laugh while conservatives are more prone to seethe. This research, often inspired by the success of liberal satirists such as Colbert, Jon Stewart and Samantha Bee, certainly provides intriguing looks into the relationship between politics, psychology and sense of humor. They are, without question, pleasing to the liberal reader’s ego. </p>
<p>They do not, however, square with the way Trump changed the country’s politics and culture.</p>
<p>The political comedy of the early 2000s, with its relatively big tent media companies and pre-Barack Obama politics, tended to joke primarily in the political direction of the largest audience segment interested in satire at that moment. “The Colbert Report” and “The Daily Show” became hugely successful during the years of president George W. Bush and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-07-22/the-daily-show-trevor-noah-jon-stewart-craig-kilborn-25th-anniversary-influence">inspired countless imitators</a>, crowding the media marketplace for liberal laughs.</p>
<p>However, comedy’s perceived political bias at the time was more likely driven by specific economic circumstances, which have now radically changed.</p>
<p>Since then, further <a href="https://theathletic.com/2799058/2021/08/31/sports-tv-cable-streaming-broadcast-mess/">audience fragmentation</a>, along with the proliferation of podcasts and social media platforms, has made it possible for right-wing comedians like YouTuber <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-12/youtube-can-t-win-with-steven-crowder">Steven Crowder</a> to rise to prominence beyond conventional cable television. And it’s forced networks like Fox News <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2021.0046">to take comedy seriously</a>. </p>
<p>On one level, Gutfeld succeeds today because he has virtually no competition from fellow conservatives in the late-night television comedy space. On another, he thrives because the current media industry moment is built not for a big tent of all viewers, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476415577212">but for audiences who share</a> specific demographic, psychographic and political traits.</p>
<p>In this environment, the partisanization of comedy to the right was perhaps inevitable.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man in blue sweater speaking at a podium." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422455/original/file-20210921-13-1aa0w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422455/original/file-20210921-13-1aa0w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422455/original/file-20210921-13-1aa0w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422455/original/file-20210921-13-1aa0w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422455/original/file-20210921-13-1aa0w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422455/original/file-20210921-13-1aa0w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422455/original/file-20210921-13-1aa0w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Conservative comedian Steven Crowder runs a popular YouTube channel, with over 5 million subscribers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/8571373008/">Gage Skidmore/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What’s in a definition?</h2>
<p>If you find comedians such as Gutfeld unfunny or, more to the point, offensive, you may ask whether he should be granted the honorific of comedian. </p>
<p>Failing to do so, we argue, obscures the ways in which the right-wing political world uses comedy as a recruiting tool and unifying force. Republican politics <a href="http://research.policyarchive.org/11928.pdf">have long been built upon an uneasy fusion</a> that aims to bind together libertarian and traditionalist values, despite their apparent contradictions. The crassness of Trumpism has only added to this conceptual tension.</p>
<p>Right-wing comedy, we argue, serves to iron out, or at least paper over, such philosophical divides.</p>
<p>In addition to his show’s success, Gutfeld today resides at the center of a growing complex of comedians reflecting elements of right-wing worldviews, ranging from libertarian, libertine podcasts like “The Joe Rogan Experience” to Christian satire websites like <a href="https://babylonbee.com/">The Babylon Bee</a> to Proud Boys founder and Gutfeld-protégée <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/161200/alt-right-comedy-gavin-mcinnes-problem">Gavin McInnes</a>. While the creators of this content don’t always agree on specific issues, they are united in their motivations to hilariously own the libs. They strategically <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTa2bXNl0FA">cross-promote one another</a>, while social media algorithms urge fans of one program to check out other flavors of right-wing comedy. </p>
<p>Gutfeld may be the biggest star, but a range of right-wing comedians are coming together in a constellation that allows young, right-wing-curious consumers to find a place in the universe of American conservative media and politics. The value, or danger, of right-wing comedy is a matter of political opinion. </p>
<p>Its reality, however, is no joke.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Critics have long pooh-poohed conservative comics. But in today’s fragmented media environment, right-wing comedy has become both a moneymaker and a force in politics.Nick Marx, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, Colorado State UniversityMatt Sienkiewicz, Associate Professor of Communication and International Studies, Boston CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1596822021-05-20T12:24:41Z2021-05-20T12:24:41ZThe sex scene isn’t disappearing – it’s simply shifting from clichéd fantasy to messy reality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398246/original/file-20210502-18-k0vzqv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C2%2C1916%2C1115&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Today's sex scenes are, first and foremost, fun.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lids Bierenday </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Writing during what seems – in retrospect – to have been the wildly carefree summer of 2019, Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/sex-is-disappearing-from-the-big-screen-and-its-making-movies-less-pleasurable/2019/06/06/37848090-82ed-11e9-933d-7501070ee669_story.html">film critic Ann Hornaday</a> lamented that “sex is disappearing from the big screen.” </p>
<p>Fast forward two years, and, improbably enough, it’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/opinion/sunday/sex-romance-movies.html">conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat</a> who’s pleading for “sex and romance [to] make a comeback at the movies.” </p>
<p>Both commentators blame this sexual stagnation on what they see as an abstinence-only policy in Hollywood, fueled by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/sexual-misconduct-in-film-and-tv-how-intimacy-coordination-can-help-to-address-the-historic-issue-160489">Weinstein effect</a> on one hand and family-friendly franchise fever on the other, where libidinal energy has been sublimated into buff-yet-sexless superheroes. To Hornaday and Douthat, sexual prudence seems to be tipping into prudery. </p>
<p>Hornaday and Douthat are correct that the traditional sex scene – a tasteful “pas de deux” between glossy stars, typically straight and vanilla, presented as a spectacle for our visual pleasure – has become increasingly rare. </p>
<p>But after devoting hours to watching sex scenes as research for my book “<a href="https://iupress.org/9780253052124/provociauteurs-iand-provocations/">Provocauteurs and Provocations: Selling Sex in 21st Century Media</a>,” I can reassure the randy and romantic among us that sex onscreen isn’t disappearing. Far from it.</p>
<p>Instead, over the last decade, it’s simply changed – and mostly for the better.</p>
<h2>What’s hot: honesty and humor</h2>
<p>Today’s sex scenes are first and foremost fun – as ideally sex itself should be – and emphasize the truthful over the tasteful.</p>
<p>In some cases, you’ll see likable, relatable characters revealing perverse predilections, such as the all-consuming hots that Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s protagonist in the TV series “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5687612/">Fleabag</a>” has for a clergyman she dubs “Hot Priest.” Or when Kathryn Hahn’s character in Joey Soloway’s directorial debut “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2312890/">Afternoon Delight</a>” drunkenly confesses to her gal pals that she’s “masturbated to that scene for two decades.” The scene she’s describing? The gang rape from “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094608/">The Accused</a>.” What’s more, her friends agree it’s hot. </p>
<p>Other moments make for embarrassing yet endearing waypoints en route to real intimacy. In Desiree Akhavan’s “<a href="https://www.bustle.com/p/why-hulus-the-bisexual-is-the-realest-show-about-relationships-out-there-13144893">The Bisexual</a>,” a bout of postcoital queefing cracks up a couple and dispels the awkwardness of their morning after. And in a carnal scene from Michaela Coel’s “<a href="https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/xg8wm4/michaela-coel-tampon-scene-ita-obrien-interview">I May Destroy You</a>,” neither sanitary products nor a blood clot manages to kill the moment. It’s the latest woman-created show – joining “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1723816/">Girls</a>”, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5770786/">GLOW</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5478730/">I Love Dick</a>” – to shatter the taboo against mentioning, much less showing, menstruation during sex. </p>
<p>Other filmmakers bulldoze the boundaries of which bodies the culture industry deems fit to depict. For this we have “Girls” creator Lena Dunham largely to thank; the actress famously insisted on baring all in the face of <a href="https://jezebel.com/what-kind-of-guy-does-a-girl-who-looks-like-lena-dunham-5983437">brutal fat shaming</a> and portraying her show’s privileged protagonists’ sexual escapades in all their cringe-inducing candor.</p>
<p>Alongside defying the opposition and outrage meted out to artworks or artists deemed obscene or unattractive, some filmmakers have sought to redefine the sex scene altogether. </p>
<p>In my view, some of the most arousing sex scenes put to celluloid are ones where clothing stays put and verbal foreplay takes center stage. In “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svLmIglBV74">Laurel Canyon</a>” and “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_8fbYOtG90">Take This Waltz</a>” – again, works created by women – would-be philanderers engage in dirty talk as a means to sublimate their desire, but in such smoldering terms as to arouse the viewer.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C_8fbYOtG90?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Sexually charged dialogue permeates ‘Take This Waltz.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Romcom’s morning after</h2>
<p>While not clinching my case that the sex scene is flourishing, these films repudiate Douthat’s assertion that there’s “a cultural void where romance used to be.” </p>
<p>It’s all part of redefining what romance looks like on screen. </p>
<p>And I don’t mean merely making the couplings and casting more inclusive: “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3104988/">Crazy Rich Asians</a>” relies on the same Cinderella-style premise as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100405/">Pretty Woman</a>.” I’m talking about the sunsets-and-soulmates wish fulfillment fantasies that, for decades, served as the template for most romantic comedies: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. </p>
<p>As my new edited collection “<a href="https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/after-happily-ever-after">After ‘Happily Ever After’:
Romantic Comedy in the Post-Romantic Age</a>” points out, recent films like “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3077108/">Appropriate Behavior</a>,” “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2209418/">Before Midnight</a>,” “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1133989/">Medicine for Melancholy</a>” and the Netflix series “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4061080/">Love</a>” rejuvenate the romantic comedy genre by actually addressing the realities and complexities of intimacy. </p>
<p>In these works, issues of coming out, growing old, being Black and staying sober are what drive the plots – and true love doesn’t conquer all. </p>
<h2>Queering the scene</h2>
<p>Regrettably, outside of art cinema, queer male characters rarely get naked or have sex onscreen. But given that straight sex on screen got a huge head start on queer sex, it’s no surprise that same-sex couples aren’t getting it on with gusto at the multiplex. </p>
<p>Queer male intimacy more often finds mainstream success by inviting viewers to relish unrequited romance in films like “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1714210/">Weekend</a>,” “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4975722/">Moonlight</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5635086/">God’s Own Country</a>.” Even films focused on queer women are getting in on the swoon-worthiness of not getting off, a phenomenon mocked by Saturday Night Live’s recent parody “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgaLlP0xmqE">Lesbian Period Drama</a>.”</p>
<p>In some cases, queer filmmakers have stretched the boundaries of the sex scene by exchanging explicit sex acts for erotic insinuation, as with the suggestive shots of one woman’s hand penetrating the other’s armpit in Céline Sciamma’s “<a href="https://theconversation.com/where-theres-smoke-seeing-sex-in-portrait-of-a-lady-on-fire-132184">Portrait of a Lady on Fire</a>,” or the infamous scene of Armie Hammer’s character slurping cum from a hollowed-out peach in “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5726616/">Call Me by Your Name</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Fingers press against a peach." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401899/original/file-20210520-19-x4atja.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401899/original/file-20210520-19-x4atja.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401899/original/file-20210520-19-x4atja.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401899/original/file-20210520-19-x4atja.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401899/original/file-20210520-19-x4atja.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401899/original/file-20210520-19-x4atja.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401899/original/file-20210520-19-x4atja.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">If there were an award for sexiest fruit of all time, the peach from ‘Call Me By Your Name’ might win it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e519557f98ebd7769117181/1591995867946-QRCAC0D2XSB6OORFZTMZ/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kEc5bSJ4pvun_zE1LwRbWG0UqsxRUqqbr1mOJYKfIPR7LoDQ9mXPOjoJoqy81S2I8N_N4V1vUb5AoIIIbLZhVYxCRW4BPu10St3TBAUQYVKcfBd8LMHkL-fpre09zWHCFHC7EBpKXxiQBG75jbt_xC8lhRlF2Q8koZ_oJjeQA2s_/peache-scene.jpg">Sony Pictures Classics</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Safer is … sexier?</h2>
<p>An outgrowth of the #MeToo era is the on-set intimacy coordinator – a professional trained to ensure that safe practices are in place when shooting sex scenes. In many ways, their presence is long overdue in an on-set environment where <a href="https://themuse.jezebel.com/new-documentary-on-movie-nudity-bares-some-not-all-1844767250">nudity quotas</a> were, for a time, the norm.</p>
<p>Rather than delivering a cold shower for spectators, these more ethically and safely executed scenes are arguably sexier – perhaps in part because the performers feel safer and less inhibited, and perhaps because viewers might feel less morally compromised while watching them. </p>
<p>As in real life, consent is what makes scenes of sexual degradation and endangerment hot. A film like Jane Campion’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199626/">In the Cut</a>,” in which Meg Ryan’s character is clearly heard consenting to having rough sex with Mark Ruffalo’s character, is exemplary in this regard. So, too, are the intimacy-coordinated sex scenes in last year’s “<a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/05/normal-people-sex-scenes-intimacy-coordinator-interview">Normal People</a>,” along with those in “<a href="https://www.vulture.com/2018/04/alia-shawkat-and-laia-costa-on-duck-butters-queer-utopia.html">Duck Butter</a>,” which even gave the performers the opportunity to co-script the scenes themselves. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 106,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>Though I find that Hornaday’s and Douthat’s laments leave out a lot, I share their view that preaching abstinence takes a blinkered approach to art, as to life. The repercussions of rendering sex invisible – unseen and unacknowledged – aren’t just aesthetic. In times of political division and social unrest, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/02/804873211/whiplash-of-lgbtq-protections-and-rights-from-obama-to-trump">sexual freedoms and sexual minorities are more strictly regulated and persecuted</a>. </p>
<p>This threat of silencing makes it all the more important that filmmakers continue screening and – as radical sex theorist Gayle Rubin titled her <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/1560/chapter-abstract/173938/Thinking-SexNotes-for-a-Radical-Theory-of-the?redirectedFrom=fulltext">landmark 1984 essay</a> – “thinking sex.”</p>
<p>So far, filmmakers are meeting the challenge.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159682/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria San Filippo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some critics are complaining that sex scenes have vanished from cinema. But they’re still very much present – in all their awkward, perverse glory.Maria San Filippo, Associate Professor of Visual and Media Arts, Emerson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1538182021-02-04T19:51:02Z2021-02-04T19:51:02ZNo joke: Using humor in class is harder when learning is remote<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381996/original/file-20210202-17-1mtq7a7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C0%2C6699%2C4456&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jokes often fall flat when class takes place online.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/online-teaching-distance-learning-royalty-free-image/1278817132?adppopup=true">Nes/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most discussions about the drawbacks of online education focus on the <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/online-trending-now/zoom-fatigue-what-we-have-learned">negative effects</a> it has on learning. Less obvious – but also quite important – is how remote instruction can affect the teacher’s use of humor.</p>
<p>Scholars have formulated <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/funny-how/550910/">various explanations</a> for why people use humor. As someone <a href="https://www.furman.edu/people/scott-henderson">who has helped prepare</a> and provide professional development for prospective and veteran teachers for more than 30 years, I am often asked whether humor is an effective way to teach. Decades of research has left little doubt: The <a href="https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/ptn/2018/02/humor-college-classroom">answer is yes</a>. Among other benefits, humor can create a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27559255">positive learning environment</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03634520903367238">increase learning</a> and make students <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1153377.pdf">more motivated to learn</a>.</p>
<h2>No laughing matter</h2>
