Turns out, exploring the inner workings of humor is serious business. What is funny? Are there any aspects of humor that have and will continue to endure for generations and appeal to all classes? If so, what are they? Sometimes I think about the funny part of the brain…humor seems to require both a target and a shift in perception, the first focusing on an inadequacy or misfortune and the second making the joke clever. And although it’s certainly not the most polite or germane sentiment, humor beating up on those different from you forms the base of classical timeless humor. People of all varieties including ethnic, religious, social, geographical, and physical express humor either by laughing at or with their group for all of human history. The target of the jokes changes over time, but the jokes often remain the same.
Not everyone finds the same things funny, of course, but certain basic human experience elements are nearly timeless. Every funny joke to me turns on an unexpected meaning of a word, phrase or situation. My laughter is triggered by the unexpected. In that sense, I’m the target of the joke; it’s me who’s subjected to the shift. Indeed, I’m happy to be the “dumb blonde” when the joke brings me gleeful surprise.