Why are sad things hilarious sometimes?

Why did I spend 15 minutes laughing at a man repeatedly screaming at an uber driver to turn off Mambo Number 5? I absolutely could not tell you. In that moment it was the funniest thing i’d ever seen, i’m still feeling the stomach aches from the laughing fit today. If I was to try and explain why that was funny, i’d get lost down a rabbit hole of past experiences, memes and why Nathan Fielder just ‘gets me’.  Trying to define, what makes something funny is about as futile as trying to explain life after death to a 10 year old. Its exhausting, confusing and absurdly existential.  And like trying to define happiness, it is a sure fire way to kill it.

Alas, here i’m going to try and define what makes stuff funny. Primarily because i’m a wildly inconsistent person and my world view can change between sentences and secondly because comedy theory is actually really interesting. So here is a very quick overview of the main theories. 

The Incongruity and Incongruity-Resolution Theories

So sometimes when you are expecting one thing and then another thing happens, it can be proper funny. I mean… in the context of humour theory that’s essentially it. There are thousands examples I can give. For example, when there’s a particularly aggressive song being played over a montage of grannies knitting. However, incongruence doesn’t always equal in hilarity think of that scene in Reservoir Dogs when that cop gets his ear slashed off by Mr. Blonde to Stuck in the Middle With You. Incongruent – not hilarious.

Additionally, a lot of theory around non-sequitur humour revolves around the resolution behind that incongruence. However, especially around surrealist comedy there’s no resolution, most of the hilarity comes from the abject lack of. Think of this:

Or this

The Benign Violation Theory

Sometimes violating social norms is funny and everyone has a good chuckle and then sometimes violating social norms gets you thrown out of a McDonald’s at 3am. This is why fart jokes are funny. To be honest though, it’s really damn hard to find jokes that don’t violate some kind of social norm. Shows like Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn 99 do this well however. 

The Mechanical Theory

This is where having an enduring personality comes into play, sometimes with predictability comes hilarity. So what’s the difference between some random person you see fall down 3 flights of stairs and me falling down 3 flights of stairs? I regularly fall down 3 flights of stairs. I have spent hours of my life regaling tales of injuries from various tumbles to a rousing chorus of laughter. This clumsiness is so pervasive, getting a mild concussion is just ‘classic Vikki’ to every person in my life. So, essentially, when you know a character and they do something ‘Classic X’ it’s funny. Familiarity is the difference between “shit call an ambulance” and “Classic”.

The Superiority Theory

So, essentially remember when there was that kid on the playground that fell off a bench and broke a tooth (me) and then the kids that laughed at the now gappy toothed kid (you). Yeah that’s superiority theory in a crude nutshell. We tend to find things more enjoyable when we have the upper hand. It’s probably to do with endorphins and stuff that come from knowing you’re winning. To use this in context of comedy, we laugh when we know something a character does not, kind of like when we pretty much know Gwenyth Paltrow’s head is in the box in Seven but Brad Pitt hasn’t quite twigged yet… And that is called sarcasm – classic comedy.

The Release Theory

Y’know when something a bit weird happens and then you crack a joke to make it less weird? That’s release theory, we use humour to cut the tension. “I want to die” – not funny and really quite sad. “I want to die” *with finger guns* – hysterical.

This clip from Bo Burnham sums it up pretty well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_x4_QrMcm8

What we actually find funny can vary wildly from person to person. I’m sure 99% of the people who watched the Mambo No. 5 incident on Nathan for You a couple of weeks ago didn’t nearly piss themselves like I did. This is what makes comedy so great, the subjectivity of the art can really help us connect with what’s being conveyed and who’s making the jokes, splash in some endorphin release and you’re set for a cracking time. Obviously humour is not exclusive to one of these theories. This clip from Brooklyn 99 utilizes each one of these theories to excellent effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj0j76KhTXA

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