<p>The pandemic hasn’t eliminated the benefits of humor in the classroom. Instructors, however, have told me during interviews for this article that it’s more difficult to use humor when their students appear on video screens than in actual classrooms. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=luct9esAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Annette Trierweiler</a>, an assistant professor of environmental science, told me that she used less humor in fall of 2020 because her remote lessons were like “performing in front of a dead audience.”</p>
<p>I have noticed the same thing in my own online courses. Comments and stories that usually make students laugh when I am in person somehow fall flat when class is online.</p>
<p>This challenge isn’t new.</p>
<p>Psychology professors <a href="https://www.ohio.edu/cas/loschiav">Frank LoSchavio</a> and <a href="https://www.ohio.edu/cas/shatz">Mark Shatz</a> in 2006 published <a href="https://radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/content/issue8_2/shatz.html">some of the first research</a> on using humor in online courses. Neither has changed his mind about a key distinction between face-to-face and remote instruction.</p>
<p>“It’s generally easier to pull off humor in a traditional classroom,” LoSchavio told me.</p>
<p>And that brings us to five reasons humor is harder to pull off when learning is remote.</p>
<h2>1. Clues get missed</h2>
<p>Humor is primarily <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4612-5572-7_7">social in nature</a>. In other words, it occurs when people interact. For that reason, successful humor depends on people being able to pick up on contextual clues. This includes gestures, facial expressions and posture. It can also involve things such as the pitch, speed and rhythm of a person’s voice. Remote instruction can make it harder to pick up on or make sense of these types of things.</p>
<p>Religion professor <a href="https://www.smcsc.edu/directory/stephen-hearne/">Stephen Hearne</a>, who’s been teaching online courses for two decades, complains that body language and other ways to telegraph humor often go unnoticed or unseen on computer screens. According to Hearne, that’s one reason there’s “a better chance students will get more of the humor” in traditional classrooms.</p>
<h2>2. Technical problems</h2>
<p>The poor quality of audio and video connections can further distort a teacher’s voice and image, as well as student responses. As Mark Shatz, the psychology professor and author of a <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/632398/comedy-writing-secrets-by-mel-helitzer/">book on secrets to writing comedy</a>, puts it, “the virtual platform removes or minimizes the feedback loop that guides humor selection and delivery.”</p>
<p>To make matters worse, cellphones – with their tiny screens and speakers – are the preferred or only internet connection for some students. The problem is that words get garbled and gestures are miniaturized beyond recognition on cellular devices.</p>
<h2>3. Laughter is less contagious</h2>
<p>Humor is social in another respect. We often rely on the subtle and not so subtle reactions of others to confirm if something is funny. That’s not possible when only a few students can or want to be seen during remote instruction. Moreover, hearing someone else laugh <a href="http://www.psyarticles.com/emotion/contagious-laughter.htm">can trigger us to smile or laugh ourselves</a>. Television sitcoms use laugh tracks for that very reason: They coax viewers into making desired responses.</p>
<p>Those types of desired responses are often lacking in remote instruction, especially if students have their cameras on mute. <a href="https://wagner.nyu.edu/community/faculty/andrew-barnhill">Andrew Barnhill</a>, an assistant professor of public service, found that out this fall. “Students aren’t able to easily feed off of each other’s reactions to comments in the same way that they do in person,” he told me.</p>
<p>On a related matter, audio delays – a near universal phenomenon in remote education – can cause the teacher and students to speak over one another in a jerky start-and-stop rhythm. “The slight delay that you get over Zoom as opposed to in-person makes a difference,” Barnhill says.</p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>4. When the camera is on, the laughs are off</h2>
<p>Humor research provides something else to consider. In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/HUMOR.2008.007">one study</a>, participants were overtly or covertly videotaped watching excerpts from popular television comedies. When they were aware of the camera’s presence, they laughed less. In short, the camera’s presence was a big killjoy.</p>
<p>This might help explain an experience that a Furman University religion professor <a href="https://www.furman.edu/people/bryan-bibb/">Bryan Bibb</a> – a colleague of mine – recently had. Prior to discussing certain risque double entendres in the Old Testament, Bibb usually plays sexually suggestive excerpts from early blues songs. Typically “a fun and funny moment,” Bibb said that over Zoom “it just felt sort of gross.”</p>
<p>Some students who are conscious of the camera’s seemingly voyeuristic leer – and self-conscious about how it makes them feel – turn off their audio and video feeds. This leaves only their names as unresponsive avatars on the teacher’s video screen. </p>
<p>Talk about a tough crowd.</p>
<h2>5. Too many distractions</h2>
<p>Distractions – the kryptonite of humor – are the rule, not the exception, in remote classes. People wander in the background and babies cry in the foreground.</p>
<p>Fionnuala Darby Hudgens, a community college English instructor, says that “interruptions occur during almost every online session.” For her and many others, the most common scene-stealers are kids and pets.</p>
<p>Comedian W.C. Fields once observed the same thing, advising people in entertainment to <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001211/bio">never work with animals or children</a> because they steal attention.</p>
<h2>The last laugh?</h2>
<p>Tough times and tough crowds aside, it’s too early to give up on humor in remote instruction. The challenge for teachers lies not only in adapting to new technology, but also in understanding what makes something funny in the first place.</p>
<p>Humor can never be reduced to a one-size-fits-all model. More art than science, humor must respond to an ever-changing set of circumstances and personalities, which is the key to its survival. The joke will be on us as teachers if we ever forget that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153818/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Henderson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Humor is a key ingredient to successful learning. Can educators keep the laughter going when learning takes place online?Scott Henderson, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Education, Furman UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1459842020-11-23T13:19:43Z2020-11-23T13:19:43ZLaughing is good for your mind and your body – here’s what the research shows<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370594/original/file-20201120-23-q8fagx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=594%2C0%2C5397%2C3991&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's hard to beat a good laugh with a friend.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/cheerful-couple-enjoying-movie-royalty-free-image/1146818927">Klaus Vedfelt/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Amusement and pleasant surprises – and the laughter they can trigger – add texture to the fabric of daily life.</p>
<p>Those giggles and guffaws can seem like just silly throwaways. But laughter, in response to funny events, actually takes a lot of work, because it activates <a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/cognitive-neuroscience-humor">many areas of the brain</a>: areas that control motor, emotional, cognitive and social processing. </p>
<p>As I found when writing “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/An-Introduction-to-the-Psychology-of-Humor/Gibson/p/book/9780367029081">An Introduction to the Psychology of Humor</a>,” researchers now appreciate laughter’s power to enhance physical and mental well-being.</p>
<h2>Laughter’s physical power</h2>
<p>People begin laughing in infancy, when it helps develop muscles and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhz219">upper body strength</a>. Laughter is not just breathing. It relies on complex combinations of facial muscles, often involving movement of the eyes, head and shoulders.</p>
<p>Laughter – doing it or observing it – activates multiple regions of the brain: the motor cortex, which controls muscles; the frontal lobe, which helps you understand context; and the limbic system, which modulates positive emotions. Turning all these circuits on strengthens neural connections and helps a healthy brain coordinate its activity.</p>
<p>By activating the neural pathways of emotions like joy and mirth, laughter can improve your mood and make your physical and emotional response to stress less intense. For example, laughing may help control brain levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, similar to what <a href="https://doi.org/10.4040/jkan.2015.45.2.221">antidepressants</a> do. By minimizing your brain’s responses to threats, it limits the release of neurotransmitters and hormones like cortisol that can wear down your <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f7274">cardiovascular, metabolic and immune systems</a> over time. Laughter’s kind of <a href="https://doi.org/10.7150/ijms.6.200">like an antidote to stress</a>, which weakens these systems and increases vulnerability to diseases.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370595/original/file-20201120-19-1ogy9m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="women laughing together at an outdoor meal" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370595/original/file-20201120-19-1ogy9m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370595/original/file-20201120-19-1ogy9m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370595/original/file-20201120-19-1ogy9m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370595/original/file-20201120-19-1ogy9m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370595/original/file-20201120-19-1ogy9m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370595/original/file-20201120-19-1ogy9m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370595/original/file-20201120-19-1ogy9m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Getting the joke is a good workout for your brain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/two-women-laughing-together-at-dining-table-royalty-free-image/126363989">Thomas Barwick/Stone via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Laughter’s cognitive power</h2>
<p>A good sense of humor and the laughter that follows depend on an ample measure of social intelligence and working memory resources.</p>
<p>Laughter, like humor, typically sparks from <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23082946">recognizing the incongruities or absurdities</a> of a situation. You need to mentally resolve the surprising behavior or event – otherwise you won’t laugh; you might just be confused instead. Inferring the intentions of others and <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00126">taking their perspective</a> can enhance the intensity of the laughter and amusement you feel.</p>
<p>To “get” a joke or humorous situation, you need to be able to see the lighter side of things. You must believe that other possibilities besides the literal exist – think about being <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.1997.10.4.439">amused by comic strips with talking animals</a>, like those found in “<a href="https://www.thefarside.com">The Far Side</a>.”</p>
<h2>Laughter’s social power</h2>
<p>Many cognitive and social skills work together to help you monitor when and why laughter occurs during conversations. You don’t even need to hear a laugh to be able to laugh. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/deafed/enl008">Deaf signers punctuate their signed sentences with laughter</a>, much like emoticons in written text.</p>
<p>Laughter creates bonds and increases intimacy with others. Linguist Don Nilsen points out that chuckles and belly laughs <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108241403">seldom happen when alone</a>, supporting their strong social role. Beginning early in life, infants’ laughter is an external sign of pleasure that helps strengthen bonds with caregivers.</p>
<p>Later, it’s an external sign of sharing an appreciation of the situation. For example, public speakers and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2017-0040">comedians</a> try to get a laugh to make audiences feel psychologically closer to them, to create intimacy. </p>
<p>By practicing a little laughter each day, you can enhance social skills that may not come naturally to you. When you laugh in response to humor, you share your feelings with others and learn from risks that your response will be accepted/shared/enjoyed by others and not be rejected/ignored/disliked.</p>
<p>In studies, psychologists have found that men <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.1999.12.4.355">with Type A personality characteristics</a>, including competitiveness and time urgency, tend to laugh more, while women with those traits laugh less. Both sexes laugh more with others than when alone.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370596/original/file-20201120-19-ifmsuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="white-haired woman laughing on a park bench" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370596/original/file-20201120-19-ifmsuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370596/original/file-20201120-19-ifmsuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370596/original/file-20201120-19-ifmsuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370596/original/file-20201120-19-ifmsuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370596/original/file-20201120-19-ifmsuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370596/original/file-20201120-19-ifmsuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370596/original/file-20201120-19-ifmsuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Laughter has value across the whole lifespan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/senior-woman-laughing-royalty-free-image/522988376">Steve Prezant/The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Laughter’s mental power</h2>
<p>Positive psychology researchers study how people can live meaningful lives and thrive. Laughter produces positive emotions that lead to this kind of flourishing. These feelings – like amusement, happiness, mirth and joy – build <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.56.3.218">resiliency and increase creative thinking</a>. They increase subjective well-being and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.56.3.218">life satisfaction</a>. Researchers find that these positive emotions experienced with humor and laughter correlate with <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15332985.2014.884519">appreciating the meaning of life</a> and help older adults hold a benign view of difficulties they’ve faced over a lifetime. </p>
<p>Laughter in response to amusement is a healthy coping mechanism. When you laugh, you take yourself or the situation less seriously and may feel <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-018-9548-7">empowered to problem-solve</a>. For example, psychologists measured the frequency and intensity of 41 people’s laughter over two weeks, along with their ratings of physical and mental stress. They found that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235851">more laughter experienced</a>, the lower the reported stress. Whether the instances of laughter were strong, medium or weak in intensity didn’t matter.</p>
<p>Maybe you want to grab some of these benefits for yourself – can you force laughter to work for you? </p>
<p>A growing number of therapists advocate using humor and laughter to help clients build trust and <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781610484879/Using-Humor-to-Maximize-Living-Connecting-With-Humor-2nd-Edition">improve work environments</a>; a review of five different studies found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctim.2018.04.009">measures of well-being did increase</a> after laughter interventions. Sometimes <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/health-healing-and-the-amuse-system-humor-as-survival-training/oclc/42881511">called homeplay</a> instead of homework, these interventions take the form of daily humor activities – surrounding yourself with funny people, watching a comedy that makes you laugh or writing down three funny things that happened today.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>You can practice laughing even when alone. Intentionally take a perspective that appreciates the funny side of events. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02687038.2020.1787944">Laughing yoga</a> is a technique of using breathing muscles to achieve the positive physical responses of natural laughing with forced laughter (ha ha hee hee ho ho).</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Some tips on how to get started with laughing yoga.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Researchers today certainly aren’t laughing off its value, but a good deal of the research on laughter’s influence on mental and physical health is based on self-report measures. More psychological experimentation around laughter or the contexts in which it occurs will likely support the importance of laughing throughout your day, and maybe even suggest more ways to intentionally harness its benefits.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145984/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janet M. Gibson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Whether in the form of a discreet titter or a full-on roar, laughter comes with many benefits for physical and mental health.Janet M. Gibson, Professor of Cognitive Psychology, Grinnell CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1470782020-09-29T12:33:26Z2020-09-29T12:33:26ZDon’t underestimate the power of the putdown in a presidential debate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360382/original/file-20200928-18-c9kvhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=42%2C7%2C4721%2C3299&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will either – or both – of these men use humor or insults in their first presidential debate?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2020-Debate-SportsBetting/bef83fc51f3e433098cbd813c6fbfc50/photo">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Before the first presidential debate, President Donald Trump demanded that his Democratic challenger Joe Biden <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-27/trump-says-he-ll-demand-biden-take-drug-test-for-debate">submit to a drug test</a>.</p>
<p>Trump was again suggesting – without evidence – that his opponent takes <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-strongly-demanding-biden-drug-tested-2020-9">performance-enhancing drugs</a>.</p>
<p>If Trump brings this up during the debate, no one should be surprised if Biden has a comeback prepared. Biden’s campaign has already issued a statement on the president’s unusual challenge – “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/27/joe-biden-trump-debate-422328">If the president thinks his best case is made in urine he can have at it</a>,” said Biden’s deputy campaign manager – but the Democratic presidential nominee has yet to answer himself.</p>
<p>Biden could respond as U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, a Democrat from South Carolina, did during a televised debate in 1986 with his Republican opponent Henry McMaster, who similarly challenged him to take a drug test.</p>
<p>“Henry, I’ll take a drug test if <a href="https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/the-quotable-fritz-hollings-in-11-verses/article_07ee6482-f41c-11e8-ba17-5f7805fa5530.html">you’ll take an IQ test</a>,” Hollings said.</p>
<p>Hollings won the exchange – and the election.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>A way to have the last word</h2>
<p>In my recent book, “<a href="https://www.chroniclebooks.com/products/the-art-of-the-political-putdown">The Art of the Political Putdown</a>: The Greatest Comebacks, Ripostes, and Retorts in History,” I point out that delivering a comeback can be a potent political weapon, deflecting criticism, hammering home a point and even leaving an opponent speechless.</p>
<p>A politician who wields a comeback with skill can use it as both a bludgeon and a shield, damaging the opponent without hurting their own popularity with voters.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">President Barack Obama frames a comeback to a criticism from Mitt Romney in 2012.</span></figcaption>
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<p>During one of the 2012 presidential debates, Republican Mitt Romney repeated one of his favorite campaign lines – that the U.S. Navy was the smallest it had been since World War I. </p>
<p>“Well, Governor,” President Barack Obama responded, “we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. And so the question is not a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJxeSVcbBtM">game of Battleship</a>, where we’re counting ships. It’s what are our capabilities?” </p>
<p>Obama won the exchange and the election.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Republican candidate Donald Trump zings his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, with a one-liner.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Insults can work</h2>
<p>During the GOP primaries in 2016, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush told Donald Trump he could not insult his way to the nomination or “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/10/politics/jeb-bush-donald-trump-carly-fiorina/index.html">certainly not the presidency</a>.” </p>
<p>But Trump did just that. </p>
<p>Trump produced perhaps the most memorable moment of the 2016 presidential debates when Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton chided him after he called his temperament “his strongest asset.”</p>
<p>“It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country,” she said.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1Q71k6fmts">Because you’d be in jail</a>,” Trump shot back. </p>
<p>The crowd roared – and Trump won the election.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">President Ronald Reagan quashes a key criticism with humor.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Humor is more effective</h2>
<p>Trump’s strategy has a poor record in history. A far better strategy, as President Ronald Reagan exhibited when he ran for reelection in 1984, is humor.</p>
<p>Reagan, who was 73, stumbled in his first debate with Democratic challenger Walter Mondale. He knew he would be asked about his age during the next debate. When the question came, he answered, “I want you to know that … I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoPu1UIBkBc">my opponent’s youth and inexperience</a>.”</p>
<p>Even Mondale laughed. Reagan easily won reelection.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A politician who wields a comeback with skill can use it as both a bludgeon and a shield, damaging the opponent without hurting their own popularity with voters.Chris Lamb, Professor of Journalism, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1397372020-06-16T11:56:14Z2020-06-16T11:56:14ZWhy are sitcom dads still so inept?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340435/original/file-20200608-176542-16hdtiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=104%2C1%2C787%2C531&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">From 'Father Knows Best' to 'D'oh!'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://ccsearch.creativecommons.org/photos/17016597-a65f-4b89-ab02-e96ed82bbe9d">Scott Vandehey/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From Homer Simpson to <a href="https://modernfamily.fandom.com/wiki/Phil_Dunphy">Phil Dunphy</a>, sitcom dads have long been known for being bumbling and inept. </p>
<p>But it wasn’t always this way. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, sitcom dads tended to be serious, calm and wise, if a bit detached. In a shift that media scholars <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15295039009360179">have documented</a>, only in later decades did fathers start to become foolish and incompetent. </p>
<p>And yet the real-world roles and expectations of fathers have changed in recent years. Today’s dads are putting more time into caring for their children and see that role <a href="https://theconversation.com/dads-are-more-involved-in-parenting-yes-but-moms-still-put-in-more-work-72026">as more central to their identity</a>.</p>
<p>Have today’s sitcoms kept up? </p>
<p>I study gender and the media, and I specialize in depictions of masculinity. <a href="https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fppm0000289">In a study I did in 2020</a>, my co-authors and I systematically look at the ways in which portrayals of sitcom fathers have and haven’t changed. </p>
<h2>Why sitcom portrayals matter</h2>
<p>Fictional entertainment can shape our views of ourselves and others. To appeal to broad audiences, sitcoms often rely on the shorthand assumptions <a href="http://resourcelists.falmouth.ac.uk/items/A1C1A85B-4CEA-012B-D5CD-39585556B65C.html">that form the basis of stereotypes</a>. Whether it’s the way they portray <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1177/1097184X06291918">gay masculinity</a> in “Will and Grace” or <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/humr/23/2/article-p229.xml">the working class</a> in “Roseanne,” sitcoms often mine humor from certain norms and expectations associated with gender, sexual identity and class.</p>
<p>When sitcoms stereotype fathers, they seem to suggest that men are somehow inherently ill-suited for parenting. That sells actual fathers short and, in heterosexual, two-parent contexts, it reinforces the idea that mothers should take on the lion’s share of parenting responsibilities. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1268606644209872897"}"></div></p>
<p>It was Tim Allen’s role as Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor of the 1990s series “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101120/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt">Home Improvement</a>” that inspired my initial interest in sitcom dads. Tim was goofy and childish, whereas Jill, his wife, was always ready – with a disapproving scowl, a snappy remark and seemingly endless stores of patience – to bring him back in line. The pattern matched <a href="https://www.today.com/popculture/changing-roles-tv-fathers-1C9406531">an observation</a> made by TV Guide television critic Matt Roush, who, in 2010, wrote, “It used to be that father knew best, and then we started to wonder if he knew anything at all.” </p>
<p>I published <a href="https://doi.org/10.1207/s15506878jobem4501_3">my first quantitative study on the depiction of sitcom fathers</a> in 2001, focusing on jokes involving the father. I found that, compared with older sitcoms, dads in more recent sitcoms were the butt of the joke more frequently. Mothers, on the other hand, became less frequent targets of mockery over time. I viewed this as evidence of increasingly feminist portrayals of women that coincided with their growing presence in the workforce.</p>
<h2>Studying the disparaged dad</h2>
<p>In our new study, we wanted to focus on sitcom dads’ interactions with their children, given how fatherhood has changed in American culture. </p>
<p>We used what’s called “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=nMA5DQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=content+analysis&ots=pGUmt8gs8p&sig=yz1P2Yv8FzYddMN4JCMZ1cn5biE#v=onepage&q=content%20analysis&f=false">quantitative content analysis</a>,” a common research method in communication studies. To conduct this sort of analysis, researchers develop definitions of key concepts to apply to a large set of media content. Researchers employ multiple people as coders who observe the content and individually track whether a particular concept appears.</p>
<p>For example, researchers might study the racial and ethnic diversity of recurring characters on Netflix original programs. Or they might try to see whether demonstrations are described as “protests” or “riots” in national news. </p>
<p>For our study, we identified 34 top-rated, family-centered sitcoms that aired from 1980 to 2017 and randomly selected two episodes from each. Next, we isolated 578 scenes in which the fathers were involved in “disparagement humor,” which meant the dads either made fun of another character or were made fun of themselves. </p>
<p>Then we studied how often sitcom dads were shown together with their kids within these scenes in three key parenting interactions: giving advice, setting rules or positively or negatively reinforcing their kids’ behavior. We wanted to see whether the interaction made the father look “humorously foolish” – showing poor judgment, being incompetent or acting childishly.</p>
<p>Interestingly, fathers were shown in fewer parenting situations in more recent sitcoms. And when fathers were parenting, it was depicted as humorously foolish in just over 50% of the relevant scenes in the 2000s and 2010s, compared with 18% in the 1980s and 31% in the 1990s sitcoms.</p>
<p>At least within scenes featuring disparagement humor, sitcom audiences, more often than not, are still being encouraged to laugh at dads’ parenting missteps and mistakes.</p>
<h2>Fueling an inferiority complex?</h2>
<p>The degree to which entertainment media reflect or distort reality is an enduring question in communication and media studies. In order to answer that question, it’s important to take a look at the data.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/12/fathers-day-facts/">National polls by Pew Research Center</a> show that from 1965 to 2016, the amount of time fathers reported spending on care for their children nearly tripled. These days, dads constitute 17% of all stay-at-home parents, up from 10% in 1989. Today, fathers are just as likely as mothers to say that being a parent is “extremely important to their identity.” They are also just as likely to describe parenting as rewarding. </p>
<p>Yet, there is evidence in the Pew data that these changes present challenges, as well. The majority of dads feel they do not spend enough time with their children, often citing work responsibilities as the primary reason. Only 39% of fathers feel they are doing “a very good job” raising their children.</p>
<p>Perhaps this sort of self-criticism is being reinforced by foolish and failing father portrayals in sitcom content.</p>
<p>Of course, not all sitcoms depict fathers as incompetent parents. The sample we examined stalled out in 2017, whereas TV Guide presented “<a href="https://www.tvguide.com/news/features/sitcom-dads-manhood/">7 Sitcom Dads Changing How we Think about Fatherhood Now</a>” in 2019. In our study, the moments of problematic parenting often took place in a wider context of a generally quite loving depiction. </p>
<p>Still, while television portrayals will likely never match the range and complexity of fatherhood, sitcom writers can do better by dads by moving on from the increasingly outdated foolish father trope.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139737/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erica Scharrer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Dads are taking parenting much more seriously. But according to a study of sitcoms, the stereotype of the foolish father remains stubbornly in place.Erica Scharrer, Professor of Communication, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1349842020-04-01T12:09:25Z2020-04-01T12:09:25ZTake it from Pluto the Schnauzer: Comedy will help us through the coronavirus crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324423/original/file-20200331-65537-1hkmtph.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C2%2C1399%2C881&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What's got four legs, a wet nose and can help us laugh through the crisis?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/nanciewight/videos/10158289063493653/">Facebook</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It took an adorable talking dog to shake me from my gloom.</p>
<p>Ten days into the Great Pandemic Shutdown of 2020, I was still scrolling my phone for increasingly grim statistics, epidemiological forecast models and horror stories from the medical front lines of COVID-19. </p>
<p>Then I stumbled onto her: Pluto the Schnauzer, in a ridiculous <a href="https://www.facebook.com/100346998277754/posts/100350721610715/?d=n">Facebook video</a>, offering counsel “on the internets” about how we humans might re-frame our anxious quarantined existence. </p>
<p>There’s always something to do, says Pluto. Straight to camera like a doggy newscaster, she reminds us that “we (four-leggeds) curl up, we wander around, we play with a tennis ball.” She offers wisdom about the humans’ curious <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/30/nation/were-still-hoarding-toilet-paper-because-coronavirus-no-good-reason/">toilet paper “crisis”</a> and advises us to avoid sniffing crotches until social distancing is over. Pluto for president, I say – she’s giving it to us straight. </p>
<h2>The best medicine?</h2>
<p>There is plenty to laugh at, it seems, in a crisis moment when the world’s shared destiny has become breathtakingly clear. This doesn’t mean that we’re trivializing the suffering. We’re trying to cope. Beyond the obvious illness, we’re facing <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/03/understanding-the-economic-shock-of-coronavirus">economic and social devastation</a>, which will be felt most acutely by <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2020/03/27/482337/coronavirus-compounds-inequality-endangers-communities-color/">vulnerable communities</a>. Many of us are <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/03/that-discomfort-youre-feeling-is-grief">experiencing the emotions of grief</a> and trying to figure out some kind of routine in the stressful, uncertain new normal. It’s hard to fully contemplate the ripple effects of the loss and anxiety, or the enormity of the task that befalls us when we finally come out of hiding to repair our communities.</p>
<p>But humor can help. </p>
<p>As Lauren Feldman and I wrote in our new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Comedian-Activist-Walk-into-Communication/dp/0520299779">“A Comedian and An Activist Walk Into a Bar: The Serious Role of Comedy in Social Justice,”</a> comedy plays an important societal role when we are working through dire, complex social problems. It offers catharsis, resilience and a source of civic imagination that invites play and helps us imagine the future. It can also provide a vital and biting wellspring of social critique that can point out injustice in accessible ways that can be hard to convey even through traditional forms of serious information, like journalism. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Not so much A Night at the Opera, more a month in the bedroom.</span></figcaption>
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<p>We need comedy. And homemade “coronavirus comedy” is everywhere – videos, <a href="https://www.boredpanda.com/quarantine-coronavirus-jokes/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic">memes</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/mar/18/coronaviral-the-best-memes-tweets-and-cartoons-to-get-you-through-open-thread">tweets</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr_tEdQvFcc">re-written music lyrics</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1tNv-dKd1E">parody music videos</a>. Sure, there’s plenty of funny stuff from the expected professional media sources, even while they’re on lockdown – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls0ZormAOhU">“The Daily Show,”</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvJ1BuEtZEo&feature=emb_logo">“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,”</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4qvO0StKto">“Saturday Night Live”</a> – but the inventive creativity coming from us ordinary folks is really killing it. In the <a href="https://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9780745660707">participatory media age</a>, we can access the production tools and distribution channels to share our expressions of hope, play and silliness through YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The whole world has been given a license to be funny and deviant, and it turns out, we are really, really hilarious.</p>
<p>But is it OK to giggle about hard times? Are we wrong to seemingly make fun of something so serious? I would argue that these aren’t the right questions. </p>
<p>Look closely. In the age of COVID-19, we’re making comedy that punches up, not down. It is aimed at ourselves and at institutions of power that need to be held accountable. Through our comedy, we invite each other to see our shared experiences through much-needed playfulness - even across ideological divides. </p>
<p>The humor is found in the absurd dystopian reality of our weird new lives: Being <a href="https://www.facebook.com/581553707/posts/10158351509018708/?sfnsn=mo&d=n&vh=e">stuck inside our homes</a> with these irritating other humans, even the ones we love, is “Groundhog Day” tedium. We parents never really wanted to to spend a full <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B92mDL0Hbrv/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet">nonstop 24 hours</a> with our elementary- or middle school-aged children for weeks at a time, did we? (I’m sure my kids won’t read this.) </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Italian mayors clearly aren’t impressed by everyone’s social distancing efforts.</span></figcaption>
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<p>We are <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/take-your-mind-off-of-the-coronavirus-for-few-minutes-with-these-feel-good-videos-memes-and-threads-2020-03-19">fighting over toilet paper</a> at Costco and challenging our kids to dance-offs on TikTok. And then there are the many adventures in Zoom, our <a href="https://news.lvhn.org/stay-home-stay-safe-and-dont-forget-to-smile/">new conference room</a> and college classroom. Suddenly, we have discovered the humor in <a href="https://www.facebook.com/100010288871601/posts/1121202954899323/?sfnsn=mo&d=n&vh=i">your mic being off</a>, your mic being on (oops), <a href="https://twitter.com/JeffreyButts/status/1239742025651687424">floating in the New York skyline</a> or hosting a serious budget meeting while <a href="https://mashable.com/article/zoom-background-change-coronavirus-meetings/">oversized cats</a> appear over your shoulder – thank you, Zoom background graphics. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, stressed-out professors are <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=CCe5PaeAeew#dialog">singing about teaching online</a>. Even a <a href="https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2020/03/20/this-commentators-got-no-live-sport-left-so-hes-commentating-on-everyday-life-and-its-brilliant/#.XnVQ0MnKCsk.facebook">sidelined sports commentator</a> got in on the comedy game with a hilarious series of sportscaster-narrated everyday life scenes. None of our current experience is – or should become – normal (except the dance-offs, perhaps), and comedy lets us say that. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1241405476522336256"}"></div></p>
<p>Comedy serves <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Comedian-Activist-Walk-into-Communication/dp/0520299779">crucial cultural functions</a> as we deal with tough challenges: sharing and amplifying messages, addressing taboo topics in accessible ways, and inspiring us to feel emotions of hope and optimism, which motivate us to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15205436.2018.1545035">engage in social problems</a>.
And, not least, comedy helps us to bolster individual and collective resilience we need to re-imagine and re-build the post-COVID-19 world.</p>
<h2>Comedy going viral</h2>
<p>Beyond the silliness, much of this “coronavirus comedy” is functionally reminding us what to do – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9YirNgAzXI">wash our hands</a>, stay home, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqx19f0ceUo">practice social distancing</a>. It’s also providing <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thejuicemedia/videos/honest-government-ad-coronavirus/626685584556823/">scathing and needed critiques of official government responses</a>. We know from research that we are much more likely to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Comedian-Activist-Walk-into-Communication/dp/0520299779">remember and share messages</a> that are funny, which means we are amplifying the information across networks and individuals. And when we spread comedy wildly, we communicate our identities and communal experiences with one another, even while we are physically separated.</p>
<p>Comedy really matters. Through its generative, disruptive, deviant energy, humor can help us to engage and find tenacity, resilience and cathartic release during these trying times.</p>
<p>[<em>You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-help">Read our newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134984/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Center for Media & Social Impact, directed by Caty Borum Chattoo, receives funding from Luminate, Comedy Central, Atlantic Philanthropies, and the McNulty Foundation for research, convenings, and creative production initiatives focused on the intersection of mediated comedy, civic empowerment and social change.</span></em></p>It isn’t wrong to laugh at coronavirus comedy. Rather a chortle here and there will help us through the crisis, and it may even help spread vital information and give comfort to those in need.Caty Borum Chattoo, Executive Director of the Center for Media & Social Impact, Assistant Professor, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1287042020-01-08T23:17:22Z2020-01-08T23:17:22ZWinning at social media is probably simpler than you think<p>The world is starting to see <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-lost-15-million-us-users-in-the-past-two-years-report-says/">the gradual decline of Facebook</a>, with 15 million US users dropping off between 2017 and last year. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, Facebook remains <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/#:%7E:targetText=How%20many%20users%20does%20Facebook,network%20ever%20to%20do%20so.">the largest social network</a> in the world. As of late last year, almost 60% of <a href="https://www.socialmedianews.com.au/social-media-statistics-australia-january-2019/">Australians</a> had a Facebook account, half of whom logged-on daily.</p>
<p>And while most of us intuitively understand what others find interesting, there’s a growing body of research on online engagement and the characteristics of viral content. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/facebook-and-conversation-analysis-9781350141612/">For my research</a>, I studied more than 1,200 posts from 266 Facebook users - everyday people aged 21-40 – to identify the common denominator among “successful” Facebook posts.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308973/original/file-20200108-107200-wbuun0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308973/original/file-20200108-107200-wbuun0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308973/original/file-20200108-107200-wbuun0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308973/original/file-20200108-107200-wbuun0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308973/original/file-20200108-107200-wbuun0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308973/original/file-20200108-107200-wbuun0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308973/original/file-20200108-107200-wbuun0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308973/original/file-20200108-107200-wbuun0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Successful posts tended to prompt further action from readers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>Share if you agree</h2>
<p>For the study, I decided to create a distinction between “likes” and comments. I treated likes as a simpler form of acknowledgement, and comments as a more active mode of engagement – they require time, effort and a deeper understanding of the content. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/travelgram-live-tourist-snaps-have-turned-solo-adventures-into-social-occasions-124583">#travelgram: live tourist snaps have turned solo adventures into social occasions</a>
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<p>I found posts which performed relatively well in terms of engagement (more than five comments), could be characterised by certain linguistic features. </p>
<p>Successful posts tended to prompt further action from readers, or used humour to engage. </p>
<p>Conversations on Facebook feeds generally start by “tellings”, meaning posts which contain narratives. For example, what a friend is doing, a video, or a selfie. </p>
<p>Among the content I studied, the more popular posts requested a response of some kind, usually through questions, or requests such as “click on this funny link”. </p>
<p>Simply adding “what do you think of this?” at the end of a post was likely to increase engagement - and this was true for posts with varying subject matters.</p>
<p>I also found posts that were simple to understand performed better, as opposed to those which were vague or confusing - sometimes referred to as <a href="https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/imbecilic-art-vaguebooking/">vaguebooking</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1209191866731761664"}"></div></p>
<h2>Laughter is the best medicine</h2>
<p>Humour also increased engagement.</p>
<p>Research has shown conversations driven by jokes <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0378216694901171">encourage involvement and inclusion</a>. </p>
<p>I observed this too, with funny posts securing more responses. Similarly, posts that were not overtly funny were more likely to do well if they received funny comments.</p>
<p>Ongoing conversations also stimulate further engagement. Successful Facebook users didn’t just post content, they also responded to comments on their posts. </p>
<p>The take home message? </p>
<p>Although the success of Facebook content also relies on privacy settings, the number of friends a user has, how active the user is and how popular they are outside Facebook, strategically designed posts can give any user a quick upper hand. </p>
<p>And it’s likely you can use the same principles on other platforms such as Twitter or Instagram.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/before-you-hit-share-on-that-cute-animal-photo-consider-the-harm-it-can-cause-126182">Before you hit 'share' on that cute animal photo, consider the harm it can cause</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128704/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matteo Farina works for Flinders University and the University of Adelaide. He is also a member of the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures at the University of South Australia.
This research was funded by a scholarship received from the University of South Australia. </span></em></p>There are a few simple tricks anyone can use.Matteo Farina, Adjunct Lecturer, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1273142019-11-20T19:16:46Z2019-11-20T19:16:46ZHow Hitler memes made their way around the world and into the Fair Work Commission courtroom<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302590/original/file-20191120-474-2oun6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C99%2C1121%2C792&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some argue that a parody of a fictional scene is not the same thing as comparing someone to the real historical figure. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363163/mediaviewer/rm1906358272">IMDB</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In September, the Fair Work commission <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/05/oil-refinery-worker-fired-over-downfall-parody-video-loses-unfair-dismissal-claim">rejected</a> an unfair dismissal claim by a BP worker who made a Downfall video meme about his boss. Fair Work called it “inappropriate and offensive”.</p>
<p>Last week, the worker <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/15/bp-worker-fired-over-downfall-video-appeals-saying-fair-work-did-not-understand-meme">appealed</a> Fair Work’s decision, saying the commission did not understand “the broader genre of Downfall video”. </p>
<p><a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hitlers-downfall-parodies">Downfall video memes</a> are online parodies of a bunker scene from a 2004 German film where a furious Hitler learns that his generals have let him down and the war is lost. Hitler loses it. He calls his soldiers “cowards, traitors and failures”, his veins popping with rage and spittle flying. </p>
<p>In the 15 years since the film’s release, the scene has taken on a life of its own. Downfall memes show “Hitler” raging about everything from cancelled exams to Twitter outages to election results, thanks to doctored subtitles. </p>
<p>In a robust online video culture that always hungers for the next <a href="https://mashable.com/2010/06/03/star-wars-kid/">Star Wars Kid</a> how did an angry Hitler and this scene go viral – and stay viral – for so long? </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Hitler finds out he didn’t get into Hogwarts.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The bunker</h2>
<p>The original <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363163/">Downfall</a> (2004; <em>Der Untergang</em> in German) is a historical war film about Hitler’s final days, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel. </p>
<p>When it was released, a good number of German film critics and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_Film_of_the_week/0,4267,1449213,00.html">reviewers</a> thought the humanising of Hitler’s sieg-heiling rants in a bunker filled with SS rank-and-file goons was tasteless. </p>
<p>Some dismissed the bunker scene in particular as unnecessary in a film premiering 60 years after WWII ended. After all, <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/kino/der-untergang-die-unerzaehlbare-geschichte-a-318031.html">they said</a>: we already knew Hitler was a madman and that humans can be monsters.</p>
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<p>This is where the internet went to work. A legion of keyboard warriors around the globe lifted the scene from the original film at the time studios and film festivals were using it widely to promote Downfall.</p>
<p>The parodies – and our reactions – show what happens when cultural items move from one context to another. It’s a tricky leap when it comes to a figure like Hitler. When you add the move from drama to comedy , it gets a whole lot trickier. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-are-memes-20789">Explainer: what are memes?</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<h2>Generation phenomenon</h2>
<p>Creative minds adapted Hitler’s German outrage. They copied and pasted, cut and inserted, and most importantly, they re-subtitled. </p>
<p>This readaptation is what makes video memes such a <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hitlers-downfall-parodies">generative phenomenon</a>. </p>
<p>A YouTube search for “Hitler Finds Out” or “Hitler Reacts To” yields thousands of videos. You’ll see how Hitler freaks out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTGLpqFGyYM">over global warming</a>. He erupts when he hears about Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK-I_LYbOcY">presidential bid</a> and complains about the popularity of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXYplIafjrE">Pokemon Go</a>. In one favourite he expresses fury that Christians are sending <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdPNT5he1rs">solar-powered bibles</a> to Haiti. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Where the hell is my pizza?!’</span></figcaption>
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<p>The Downfall video meme has turned into a productive avenue for sociocultural commentary in each country and language it appears in, whether Chinese, Japanese or Spanish. Mostly, it gives voice to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtA5YZ-cOKs">youth trends</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgvpJHGnodc">blue-collar</a> issues such as industrial action.</p>
<p>In the Fair Work unfair dismissal case, the scene was the medium via which an employee and his wife vented about his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/05/oil-refinery-worker-fired-over-downfall-parody-video-loses-unfair-dismissal-claim">BP bosses</a> during a drawn-out pay dispute. </p>
<p>Some international versions have packed political bite. One <a href="http://youtu.be/_7XCRpRwz1s">Malaysian parody</a> refers to Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who served as the Malaysian prime minister from 2003-2009. It has Hitler question Badawi’s turn to martial law and suppression of press freedom. </p>
<p>All this goes straight to the heart of the genre of Downfall video memes. Some are highly political while the vast majority turn on regional events, local slang and very limited in-group jokes. Taken together, they make a larger point about pop culture fads and stick-it-to-the-man sentiments. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Hitler wants a PS3 for Christmas but gets a Wii instead.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>A meme that stuck</h2>
<p>Some might argue that because the Downfall video memes appropriate a representation of a filmmaker’s Hitler instead of authentic archival footage, it’s acceptable to reuse the scene for comedy. </p>
<p>Others feel it is highly problematic to hide the real Nazi monster who orchestrated the systematic death of millions under layers of pixels and captions for laughs. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘I’ll tell you what Chuck Norris is! If Chuck Norris gets shot today, tomorrow will be the bullet’s funeral!’</span></figcaption>
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<p>We need to have more conversations about what happens when cultures get adapted and sensitive topics in a nation’s history go viral.</p>
<p>The Downfall parodies have maintained cultural relevance for more than a decade, enduring far longer than most fleeting memes like <a href="https://www.eonline.com/au/news/794328/the-oral-history-of-memes-where-did-hey-girl-come-from">Hey Girl</a> or <a href="https://barkpost.com/humor/ultimate-dogshaming/">Dog Shaming</a> posts. This is because they have become a fill-in form of sorts – an empty vessel for rageful rants. One may also argue that the original film was a dark-humoured parody of Hitler to begin with. </p>
<p>Lawyers for the sacked BP worker are not just <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/sacked-bp-worker-argues-fair-work-failed-to-get-his-hitler-downfall-joke-20191113-p53acu.html">arguing</a> his bosses didn’t get the joke. They are saying Downfall memes do more than simply equate someone with Hitler. Rather, they connect to the hundreds of memes which came before to poke fun at something or to vent. </p>
<p>Whether it was appropriate for him to share the joke with colleagues will be up to the full bench that hears his appeal. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A very meta parody: Hitler finds out about the Downfall parodies.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The original film’s director approves of the meme by the way. Hirschbiegel said in a <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2010/01/the_director_of_downfall_on_al.html">2010 interview</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think I’ve seen about 145 of them! Of course, I have to put the sound down when I watch. Many times the lines are so funny, I laugh out loud, and I’m laughing about the scene that I staged myself! You couldn’t get a better compliment as a director.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin Nickl does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Online videos of Hitler getting angry at things, based on a 2004 film scene, have found enduring appeal and recently featured in a Fair Work Commission case. Why the furor?Benjamin Nickl, Lecturer in International Comparative Literature and Translation Studies, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1261672019-11-20T14:01:45Z2019-11-20T14:01:45ZWas that joke funny or offensive? Who’s telling it matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302314/original/file-20191118-169393-2lq9do.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C68%2C758%2C481&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The identity of the joke-teller matters more than you might think.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/singer-using-microphone-728477314?src=060991b1-5dcf-406c-8fc0-bcadf79d598e-2-20">Jamesbin/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In September 2019, before the start of its 45th season, “Saturday Night Live” brought on some new cast members. The decision to hire one of them, Shane Gillis, <a href="https://time.com/5677048/snl-shane-gillis-controversy/">was roundly criticized</a> after disparaging jokes he’d made at the expense of Asian and gay people quickly surfaced.</p>
<p>A week after announcing Gillis’ hire, the show fired him.</p>
<p>On the other hand, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/09/saturday-night-live-season-45-cast-bowen-yang">critics widely lauded</a> the addition of comedian Bowen Yang that same season. Ironically, Yang also tends to poke fun at Asian and gay people <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX0QMAEi2TM">during his sets</a>.</p>
<p>So, why did Yang get to keep his job, while Gillis lost his? </p>
<p><a href="http://www.socialpsychs.com/dr-michael-thai/">We</a> <a href="https://www.fortlewis.edu/majorsandprograms/Facultyprofiles/Facultyprofileslist/borgella.aspx">study</a> why some jokes land and others don’t – and why the identity of the person telling the joke matters. Yang, it seems, can “get away” with this sort of humor precisely because he is both Asian and gay, while Gillis is neither.</p>
<h2>Being ‘in’ on the joke</h2>
<p>Many of us intuitively understand that it’s more permissible for people to openly judge or criticize social groups they belong to than those they do not belong to. </p>
<p>For example, many Americans may feel justified in calling out the country’s faults while lambasting a non-American for doing the same. This phenomenon is called the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.90">intergroup sensitivity effect</a>, and we wondered whether it applied to humor.</p>
<p>To test this, we ran a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2019.103838">series of studies</a> in which we examined whether people’s reactions to disparaging jokes would change based on who was telling the joke.</p>
<p>In our first study, we showed participants a mock Facebook profile belonging to either a gay or a straight man who had posted a joke about gay people. We then asked the participants to rate how funny, offensive and acceptable they found the joke. Participants considered the joke funnier, less offensive and more acceptable if the poster was gay.</p>
<p>We wanted to know whether this effect also applied to jokes about race. So, in a second study, we showed participants a mock Facebook profile belonging to an Asian, black or white man who had posted a joke about Asian people. Here, participants rated the joke as funnier, less offensive and more acceptable when the owner of the Facebook profile was Asian.</p>
<p>We then ran a third study in which we directly asked participants how acceptable it was for members of different social groups to make jokes about their in-group or various out-groups. We found that participants, on a consistent basis, were more receptive to humor based on gender, race and sexual orientation if the person making the joke was also a member of the targeted group.</p>
<h2>Why might group membership matter?</h2>
<p>So why, exactly, does the group membership of the joke teller matter so much? We think it may have something to do with how an audience interprets the joke’s intent. </p>
<p>Some humor researchers <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2016-14460-009.html">distinguish</a> between what they call “antisocial intentions” – in which humor is used to inflict harm and reinforce stereotypes about a social group – and “prosocial intentions” – where humor is used to empower the group and challenge stereotypes about it. </p>
<p>When humor is deployed in a <a href="https://www.abc-clio.com/ABC-CLIOCorporate/product.aspx?pc=D6591C">self-referential</a> way, perhaps the audience is more prone to perceive it through a prosocial lens. </p>
<p>For example, when Bowen Yang speaks with an exaggerated Chinese accent, audiences may more readily construe this as coming from a benign place. Maybe he’s satirizing the racist ways in which others portray Chinese people, or perhaps he’s affectionately parodying his own culture. But no matter the real reason, he certainly wouldn’t want to inflict harm on his own group – or so the thinking goes.</p>
<p>On the other hand, when Shane Gillis does the same, audiences may be less likely to give him the benefit of the doubt – and more likely to infer malign and racist intentions. He doesn’t identify with his targets in any way. Maybe he truly does harbor disdain.</p>
<p>Alternatively, it may simply be the case that people are given greater “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(10)43003-8">license</a>” to make disparaging jokes about groups they’re a part of, irrespective of their motives. </p>
<p>We plan to test these potential processes across a new set of studies. Nonetheless, our findings show that comedians and humorists, professional or otherwise, should be ever mindful of group dynamics. They could be the difference between a joke being met with rollicking laughter or awkward silence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126167/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new study highlights the importance of the ‘intergroup sensitivity effect’ in comedy, which gives people license to tell certain jokes, but not others.Michael Thai, Lecturer, The University of QueenslandAlex Borgella, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Fort Lewis CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1207042019-09-30T11:25:05Z2019-09-30T11:25:05ZLeave ‘em laughing instead of crying: Climate humor can break down barriers and find common ground<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294487/original/file-20190927-51414-12basr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5274%2C3645&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protest in Gauhati, India, on Sept. 20, 2019, part of worldwide demonstrations ahead of a U.N. summit in New York. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/India-Climate-Protests/e3c41f66711c4df1b2e158056421dcdb/34/0">AP Photo/Anupam Nath</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Climate change is not inherently funny. Typically, the messengers are serious scientists describing how rising greenhouse gas emissions are harming the planet <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-climate-change-report-underscores-the-need-to-manage-land-for-the-short-and-long-term-121716">on land</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/another-grim-climate-report-on-oceans-what-will-it-take-to-address-the-compounding-problems-123894">at sea</a>, or assessing what role it played in the latest <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-wildfires-how-do-we-know-if-there-is-a-link-101304">wildfire</a> or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/climate/hurricane-dorian-climate-change.html">hurricane</a>.</p>
<p>Society may have reached a saturation point for such somber, gloomy and threatening science-centered discussions. This possibility is what inspires my recent work with colleague <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/theatredance/beth-osnes">Beth Osnes</a> to get messages out about climate change through comedy and humor.</p>
<p>I have <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=aW3k5WMAAAAJ&hl=en">studied and practiced climate communication</a> for about 20 years. My new book, “<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/earth-and-environmental-science/environmental-policy-economics-and-law/creative-climate-communications-productive-pathways-science-policy-and-society?format=PB&isbn=9781316646823">Creative (Climate) Communications</a>,” integrates social science and humanities research and practices to connect people more effectively through issues they care about. Rather than “dumbing down” science for the public, this is a “smartening up” approach that has been shown to bring people together around a highly divisive topic.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">University of Colorado-Boulder students act out a comedy skit set on a pedal-powered airplane.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why laugh about climate change?</h2>
<p>Science is critically important to understanding the enormity of the climate challenge and how it connects with other problems like disasters, food security, local air quality and migration. But stories that emanate from scientific ways of knowing have failed to significantly engage and activate large audiences. </p>
<p>Largely gloomy approaches and interpretations typically stifle audiences rather than inspiring them to take action. For example, novelist Jonathan Franzen recently published an essay in The New Yorker titled “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending">What If We Stop Pretending?</a>” in which he asserted: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The goal (of halting climate change) has been clear for thirty years, and despite earnest efforts we’ve made essentially no progress toward reaching it.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Social science and humanities research have shown that this kind of framing effectively disempowers readers who could be activated and moved by a smarter approach.</p>
<p>Comics took a different path when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report in 2018 warning that the world <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/">only had until about 2030</a> to take steps that could limit warming to manageable levels. Trevor Noah, host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” observed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“You know the crazy people you see in the streets shouting that the world is ending? Turns out, they’re all <a href="http://www.cc.com/video-clips/5cj6l9/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-the-u-n--issues-an-alarming-climate-report---banksy-shreds-his-painting">actually climate scientists</a>.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>On ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Kimmel commented: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There’s always a silver lining. One planet’s calamity is another planet’s shop-portunity.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He then cut to a going-out-of-business advertisement for Planet Earth that read: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Everything must go! 50% of all nocturnal animals, insects, reptiles and amphibians … priced to sell before we live in hell. But you must act fast because planet Earth is over soon. And <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/arts/television/jimmy-kimmel-climate-change-earth.html">when it’s gone, it’s gone</a>.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1175099462626074625"}"></div></p>
<h2>It’s getting hot in here</h2>
<p>Social science and humanities scholars have been examining new, potentially more effective ways to communicate about climate change. Consistently, as I describe in my book, research shows that emotional, tactile, visceral and experiential communication meets people where they are. These methods <a href="https://tinyurl.com/cccbook2019">arouse action and engagement</a>. </p>
<p>Scholars have examined how shows like “<a href="https://youtu.be/07oe1m67eik">Saturday Night Live</a>,” “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjuGCJJUGsg">Last Week Tonight</a>,” “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UCdFbyL8y0">Jimmy Kimmel Live</a>,” “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJO0XoakOJQ">Full Frontal</a>” and “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRGgbcU7FmI">The Daily Show</a>” use jokes to increase understanding and engagement. In one example, former Vice President Al Gore appeared on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” in 2017 and took turns with Colbert serving up climate change pickup lines over saucy slow-jam background music:</p>
<p>Gore: “Are you climate change? Because when I look at you, the world disappears.” </p>
<p>Colbert: “I’m like 97% of scientists, and I can’t deny … it’s getting hot in here.” </p>
<p>Colbert: “Is that an iceberg the size of Delaware breaking off the Antarctic ice shelf, or are you just happy to see me?” </p>
<p>Gore: “I hope you’re not powered by fossil fuels, because you’ve been running through my mind all day.”</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Former Vice President Al Gore and late night comedy host Steven Colbert trade climate change pickup lines.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Comedian Sarah Silverman took time during her 2018 Hulu show “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKzW9Ls3E9Q">I Love You America</a>” to address the need for climate action. In her monologue, she focused on how climate change is driven “by the interests of a very small group and absurdly rich and powerful people.” She added: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The disgusting irony of all of it is that the billionaires who have created this global atrocity are going to be the ones to survive it. They are going to be fine while we all cook to death in a planet-sized hot car.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Breaching barriers and finding common ground</h2>
<p>Research shows that in a time of deep polarization, <a href="https://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs3173/chattoo2017.pdf">comedy can lower defenses</a>. It temporarily suspends social rules and connects people with ideas and new ways of thinking or acting. </p>
<p>Comedy exploits cracks in arguments. It wiggles in, pokes, prods and draws attention to the incongruous, hypocritical, false and pretentious. It can make the complex dimensions of climate change seem more accessible and its challenges seem more manageable. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287915/original/file-20190813-9409-mbn425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287915/original/file-20190813-9409-mbn425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287915/original/file-20190813-9409-mbn425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287915/original/file-20190813-9409-mbn425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287915/original/file-20190813-9409-mbn425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287915/original/file-20190813-9409-mbn425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287915/original/file-20190813-9409-mbn425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287915/original/file-20190813-9409-mbn425.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 2019 climate change comedy night at the University of Colorado at Boulder.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ami Nacu-Schmidt</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many disciplines can inform comedy, including theater, performance and media studies. With my colleagues <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/theatredance/beth-osnes">Beth Osnes</a>, <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/ebio/rebecca-safran">Rebecca Safran</a> and <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/cmci/people/communication/phaedra-c-pezzullo">Phaedra Pezzullo</a> at the University of Colorado, I co-direct the <a href="http://www.insidethegreenhouse.org/">Inside the Greenhouse</a> initiative, which uses insights from creative fields to develop effective climate communication strategies.</p>
<p>For four years we have directed “Stand Up for Climate Change,” a comedy project. We and our students write sketch comedy routines and perform them in front of live audiences on the Boulder campus. From those experiences, we have studied the content of the performances and how the performers and audience respond. Our work has found that humor <a href="https://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/2018.10.pdf">provides effective pathways</a> to greater awareness, learning, sharing of feelings, conversations and inspiration for performers and audiences alike.</p>
<p>A comic approach might seem to trivialize climate change, which has life-and-death implications for millions of people, especially the world’s poorest and most vulnerable residents. But a greater risk would be for people to stop talking about the problem entirely, and miss the chance to reimagine and actively engage in their collective futures.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120704/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maxwell Boykoff receives funding from private donors to support Inside the Greenhouse activities at the University of Colorado. </span></em></p>‘Two polar bears walk into a bar …’ is an unlikely opener for a joke, but memes and parodies are surprisingly effective ways to get people talking about climate change.Maxwell Boykoff, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Director, Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1221032019-08-21T17:47:54Z2019-08-21T17:47:54ZPoliticians don’t seem to laugh at themselves as much anymore<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288814/original/file-20190820-170922-1vsr207.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ronald Reagan at the end of his debate with Walter Mondale, Oct. 22, 1984, Kansas City, Mo. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-MO-USA-APHS234464-Ronald-Reagan-1984/c65d03d0aa2f46c0867f8b3e8fcf5d5d/20/0">AP/Ron Edmonds</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the 2020 presidential campaign gets underway, one of the key factors that shapes our perceptions is how the candidates use – or do not use – humor. </p>
<p>One kind of humor that is in shorter supply among politicians than it once was is self-deprecating humor. That’s when politicians make themselves the butt of the joke. </p>
<p>It is unclear exactly why this has become something of a lost art. Perhaps 21st-century politicians need to be more careful and guarded than their predecessors in light of the <a href="https://www.atalanta.co/antisocial-media">risks posed by social media</a> and internet news outlets. </p>
<p>Whatever the cause, its decline is striking.</p>
<p>Many past presidents from both parties established a reputation for using self-deprecating humor to great effect. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pobQGWgtWU">Ronald Reagan deflecting concerns about his age</a> by “refusing to exploit the youth and inexperience of his opponent” during a debate with Walter Mondale in 1984 is a classic. Reagan’s fellow Republican George W. Bush, widely known for his malapropisms, <a href="https://time.com/5094914/president-jokes/">opened the 2005 White House Correspondents’ Dinner by saying,</a> “I look forward to these dinners where I am supposed to be funny … intentionally.” </p>
<p>On the Democratic side, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama frequently peppered their speeches with subtle, humorous self-putdowns and, after leaving office, even <a href="https://time.com/5094914/president-jokes/">Jimmy Carter once quipped</a> about how nice it was that people now used all of their fingers when they waved at him.</p>
<p>In some ways the use of self-deprecating humor by a politician catches people off guard, as <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289611000523">it’s expected that a candidate would denigrate their rivals while bragging about themselves</a>. This incongruity grabs our attention and makes the humor more memorable than it might otherwise be, making it an effective political weapon when used strategically.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MxorsyYAAAAJ&hl=en">As a psychologist who studies everyday social life</a>, I have seen little self-deprecating humor in recent elections, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/03/04/voters-like-pols-who-can-laugh-at-themselves-why-cant-these-candidates-pull-it-off/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.fa2831d3ed4e">Hillary Clinton’s forced attempts notwithstanding</a>. </p>
<p>Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, for example, never use it, and one may have to go all the way back to <a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/richard-nixon-his-own-worst-enemy/">the time of Richard Nixon</a> to experience a political self-deprecation landscape so barren.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288815/original/file-20190820-170918-1rt3s6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288815/original/file-20190820-170918-1rt3s6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288815/original/file-20190820-170918-1rt3s6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288815/original/file-20190820-170918-1rt3s6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288815/original/file-20190820-170918-1rt3s6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288815/original/file-20190820-170918-1rt3s6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288815/original/file-20190820-170918-1rt3s6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288815/original/file-20190820-170918-1rt3s6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, left, wasn’t good at self-deprecation; presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, right, doesn’t do it at all.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/DEM-2016-Debate/4d8a1486986d407c9466d471e64884d6/2/1">AP/Carlos Osorio</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How does self-deprecation work?</h2>
<p>Scholars have found that humor is one of the key ways in which humans <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289611000523">advertise intelligence, and it makes us more attractive to others</a>. </p>
<p>Self-deprecating humor performs other functions as well. For example, it can be used as a strategy to defuse attacks by identifying personal deficiencies before others have a chance to do so.</p>
<p>And there is evidence that it works. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15377857.2015.1074137">In one recent study</a>, some test subjects were shown a short video of David Letterman making fun of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie when <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Chris_Christie_presidential_campaign,_2016">Christie was running for president in 2016</a>. </p>
<p>Other people in the study saw a short clip of Christie making fun of himself while appearing as a guest on Letterman’s program. </p>
<p>The people who saw Christie being self-deprecating gave higher evaluations of him than those who heard the same negative information coming from Letterman. They also expressed a greater likelihood of voting for him. </p>
<p>Being comfortable with your weaknesses is an indicator of self-awareness and a sign of confidence and strength. <a href="https://www.inc.com/anne-gherini/what-a-self-deprecating-sense-of-humor-says-about-your-eq.html">It is a crucial component of the trait of emotional intelligence</a>, which means that one is good at maneuvering through the landscape of feelings inherent in every social interaction. There is also <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180208104225.htm">evidence that the frequent use of self-mockery can promote psychological well-being</a>.</p>
<h2>The risks</h2>
<p>Self-deprecation does not work equally well for everyone.</p>
<p>It turns out that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/147470490800600303">self-deprecating humor is only effective for high-status people</a> who are already recognized by others as competent and likeable. </p>
<p>If you’re not competent and likeable, self-deprecating humor can backfire. It only <a href="https://www.bustle.com/articles/119255-is-making-fun-of-yourself-a-good-idea-the-science-behind-self-deprecating-humor">serves to reinforce the negative things that people already think</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-self-deprecation-can-backfire-2013-11">Self-deprecation is especially risky for women</a>, who use it more often than men do, but benefit from it much less. It is <a href="https://www.noted.co.nz/health/psychology/why-self-deprecation-is-best-practised-in-moderation/">possible that gender stereotypes about submissiveness and competence</a> prevent this from being an effective female strategy. This may turn out to be a vital piece of information given the large number of female candidates in the Democratic primaries.</p>
<p>Consequently, self-deprecation is best practiced from a position of strength – when you feel confident about your status and believe that this lines up with others’ perceptions of you. In leadership situations, it may be used to forge a secure connection between the leader and the followers. Leaders who are judged to have the quality of transformational leadership – the ability to inspire people to set aside selfish interests for the greater good – are <a href="https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/01437731311289947">most likely to utilize self-deprecating humor</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288817/original/file-20190820-170935-h39p0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288817/original/file-20190820-170935-h39p0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288817/original/file-20190820-170935-h39p0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288817/original/file-20190820-170935-h39p0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288817/original/file-20190820-170935-h39p0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288817/original/file-20190820-170935-h39p0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288817/original/file-20190820-170935-h39p0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288817/original/file-20190820-170935-h39p0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Donald Trump laughs during a 2017 trip to Europe; he rarely, however, laughs at himself.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Germany-G20-Trump/5bf93afa968348069b4a7f10a29191a7/109/0">AP/Evan Vucci</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How to win by spilling coffee</h2>
<p>The prerequisite of competence for effective self-deprecation is undoubtedly related to something called “<a href="https://www.brescia.edu/2017/06/pratfall-effect/">The Pratfall Effect</a>,” first identified in a 1966 study by social psychologist <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/aronson-elliot">Elliot Aronson</a>. He discovered that a person who had already demonstrated competence and superior knowledge in an audition for a TV quiz show actually <a href="https://www.brescia.edu/2017/06/pratfall-effect/">enhanced his likeability by accidentally spilling a cup of coffee all over himself</a>. </p>
<p>A less impressive person who did the same thing ended up with even more negative evaluations. </p>
<p>In short, there are many reasons why a politician may not engage in self-deprecating humor. It is possible that the candidate is simply not adept with humor and avoids it because it does not play to his or her strengths. It is also possible that politicians refrain from self-deprecation because they lack confidence that others think highly of them.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nationalmemo.com/democrats-worry-bernie-sanders/?cn-reloaded=1">Bernie Sanders is notoriously thin-skinned</a> about the fact that he is a millionaire politician best known for bemoaning the influence of wealthy people in politics. In this situation, an artful touch of self-deprecating humor would probably carry the day more successfully than the testy defensiveness that Sanders usually employs.</p>
<p>This brings us to President Trump.</p>
<p>Many political experts have commented on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/04/26/with-self-deprecation-on-menu-for-presidents-at-correspondents-dinner-its-no-wonder-trump-is-skipping-it/?utm_term=.f197eada4c87">Trump’s seeming inability to laugh at himself</a>. A display of self-deprecation by the sitting president has become part of the tradition at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner; Trump has declined to attend the last three years.</p>
<p>Yet Trump believes that he is a master at self-deprecation, as he believes himself to be a master of so many other things. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/04/donald-trump-gridiron-dinner-jared-kushner-melania">Here is what he said</a> at the 2018 annual dinner hosted by the Gridiron Club: “No one does self-deprecating humor better than I do. It’s not even close.” </p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122103/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank T. McAndrew does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Self-deprecating humor can be a savvy campaign strategy – but only for certain candidates.Frank T. McAndrew, Cornelia H. Dudley Professor of Psychology, Knox CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1115842019-02-22T11:40:49Z2019-02-22T11:40:49ZRobots star in ads, but mislead viewers about technology<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259323/original/file-20190215-56243-1mhik5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=55%2C1%2C1122%2C716&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Robots can't really eat hot dogs.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rnrEQBieIQ">SimpliSafe/YouTube.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nowhere is the advance of technology more evident than in the rise of robots and artificial intelligence. From smart devices to self-checkout lanes to Netflix recommendations, robots (the hardware) and AI (the software) are everywhere inside the technology of modern society. They’re increasingly common in ads, too: During the 2019 Super Bowl alone, seven ads aired featuring either robots or AI.</p>
<p>Since I began <a href="http://www.joellerenstrom.com/publications/">studying human-robot interactions</a> almost a decade ago, I’ve observed that in most ads, robots typically fall into one of three general categories: scary, sad or stupid. All three perpetuate common misconceptions about technologies that are already beginning to play a pivotal role in people’s lives.</p>
<h2>The fear factor</h2>
<p>“Scary robot” ads are inevitable, given the <a href="https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/08/are-killer-robots-on-the-rise/">popularity of the sinister robot trope</a>. Advertisers, like Hollywood, embrace scary robot narratives because they’re more dramatic than ones in which robots and humans get along.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rnrEQBieIQ">Fear is Everywhere</a>,” a paranoia-inducing 2019 commercial, advertises SimpliSafe home security systems, which use some of the same monitoring technology the ad demonizes. Rather than reminding viewers of their concerns about burglars or basement flooding, the ad highlights robots and AI as the omnipresent danger. A woman in an electronics store asks her friend <a href="https://theconversation.com/do-i-want-an-always-on-digital-assistant-listening-in-all-the-time-92571">if he’s listening</a>, and a creepy computer voice issues forth from a speaker: “Always, Denise.”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">SimpliSafe’s ‘Fear is Everywhere’ ad.</span></figcaption>
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<p>That same ad also highlights a second major type of fear – that robots will replace humans. A man watching a sporting event tells his friends, “in five years, robots will be able to do your job, and your job and your job,” while a robot sitting in the stands listens menacingly, as if affirming the assertion. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Halo Top suggests humans’ only need is ice cream.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Then, of course, there’s the third trope, of the evil robot intent on harming people. A <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4IFNKYmLa8">2017 Halo Top ice cream</a> ad, for example, functions as a 90-second horror movie, in which a robot force-feeds a woman ice cream, and then casually mentions that everyone she knows is dead.</p>
<p>There are real <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-industrial-revolution-really-tells-us-about-the-future-of-automation-and-work-82051">threats to humans from robots and AI</a>. Automation may <a href="https://futurism.com/new-chart-proves-automation-serious-threat">eliminate millions of jobs</a> – and it <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/05/01/ai-doesnt-eliminate-jobs-it-creates-them/">might create many others</a> that don’t yet exist. Most likely, both will happen, as has happened throughout history: Elevator operators disappeared and social-media manager positions were created. The threat revolves around who will and who won’t be able to adjust or receive training to get the new jobs.</p>
<p>But the world is a long way off from robots that portray a version of the “<a href="https://slate.com/technology/2013/07/pacific-rim-s-robots-go-beyond-the-frankenstein-complex.html">Frankenstein Complex</a>,” Isaac Asimov’s phrase for the human fear that <a href="https://www.e-reading.club/chapter.php/81822/47/Azimov_-_Robot_Visions.html">poorly designed mechanical creations</a> might turn against humanity. <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2015/04/ex-machina-can-robots-artificial-intelligence-have-emotions.html">Robots have no intentions</a> – only instructions. They can act as though they have feelings, but experience no actual emotion. No one knows if robot emotion or sentience are even possible. </p>
<p>Ads that instill fear of technology in humans can present an unrealistic and unhelpful mindset for <a href="https://theconversation.com/5-ways-to-help-robots-work-together-with-people-101419">adapting to the increasing presence</a> of this technology in our lives – whether in <a href="https://www.aclu.org/issues/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/ai-and-criminal-justice-devil-data">criminal justice</a>, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/robot-nurses-will-make-shortages-obsolete">health care</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-big-data-analysis-of-police-activity-is-inherently-biased-72640">other areas</a>. Fear can also distract people from properly understanding and planning for ways in which <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/the-3-skill-sets-workers-need-to-develop-between-now-and-2030/">humans can continue to offer meaningful skills</a> and insights beyond the abilities of any machine.</p>
<h2>Doom and gloom</h2>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Pringles are for everyone – sort of.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Sad robot” ads combat people’s fears about robots while simultaneously eliciting sympathy for them. In a 2019 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDakI68u2xE">Pringles ad</a>, a smart device bemoans its lack of hands to stack chips or mouth to eat them. The robot’s physical limitations reassure viewers of human superiority, and yet the robot is advanced enough to have genuine feelings of sadness.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Could a child do your taxes?</span></figcaption>
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<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIRX3yWhgZI">Turbo Tax’s RoboChild</a> perpetuated the myth of robot intelligence in two appearances during the 2019 Super Bowl. RoboChild, which looks like young Haley Joel Osment’s face stuck on a small robot body, wants to be an accountant, but encounters constant reminders that it’s in a human world. A person tells RoboChild it isn’t emotionally complex enough for the job, correctly distinguishing between the human and robot abilities to feel emotion – while sparking viewers’ sympathy for the robot. </p>
<p>However, emotion isn’t necessary to fulfill most accounting functions: Artificial intelligence already performs <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/06/01/the-digital-transformation-of-accounting-and-finance-artificial-intelligence-robots-and-chatbots/">a number of financial tasks</a>, many of which require human interaction. </p>
<h2>Falling to pieces</h2>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Robots may not make great insurance agents.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The third category of advertising robots doesn’t evoke fear or sympathy, but rather ridicule. A <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zkcutf36SkU">2018 State Farm ad</a>, for instance, pokes fun at a rival agency that has begun using cheap robot agents instead of human ones. The employee robot is a mess, spurting both hydraulic fluid and gibberish. In “stupid robot” ads, robots have cognitive constraints, sometimes in addition to physical ones. </p>
<p>These ads are at least somewhat realistic, as robots and AI have fundamental limitations – even the system that can <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/dont-pass-go-ai-will-beat-you-at-pretty-much-everything">beat an international Go champion</a> isn’t much good <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-teach-artificial-intelligence-common-sense/">at anything else</a>. Even so, portraying robots as a collection of laughable, malfunctioning parts undermines the seriousness of their implications. Humans who are laughing at dumb machines may not think clearly or prepare actively for a future in which even limited robots and AI are key players.</p>
<iframe src="https://players.brightcove.net/377748811/BkeObTWBe_default/index.html?videoId=5996370407001" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Amazon’s Super Bowl ad featuring <a href="https://adage.com/article/special-report-super-bowl/watch-alexa-failures-amazon-s-super-bowl-commercial/316435/">Alexa fails</a> initially seemed like a collection of “stupid robot” highlights. A collar that allows a dog to order an entire truckload of food reminds viewers of Alexas that interpreted TV news or casual conversations as <a href="https://qz.com/880541/amazons-amzn-alexa-accidentally-ordered-a-ton-of-dollhouses-across-san-diego/">directives to buy products</a>. </p>
<p>It rightly makes the point that no product is perfect – but it subtly demonstrates the power of Amazon’s technologies, which in the ad shut down an entire continental power grid by accident. The technology itself is portrayed as dysfunctional – and something over which we can all have a laugh. However, the failures illustrate that the flaws lie in human efforts of concept, design or programming. Laughing at the machines can distract people from that deeper insight, or from considering <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-know-the-algorithms-the-government-uses-to-make-important-decisions-about-us-57869">who should be responsible</a> when automation-enabled disaster strikes.</p>
<p>Commercials aren’t likely to encourage viewers to seek out legitimate information about new technologies. Their main job is to sell a product or service, not contribute to an informed society. But they need not perpetuate generalized and unrealistic fears. The more misdirection people absorb about robots and AI, the less capable they will be of understanding and managing the real implications of technological advances.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111584/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joelle Renstrom does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In ads, robots typically are scary, sad or stupid. Real-life robots and artificial intelligence systems are none of those.Joelle Renstrom, Lecturer of Rhetoric and freelance science writer, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1064022018-11-14T10:33:42Z2018-11-14T10:33:42ZHow humour can change your relationship<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245348/original/file-20181113-194513-5aek73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Funny haha.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/waist-portrait-funny-old-man-woman-1048790306?src=wkij7S5Ny4ZwjyVKpI-cpA-2-0">Olena Yakobchuk/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A sense of humour is an <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/humor-sapiens/201504/good-in-bed-funny-men-give-more-orgasms">attractive trait</a>. There is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0265407502019004048">abundant</a> <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17380374">cross cultural evidence</a> that shows that being funny <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/humor-sapiens/201110/why-jokes-are-seductive">makes you more desirable</a> as a mate, especially if you are a man. But once the initial flirting is over, and you are in a romantic relationship, how large a role does humour play?</p>
<p>For <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/humr.2014.27.issue-2/humor-2014-0015/humor-2014-0015.xml">dating couples</a>, use of positive humour (for example, using humour to cheer up your date) can positively contribute to relationship satisfaction. The use of aggressive humour, on the other hand (teasing and making fun of your partner) has the opposite effect. These feelings can fluctuate on a day-to-day basis depending on each partner’s use of humour. </p>
<p>For long-term relationships, such as in marriages, couples generally share a similar sense of humour – although similarities in sense of humour <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/humr.2003.16.issue-1/humr.2003.005/humr.2003.005.xml">are not associated</a> with greater marital satisfaction, nor with longer marriages. Perhaps not surprisingly, the research that resulted in this finding also found that couples with fewer children laugh more, compared to couples with a larger number of children.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/humr.2011.24.issue-4/humr.2011.025/humr.2011.025.xml">another study</a>, conducted with 3,000 married couples from five countries, both husbands and wives were found to be happier with a humorous partner, but this trait was reported to be more important for the marital satisfaction of the wives than the husbands. Interestingly, both husbands and wives thought that the husband was humourous more often. Regardless, married couples <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1996-73025-001">overwhelmingly say</a> that humour has a positive impact on their marriages. </p>
<h2>Conflict resolution</h2>
<p>But what happens when things aren’t going so well? Humour is a great ice breaker and a social lubricant, but can it also help resolve conflict in marriages? In <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1997-04812-009">one study</a>, researchers observed 60 newlywed couples when they discussed a problem in their marriage. They coded how much humour was used in the conversation. The couples also completed a measure of life stress. What researchers found when they followed up 18 months later was quite surprising. In couples that reported high stress, the more the husband used humour, the greater the chance the couple would separate or divorce.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245350/original/file-20181113-194519-1o7vl3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245350/original/file-20181113-194519-1o7vl3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245350/original/file-20181113-194519-1o7vl3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245350/original/file-20181113-194519-1o7vl3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245350/original/file-20181113-194519-1o7vl3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245350/original/file-20181113-194519-1o7vl3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245350/original/file-20181113-194519-1o7vl3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Sharing a joke.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/happy-friends-holding-each-other-1038614926?src=5QMP_YohEb-4vqhnofkWWQ-1-26">Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>By contrast, in <a href="https://public.psych.iastate.edu/ccutrona/psych592a/articles/Predicting%20marital%20happiness%20from%20newlywed%20interactions.pdf">a similar study</a> with 130 married couples, a wife’s use of humour predicted greater marital stability over six years, but only if the humour led to a decrease in their husband’s heart rate. In other words, if the humour calms the husbands, then it might be beneficial to their marriages.</p>
<p>These two studies show the disparate function of humour for men and women. For men, humour might serve as a way to distract from dealing with problems in the relationship, perhaps in an attempt to reduce their own anxiety. Women, on the other hand, may use humour to create a more relaxed atmosphere that can facilitate reconciliation.</p>
<h2>Laughing at you, not with you</h2>
<p>In recent years, there has been much <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/humr.2009.22.issue-1-2/humr.2009.002/humr.2009.002.xml">research</a> on the topics of <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/humr.2008.21.issue-1/humor.2008.002/humor.2008.002.xml">gelotophobia</a> (the fear of being laughed at), <a href="https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:98075">gelotophilia</a> (the joy of being laughed at), and katagelasticism (the joy of laughing at others). One <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092656618302551">study</a> with a sample of 154 heterosexual young couples, who had been together an average of six years, examined whether any of these dispositions had a bearing on relationship satisfaction. You might expect that a person who likes being laughed at would be a good match with a partner that likes laughing at others, and this is indeed what the researchers found, though the correlation was not very strong. Overall, partners in romantic relationships tended to have similar preferences – they both liked being laughed at or to laugh at others at similar levels.</p>
<p>Looking at relationship satisfaction, people who scored high on gelotophobia reported the lowest satisfaction in their relationships, and felt less physically attractive, and less sexually satisfied, compared to low gelotophobians. This makes sense, as being in an intimate relationship requires opening up and being more vulnerable, something that may feel uncomfortable for a person fearing being judged and laughed at. </p>
<p>An interesting finding was that for men, having a gelotophobic partner reduced their own sexual satisfaction in relationships, probably because their partner’s insecurities make them less appealing. In contrast, women who loved being laughed at (gelotophilians) were more attracted to and enjoyed higher sexual satisfaction with their partner. No such effect was found with men. Also interesting was the finding that joy of laughing at others did not correlate with relationship satisfaction.</p>
<h2>Humour and sex</h2>
<p>Looking deeper into the issue of sexual satisfaction, women appear to have the edge. Women who have humorous partners, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/humor-sapiens/201504/good-in-bed-funny-men-give-more-orgasms">enjoy more and stronger orgasms</a>, compared to women who have less funny partners. Women with funnier partners also initiated sex more often and had more sex in general (indeed, for very good reasons). Such effects have not been found in women with higher humour production (the ability to come up with funny ideas on the spot) perhaps because it requires less effort to satisfy the sexual desire of men.</p>
<p>This result may highlight sex differences in light of sexual selection, where higher reproduction costs for women (being pregnant, breastfeeding, shorter reproductive window), make them choosier than men. In contrast, men with good senses of humour may signal their intelligence, creativity, warmth, and how friendly they are – traits that are important in any relationship, especially romantic ones, and are more valuable for women.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106402/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gil Greengross does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The way you and your partner use humour can shape your relationship, and even break it up.Gil Greengross, Lecturer in Psychology, Aberystwyth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/918922018-03-08T11:43:42Z2018-03-08T11:43:42ZWhy is sarcasm so difficult to detect in texts and emails?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209381/original/file-20180307-146645-1km069e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Because you've never seen it before, right?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/verybadlady/4678044498">Heather</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This sentence begins the best article you will ever read.</p>
<p>Chances are you thought that last statement might be sarcasm. Sarcasm, as linguist Robert Gibbs <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0096-3445.115.1.3">noted</a>, includes “words used to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning of a sentence.” A form of irony, it also tends to be directed toward a specific individual.</p>
<p>However, it’s not always easy to figure out if a writer is being sarcastic – particularly as we march ahead in a digital age that has transformed the way we communicate, with texting, emailing and online commentary replacing face-to-face chats or phone conversations.</p>
<p>In writing, the signal of sarcasm can be muddied. For example, say you’re texting with a friend about meeting at the movies:</p>
<p><strong>Friend</strong>: I’m waiting at the front. Movie starts in 5.</p>
<p><strong>You</strong>: I’m on my way now. Should be there in 10.</p>
<p><strong>Friend</strong>: I’m glad you were watching the clock today.</p>
<p>Was the friend being sarcastic or sincere? The later you are, the more upset they’ll likely be, and the higher the probability their response is a sarcastic jab. But if your friend knows you’re usually much later, they could be sincere.</p>
<p>So there’s one thing to look for: How well does the attitude the writer is conveying agree with the situation and the person?</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the struggle to interpret written sarcasm is real.</p>
<p>Studies have shown that people realize that they have a tough time interpreting sarcasm in writing. <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0022-3514.89.6.925">Studying the use of email</a>, researchers found writers who think they’re being obviously sarcastic <em>still</em> confuse readers.</p>
<p>Sarcasm thrives in ambiguous situations – and that’s the main issue.</p>
<p>When delivered in person, sarcasm tends to assume a <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0096-3445.115.1.3">cutting, bitter tone</a>. But written messages don’t always get that attitude across or give you much else to go on. We still need more information.</p>
<h2>Signals that go missing in texts</h2>
<p>Studies have examined the use of sarcasm in a variety of everyday situations, whether it’s <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/languages-linguistics/sociolinguistics/politeness-some-universals-language-usage?format=PB&isbn=9780521313551#pw7IE1KI4LE4Eqga.97">at work</a> to give criticism or praise, or in situations <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0096-3445.118.4.374">where social norms get violated</a>. (Be on time to movies, people!)</p>
<p>The problem is that a lot of previous studies of sarcasm have been done on <em>spoken</em> sarcasm, which tends to give listeners cues.</p>
<p>When you have a conversation with someone face-to-face (or FaceTime-to-FaceTime) and they say something sarcastic, you’ll see their facial expression, and they may look slightly bemused or tense. Equally or more helpful, the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167639307001884?via%3Dihub">tone</a> of their voice will likely change, too – they may <a href="https://benjamins.com/#catalog/books/bct.55.02che/details">sound more intense</a> or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005120109296">draw out certain phrases</a>. </p>
<p>You’ll also be firmly grounded in the real-time context of the situation, so when they say, “Man, nice job ironing your clothes,” you can look down – and see your wrinkled shirt. </p>
<p>All of these cues have been researched, and we know enough about them that we have the ability to artificially make a sincerely spoken statement <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0261927X16653640">sound sarcastic</a>.</p>
<p>And yet when we text, a lot of that information goes missing. </p>
<p>There are no facial cues, no vocal tones and maybe even a delayed response if a person can’t text you back immediately. And if you don’t know the person all that well, there goes your last potential cue: history.</p>
<h2>Emojis to the rescue?</h2>
<p>So after what you thought was an unexceptional first date – exactly how do you interpret the following flurry of texts?</p>
<p><strong>Date</strong>: I had a great time. (12:03 a.m.)</p>
<p><strong>Date</strong>: That was the most fun I’ve had in years. (12:05 a.m.)</p>
<p><strong>Date</strong>: Really, it could not have gone better. (12:30 a.m.)</p>
<p>Was the date really that good? Did they really seem like they had that much fun? Or are they just a jerk lamenting the wasted time? All valid questions. And the recipient could come to a lot of conclusions.</p>
<p>Fear not. The digital age has developed some ways to mitigate some of the tortuous ambiguity. You can probably <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcmc/article/21/2/105/4065362">include an emoji</a> to make it clearer to a reader something was meant sarcastically. </p>
<p><strong>Date</strong>: I had a great time. (12:03 a.m.)</p>
<p><strong>Date</strong>: That was the most fun I’ve had in years. 😂 (12:05 a.m.)</p>
<p><strong>Date</strong>: It really, could not have gone better. 😑 (12:30 a.m.)</p>
<p>Ambiguity reduced, and facial expression taken care of. Probably not headed for date #2. </p>
<p>If we’re talking about email, we also have modifications that that can be made to text. We can <em>italicize</em> or <strong>bold</strong> words to change the way that a reader interprets the message.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209396/original/file-20180307-146671-c4x377.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209396/original/file-20180307-146671-c4x377.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209396/original/file-20180307-146671-c4x377.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209396/original/file-20180307-146671-c4x377.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209396/original/file-20180307-146671-c4x377.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209396/original/file-20180307-146671-c4x377.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209396/original/file-20180307-146671-c4x377.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Oh great – salad with no dressing. My favorite!’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emojione_1F643.svg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lastly, social media platforms like Twitter have given writers even more tools to allow people to communicate their intent. A study that included sarcastic tweets <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0163853X.2013.849525">found that</a> tweeters who include the hashtag #sarcasm tend to use more interjections (wow!) and positive wording for negative situations in their sarcastic tweets.</p>
<p>Algorithms have actually been built to determine the presence of sarcasm and rudeness in tweets, user reviews and online conversations. The formulas were able to identify language that’s outright rude pretty easily. But in order to correctly detect sarcasm, researchers <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0950705114002226?via%3Dihub">found</a> that algorithms need both linguistic (language) and semantic (meaning) information built in.</p>
<p>In other words, sarcasm’s subtlety means that the algorithms <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306457314000661">require more specification in their coding</a> – unless you #sarcasm, of course. </p>
<p>With so many options to choose from, it’s time to make sure that text you send at 2:30 a.m. really gets your point across 😉.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91892/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sara Peters receives funding from the National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>Sarcasm thrives in ambiguous situations, which makes it especially ripe for misinterpretation.Sara Peters, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Newberry CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/722582017-02-02T11:10:36Z2017-02-02T11:10:36ZWhy children find ‘poo’ so hilarious – and how adults should tackle it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155166/original/image-20170201-12678-1ydilh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Look! I can make an even bigger one.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">petereleven/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A boy meets a man carrying a load of cow manure and asks him what he is going to do with it all. The man tells the little boy: “I’m taking it home to put on my strawberries.” The boy looks up at the man and says: “I don’t know where you come from, but where I come from we put cream and sugar on our strawberries.”</p>
<p>While most of us can appreciate a joke about excrement, preschoolers and children often find it hilarious on a completely different level. Just running around the house saying the word “poo” out loud can often unleash hysterical laughter. But why is this? </p>
<p>Perhaps most famously, Sigmund Freud argued that at this age, the child is going through an “<a href="https://www.verywell.com/freuds-stages-of-psychosexual-development-2795962#step3">anal stage</a>” when he or she gets immense psychosexual pleasure from the development of anal control through toilet training. While it is true that there are usually tensions around learning the toileting process for children at this age, such theories no longer have much bearing on our thinking. </p>
<h2>Stages of humour development</h2>
<p>Modern research focuses more on such behaviour as an important part of <a href="https://archive.org/details/psychologyofhumo00martrich">the development of humour</a> in children. Humour is after all a universal aspect of human behaviour. Anywhere you find people, you will find laughter. Laughter of a sort is <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19500987">also seen among non-human primates</a>, occurring during playful social interactions and laughing together is an important part of social bonding.</p>
<p>Research in children shows that the subject of the humour <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/book/9780123725646">changes as they develop</a>. In very young children, a game of peek-a-boo is the subject of much amusement. In the preschool years, we see a fascination with jokes about excrement and toilets. Then jokes about social and gender roles come to be funny. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155167/original/image-20170201-12675-1jd7s4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155167/original/image-20170201-12675-1jd7s4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155167/original/image-20170201-12675-1jd7s4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155167/original/image-20170201-12675-1jd7s4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155167/original/image-20170201-12675-1jd7s4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155167/original/image-20170201-12675-1jd7s4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155167/original/image-20170201-12675-1jd7s4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Guys, are you not a bit old for that kind of joke?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jason Salmon/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Two patterns emerge from these studies. One is that children find things funny when they are stretching their cognitive abilities. Incongruity is a key quality of amusement and that has to be pitched at the right level and in the right context for the recipient to be tickled. Evidence shows that once the cognitive level has been passed, the subject loses its potency. </p>
<p>The other key quality is the social tension that gives rise to humour. For infants, the game of peek-a-boo may be a lot of fun because it is playing with both the threat of separation, and the concept of “object permanence” (when the young child is still learning that when something is out of sight it can be hidden rather than being no longer there). But if the child has separation anxiety, is scared of the stranger playing the game, or is long past the stage of understanding the concept of object permanency, the game of peek-a-boo is no longer funny. </p>
<p>Humour can thereby be understood as a critical aspect of social play. As well as its role in social bonding, play is something that we all must do in order to practise a range of skills, which will be required for survival and reproductive success. And social interaction skills <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1520-6505(1996)5:5%3C172::AID-EVAN6%3E3.0.CO;2-H/full">are a very important part of this</a>. We play with funny faces, gestures and language, using the same words in different ways to make them mean different things. Sometimes, we use the words in different contexts to see what effects they have. When we play games, it is important to make sure all the players know it is a game, and so we have laughter to give a clear signal.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="668" data-image="" data-title="Extract from The Anthill 16 podcast: Humour Me, on children's toilet humour." data-size="7576763" data-source="The Conversation" data-source-url="https://theconversation.com/anthill-16-humour-me-82845" data-license="CC BY-ND" data-license-url="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/880/childrens-toilet-humour.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
Extract from The Anthill 16 podcast: Humour Me, on children’s toilet humour.
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" rel="nofollow" href="https://theconversation.com/anthill-16-humour-me-82845">The Conversation</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a><span class="download"><span>7.23 MB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/880/childrens-toilet-humour.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
</div></p>
<p>Between the age of two and three, children’s learning explodes as they develop the cognitive capacity to create <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11548971">“secondary” mental representations</a> of the world that are distinct from primary representations of reality. This means they are becoming self-aware, learning about pretence and learning that words can stand for objects. </p>
<p>The three-year-old running round the house saying “poo” or pretending to go to the toilet is arguably appreciating the incongruity of being able to use the word liberally. They are also playing with the action of toileting, the social conventions around it and the possible shameful consequences of incontinence. Toilet humour is therefore a natural part of their development. </p>
<p>Toilet humour tends to fade with age but usually sticks around in everyone to some extent, though not everyone finds it funny to begin with. Some children with a fear of germs, a heightened sensory aversion, problems with incontinence or a fear of public exposure, may just find the whole business too worrying or unpleasant to laugh about. In their case, their worries need to be acknowledged and their privacy respected. </p>
<h2>The role of parents</h2>
<p>Nowadays, most of us are fortunate to live in a world where the value of levity and laughter is appreciated. We appreciate the value of play and the right to play is <a href="https://www.unicef.org.uk/what-we-do/un-convention-child-rights/">enshrined in the human rights convention</a> on the rights of the child. This is actually a very recent cultural development in Western society. For many centuries, from the Greek scholars to the 20th century, humour was seen by philosophers <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/humor/">as a rather debased form of intellectual activity</a>. The bible also has little place for humour and the Christian tradition would frown on laughter as exemplified in many strict protestant traditions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155165/original/image-20170201-12669-dd3gf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155165/original/image-20170201-12669-dd3gf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155165/original/image-20170201-12669-dd3gf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155165/original/image-20170201-12669-dd3gf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155165/original/image-20170201-12669-dd3gf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155165/original/image-20170201-12669-dd3gf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155165/original/image-20170201-12669-dd3gf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Look what teddy’s doing!</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was the advent of cognitive psychology that brought <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/humor/">new ways of thinking about the mind</a>, with relief theory suggesting that laughter was a way of releasing pent up energy, and <a href="http://www.richardwiseman.com/LaughLab/incon.html">incongruity theory</a> recognising that jokes play with cognitive incongruity. Now, most developmental psychologists appreciate the critical role of humour, levity and laughter in healthy social development and something to be utilised by good parenting and education. </p>
<p>So, for parents whose toddlers find excrement very funny, it is probably a sign of healthy development if they are also learning to use the potty in an appropriate way. It shows they are thinking about and reflecting on what they are learning, and upon the social rules that surround it. And for parents to be able to have a little laugh with their toddler about this learning process, shows them that it is an okay subject for discourse. This limits the shame and embarrassment that occurs during the inevitable accidents, helps develop the social bond and fosters that open channel of communication between parent and child that is so important in the long run.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72258/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin H G Williams receives funding from the Northwood Trust.</span></em></p>The serious science of toilet humour.Justin H G Williams, Senior Clinical Lecturer in Child Psychiatry, University of AberdeenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/644142016-11-02T01:47:41Z2016-11-02T01:47:41ZScience deconstructs humor: What makes some things funny?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144119/original/image-20161101-27102-1ibofb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why does that one video crack you up?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=376697146">Laughing image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Think of the most hilarious video you’ve ever seen on the internet. Why is it so funny? </p>
<p>As a researcher who <a href="http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/tuscLab/people/graduate.htm">investigates some of the potential side effects of humor</a>, I spend a fair bit of time verifying the funniness of the jokes, photos and videos we present to participants in our studies. Quantifying the perception of humor is paramount in ensuring our findings are valid and reliable. We often rely on pretesting – that is, trying out jokes and other potential stimuli on different samples of people – to give us a sense of whether they might work in our studies.</p>
<p>To make predictions on how our funny materials will be perceived by study subjects, we also turn to a growing body of <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/humor/">humor theories</a> that speculate on why and when certain situations are considered funny. From ancient Greece to today, many thinkers from around the world have yearned to understand what makes us laugh. Whether their reasons for studying humor were strategic (like some of Plato’s thoughts on using humor to <a href="http://doi.org/10.1515/humr.2003.020">manipulate people’s political views</a>) or simply inquisitive, their insights have been crucial to the development of humor research today. </p>
<p>Take the following video as an example of a funny stimulus one might use in humor research: </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YZEbBZ2IrXE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Man vs. Moose in Sweden.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To summarize: A man and his female companion are enjoying a pleasant day observing a moose in one of Sweden’s forests. The woman makes a sudden movement, causing the moose to charge the couple. The man stands his ground, causing the moose to stop in his tracks. After a few feints with a large stick and several caveman-ish grunts by the man, the defeated moose retreats while the man proclaims his victory (with more grunting).</p>
<p>The clip has been viewed on YouTube almost three million times, and the comments make it clear that many folks who watch it are LOLing. But why is this funny? </p>
<h2>Superiority theory: Dumb moose</h2>
<p>It is the oldest of all humor theories: Philosophers such as <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/humor/">Aristotle and Plato</a> alluded to the idea behind the superiority theory thousands of years ago. It suggests that all humor is derived from the misfortunes of others – and therefore, our own relative superiority. Thomas Hobbes also alluded to this theory in his book <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/thomas-hobbes-leviathan-9780198723967?q=Leviathan&lang=en&cc=us">“Leviathan</a>,” suggesting that humor results in any situation where there’s a sudden realization of how much better we are than our direct competition. </p>
<p>Taking this theory into consideration, it seems like the retreating moose is the butt of the joke in this scenario. <a href="http://www.transactionpub.com/title/The-Game-of-Humor-978-0-7658-0659-8.html">Charles Gruner</a>, the late expert on superiority theory, suggest that all humor is derived from competition. In this case, the moose lost that competition.</p>
<h2>Relief theory: Nobody died</h2>
<p>The relief theory of humor stems from Sigmund Freud’s assertion that laughter lets us relieve tension and release “<a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/1664527.pdf">psychic energy</a>.” In other words, Freud and <a href="http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/6201/1/6201_3555.PDF">other relief theorists</a> believe that some buildup of tension is inherent to all humorous scenarios and the perception of humor is directly related to the release of that tension.</p>
<p>Freud used this idea to explain our fascination with taboo topics and why we might find it humorous to acknowledge them. For example, my own line of research deals with humor in interracial interactions and how it can be used to facilitate these commonly tense situations. Many comedians have tackled this topic as well, focusing on how language is used in interracial settings and using it as an example of how <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw_mRaIHb-M">relief can be funny</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dw_mRaIHb-M?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A comedy clip focused on interracial interactions gets some of its humor from the relief when a tense situation is resolved.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Interestingly, this theory has served as the rationale behind many studies documenting the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1086/498281">psychological</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.4.687">physiological</a> benefits of laughter. In both cases, the relief of tension (physiological tension, in the case of laughing) can lead to positive health outcomes overall, including decreased stress, anxiety and even <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ecam/nek015">physical pain</a>. </p>
<p>In the case of our moose video: Once the moose charges, the tension builds as the man and the animal face off for an extended period of time. The tension is released when the moose gives up his ground, lowers his ears and eventually scurries away. The video would probably be far less humorous if the tension had been resolved with violence – for instance, the moose trampling the man, or alternatively ending up with a stick in its eye.</p>
<h2>Incongruity theory: It’s unexpected</h2>
<p>The incongruity theory of humor suggests that we find <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/humor/#SH2c">fundamentally incompatible concepts or unexpected resolutions</a> funny. Basically, we find humor in the incongruity between our expectations and reality.</p>
<p>Resolving incongruity can contribute to the perception of humor as well. This concept is known as as the “<a href="http://doc.utwente.nl/63066/1/0000009e.pdf">incongruity-resolution</a>” theory, and primarily refers to written jokes. When identifying what makes a humorous situation funny, this theory can be applied broadly; it can account for the laughs found in many different juxtaposed concepts.</p>
<p>Take the following <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4h629u/what_joke_is_hilarious_but_takes_a_few_seconds_to/">one-liners</a> as examples:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I have an Epi-Pen. My friend gave it to me as he was dying. It seemed very important to him that I have it.”</p>
<p>“Remains to be seen if glass coffins become popular.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The humor in both of these examples relies on incongruous interpretations: In the first, a person has clearly misinterpreted his friend’s dying wish. In the second, the phrase “remains to be seen” is a play on words that takes on two very different meanings depending on how you read the joke. </p>
<p>In the case of our moose video, the incongruity results from the false expectation that the interaction between man and moose would result in some sort of violence. When we see our expectations foiled, it results in the perception of humor. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144121/original/image-20161101-14771-1ih10vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144121/original/image-20161101-14771-1ih10vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144121/original/image-20161101-14771-1ih10vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144121/original/image-20161101-14771-1ih10vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144121/original/image-20161101-14771-1ih10vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144121/original/image-20161101-14771-1ih10vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144121/original/image-20161101-14771-1ih10vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144121/original/image-20161101-14771-1ih10vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The safety of being in the audience at a comedy show frees you to let loose.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/China-Standup-Comedy/7b784b25adf04524b8f3a15edd7ab724/1/0">Mark Schiefelbein/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Benign violations theory: It’s bad, but harmless</h2>
<p>Incongruity is also a fundamental part of the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610376073">benign violations theory of humor (BVT)</a>, one of the most recently developed explanations. Derived from the linguist <a href="http://doi.org/10.1515/humr.1998.11.2.161">Thomas Veatch’s “violation theory,”</a> which describes various ways for incongruity to be funny, BVT attempts to create one global theory to unify all previous theories of humor and account for issues with each.</p>
<p>Broadly, benign violations theory asserts that all humor derives from three necessary conditions: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>The presence of some sort of norm violation, be it a moral norm violation (robbing a retirement home), social norm violation (breaking up with a long-term boyfriend via text message) or physical norm violation (purposefully sneezing directly on a child). </p></li>
<li><p>A “benign” or “safe” context in which the violation takes place (this can take many forms). </p></li>
<li><p>The interpretation of the first two points simultaneously. In other words, one must view, read or otherwise interpret a violation as relatively harmless.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thus far, researchers studying BVT have demonstrated a few different scenarios in which the perception of a benign violation could take place – for example, when there is weak commitment to the norm being violated. </p>
<p>Take the example of a church raffling off a Hummer SUV. They found <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610376073">this scenario is much less funny to churchgoers</a> (with their strong commitment to the norm that the church is sacred and embodies values of humility and stewardship) than it is to non-churchgoers (with relatively weak norm commitment about the church). While both groups found the concept of the church’s choice of fundraiser disgusting, only the non-churchgoers simultaneously appraised the situation as also amusing. Hence, a benign violation is born. </p>
<p>In the case of our moose video, the violation is clear; there’s a moose about to charge two people, and we’re not sure what exactly is about to go down. The benign part of the situation could be credited to a number of different sources, but it’s likely due to the fact that we’re psychologically (and physically, and temporally) distant from the individuals in the video. They’re far away in Sweden, and we’re comfortably watching their dilemma on a screen. </p>
<h2>Homing in on funny</h2>
<p>At one point or another, we’ve all wondered why some phrase or occurrence has caused us to erupt with laughter. In many ways, this type of inquiry is what drove me to research the limits and consequences of humor in the first place. People are unique and often find different things amusing. In order to examine the effects of humor, it is our job as researchers to try to select and craft the stimuli we present to affect the widest range of people. The outcomes of good science stem from both the validity and reliability of our stimuli, which is why it’s important to think critically about the reasons why we’re laughing.</p>
<p>The application of this still-growing body of humor research and theory is seen everywhere, influencing everything from <a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/42384505/Humor_Media_and_The_Public_Discourse_A_C20160208-14055-en2rll.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ56TQJRTWSMTNPEA&Expires=1478031047&Signature=MT%2BDR%2BwUz83RRzV1xU%2F%2FIO3Hqko%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DHumor_Media_and_The_Public_Discourse_A_C.pdf">political speeches</a> to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2012.749082">advertising campaigns</a>. And while “laughter is the best medicine” may be an overstatement (penicillin is probably better, for one), psychologists and medical professionals have started to lend credence to the idea that <a href="https://theconversation.com/getting-serious-about-funny-psychologists-see-humor-as-a-character-strength-61552">humor and laughter might have some positive effects</a> for health and happiness. These applications underscore the importance of developing the best understanding of humor we can.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64414/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Borgella does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>One viral video might leave you in stitches; another leaves you cold. Psychology researchers have worked out several theories of humor to explain why.Alex Borgella, Ph.D. Candidate in Psychology, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/638552016-09-07T02:45:43Z2016-09-07T02:45:43ZPsychology behind the unfunny consequences of jokes that denigrate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136477/original/image-20160902-20232-1irrld7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=222%2C175%2C2380%2C1328&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A joke isn't just a joke.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/elycefeliz/6354197379">elycefeliz</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Q: Why did the woman cross the road?</p>
<p>A: Who cares! What the hell is she doing out of the kitchen?</p>
<p>Q: Why hasn’t NASA sent a woman to the moon?</p>
<p>A: It doesn’t need cleaning yet!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These two jokes represent <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/HUMOR.2008.014">disparagement humor</a> – any attempt to amuse through the denigration of a social group or its representatives. You know it as sexist or racist jokes – basically anything that makes a punchline out of a marginalized group.</p>
<p>Disparagement humor is paradoxical: It <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(93)90111-2">simultaneously communicates two conflicting messages</a>. One is an <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/tps0000052">explicit hostile or prejudiced message</a>. But delivered alongside is a second implicit message that “it doesn’t count as hostility or prejudice because I didn’t mean it — <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/humor-2013-0017">it’s just a joke</a>.” </p>
<p>By disguising expressions of prejudice in a cloak of fun and frivolity, disparagement humor, like the jokes above, appears harmless and trivial. However, a large and growing body of psychology research suggests just the opposite – that disparagement humor can foster discrimination against targeted groups.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136814/original/image-20160906-25272-1dm9zwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136814/original/image-20160906-25272-1dm9zwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136814/original/image-20160906-25272-1dm9zwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136814/original/image-20160906-25272-1dm9zwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136814/original/image-20160906-25272-1dm9zwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136814/original/image-20160906-25272-1dm9zwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136814/original/image-20160906-25272-1dm9zwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136814/original/image-20160906-25272-1dm9zwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Laughing together at others’ expense?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=303185990">Laughing image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Jokes that release restraints</h2>
<p>Most of the time <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00244">prejudiced people conceal their true beliefs and attitudes</a> because they fear others’ criticism. They <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.129.3.414">express prejudice only when</a> the norms in a given context clearly communicate approval to do so. They need something in the immediate environment to signal that it is safe to freely express their prejudice.</p>
<p>Disparagement humor appears to do just that by affecting people’s understanding of the social norms – implicit rules of acceptable conduct – in the immediate context. And in a variety of experiments, my colleagues and I have found support for this idea, which we call <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/S15327957PSPR0801_4">prejudiced norm theory</a>.</p>
<p>For instance, in studies, men higher in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.70.3.491">hostile sexism</a> – antagonism against women – reported greater tolerance of gender harassment in the workplace upon <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.56">exposure to sexist versus neutral (nonsexist) jokes</a>. Men higher in hostile sexism also recommended greater funding cuts to a women’s organization at their university <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167207310022">after watching sexist versus neutral comedy skits</a>. Even more disturbing, other researchers found that men higher in hostile sexism <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0099198">expressed greater willingness to rape a woman</a> upon exposure to sexist versus nonsexist humor.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136817/original/image-20160906-25272-3hvpnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136817/original/image-20160906-25272-3hvpnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136817/original/image-20160906-25272-3hvpnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136817/original/image-20160906-25272-3hvpnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136817/original/image-20160906-25272-3hvpnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136817/original/image-20160906-25272-3hvpnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136817/original/image-20160906-25272-3hvpnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136817/original/image-20160906-25272-3hvpnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sexist humor can expand the bounds of what’s an acceptable way to treat women.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thomas E. Ford</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How did sexist humor make the sexist men in these studies feel freer to express their sexist attitudes? Imagine that the social norms about acceptable and unacceptable ways of treating women are represented by a rubber band. Everything on the inside of the rubber band is socially acceptable; everything on the outside is unacceptable.</p>
<p>Sexist humor essentially stretched the rubber band; it expanded the bounds of acceptable behavior to include responses that would otherwise be considered wrong or inappropriate. So, in this context of expanded acceptability, sexist men felt free to express their antagonism without the risk of violating social norms and facing disapproval from others. Sexist humor signaled that it’s safe to express sexist attitudes.</p>
<h2>Who’s the target?</h2>
<p>In another study, my colleagues and I demonstrated that this prejudice-releasing effect of disparagement humor varies depending on the position in society occupied by the butt of the joke. Social groups are <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1368430213502558">vulnerable to different degrees</a> depending on their overall status. </p>
<p>Some groups occupy a <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Stereotyping-and-Prejudice/Stangor-Crandall/p/book/9781848726444">unique social position of what social psychologists call “shifting acceptability.”</a> For these groups, the overall culture is changing from considering prejudice and discrimination against them completely justified to considering them completely unjustified. But even as society as a whole becomes increasingly accepting of them, many individuals still harbor mixed feelings. </p>
<p>For instance, over the past 60 years or so, the United States has seen a dramatic decline in overt and institutional racism. Public opinion polls over the same period have shown whites holding progressively <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&uid=1986-98698-003">less prejudiced views of minorities</a>, particularly blacks. At the same time, however, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2009.00183.x">many whites still covertly</a> have negative associations with and feelings toward blacks – feelings they largely don’t acknowledge because they conflict with their ideas about themselves being egalitarian.</p>
<p>Disparagement humor fosters discrimination against social groups – like black Americans – that occupy this kind of shifting ground. In our study, we found that off-color jokes <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/1368430213502558">promoted discrimination against Muslims and gay men</a> – which we measured in greater recommended budget cuts to a gay student organization, for instance. However, disparagement humor didn’t have the same effect against two “justified prejudice” groups: terrorists and racists. Social norms are such that people didn’t need to wait for jokes to justify expressions of prejudice against these groups.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136815/original/image-20160906-25266-ocnugf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136815/original/image-20160906-25266-ocnugf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136815/original/image-20160906-25266-ocnugf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136815/original/image-20160906-25266-ocnugf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136815/original/image-20160906-25266-ocnugf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136815/original/image-20160906-25266-ocnugf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136815/original/image-20160906-25266-ocnugf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136815/original/image-20160906-25266-ocnugf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">I’m not sure I see the humor….</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=385843477">Woman image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An important implication of these findings is that disparagement humor can be more or less detrimental based on the social position occupied by the targeted groups. Movies, television programs or comedy clips that humorously disparage groups such as gays, Muslims or women can potentially foster discrimination and social injustice, whereas those that target groups such as racists will have little social consequence.</p>
<p>On the basis of these findings, one might conclude that disparagement humor targeting oppressed or disadvantaged groups is inherently destructive and thus should be censured. However, the real problem might not be with the humor itself but rather with an audience’s dismissive viewpoint that “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/tps0000052">a joke is just a joke</a>,” even if disparaging. One study found that such a “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0019627">cavalier humor belief</a>” might indeed be responsible for some of the negative effects of disparagement humor. For prejudiced people, the belief that “a disparaging joke is just a joke” trivializes the mistreatment of historically oppressed social groups – including women, gay people, racial minorities and religious minorities – which further contributes to their prejudiced attitude.</p>
<h2>Can you be ‘in on the joke’?</h2>
<p>In addition, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/tps0000057">if one initiates disparagement humor</a> with the positive intention of <a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/ABC-CLIOCorporate/product.aspx?pc=D6591C">exposing the absurdity of stereotypes and prejudice</a>, the humor ironically might have the potential to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/tps0000059">subvert or undermine prejudice</a>.</p>
<p>Chris Rock is one comedian well-known for using subversive disparagement humor to challenge the status quo of racial inequality in the United States. For instance, in his <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/29/movies/chris-rock-monologue.html?_r=0">opening monologue for the 2016 Academy Awards</a>, he used humor to call attention to racism in the film industry and hierarchical race relations more generally: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the White People’s Choice Awards. You realize if they nominated hosts, I wouldn’t even get this job. So y’all would be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The problem is that in order for the humor to realize its goal of subverting prejudice, the audience must understand and appreciate that intention. And there’s <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/tps0000059">no guarantee that they will</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/chappelles-story#ixzz4HFUHcnHg">Comedian Dave Chappelle described</a> this interpretation problem in an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2006. He discussed a skit in which he played a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xprpXDnIU6A">pixie who appeared in black face</a>. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There was a good-spirited intention behind it. So then when I’m on the set, and we’re finally taping the sketch, somebody on the set [who] was white laughed in such a way – I know the difference of people laughing with me and people laughing at me – and it was the first time I had ever gotten a laugh that I was uncomfortable with. Not just uncomfortable, but like, should I fire this person?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Chapelle’s intentions with his racially charged comedy were misunderstood. By lampooning the stereotype, he meant to call attention to the ridiculousness of racism. However, it became apparent that not everyone was capable of or motivated to look past Chapelle’s comic stereotypical portrayal to get his subversive intent. </p>
<p>One study found that people higher in prejudice are particularly <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1974.tb00353.x">prone to misinterpret subversive humor</a>. Researchers in the 1970s studied amusement with the television show “All in the Family,” which focused on the bigoted character Archie Bunker. They found that low-prejudiced people perceived “All in the Family” as a satire on bigotry and that Archie Bunker was the target of the humor. They “got” the true subversive intent of the show.</p>
<p>In contrast, high-prejudiced people enjoyed the show for satirizing the targets of Archie’s prejudice. Thus, for high-prejudiced people, the subversive disparagement humor of the show backfired. Rather than calling attention to the absurdity of prejudice, for them the show communicated an implicit prejudiced norm, conveying a tolerance of discrimination.</p>
<p>Psychology research suggests that disparagement humor is far more than “just a joke.” Regardless of its intent, when prejudiced people interpret disparagement humor as “just a joke” intended to make fun of its target and not prejudice itself, it can have serious social consequences as a releaser of prejudice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63855/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas E. Ford has received funding for research described in this article from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>Disparagement humor makes a punchline out of a marginalized group. Racist or sexist jokes, for instance, aren’t just harmless fun – psychologists find they can foster discrimination.Thomas E. Ford, Professor of Social Psychology, Western Carolina UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.