- Comedy isn't subjective.
That can't be true.
You may not like this joke, like this joke,
definitely not like this joke.
And it feels like joke preference changes
from person to person.
But what if I told you that scientists have found a joke
that is rated as the funniest.
But before I get to the funniest joke in the world,
I'm going to explain to you
what makes something funny?
Why comedians keep getting canceled?
Show you a video of the first time I ever attempted stand up
and end with what surveys say is
the funniest joke in the world.
In order to understand how scientists study jokes,
you must first understand what makes something funny.
It is found that on average people laugh 17.5 times per day.
I don't know what a 0.5 laugh is like a haha.
And a good sense of humor tends to always be
one of the highest rated traits for friends, for spouses
and even lovers.
Why are we so attracted to funny?
It is predicted that human language evolved between 80,000
to 160,000 years ago,
pushed by the evolutionary advantage of storytelling.
Evolutionary biologists think it is because as a pack,
it would have been helpful to tell stories
about that other pack, to talk about the dude over there
who's kind of like killing everyone or to maybe be like,
wait, where the berries at?
Where the berries at?
In fact, a lot of theorists think that at first
our language evolved as gossip,
a way to sort of parse out and like talk smack
about the people around you in order to keep yourself safe
by understanding who was dangerous and who was on your side.
Humor and laughing on the other hand, evolved as a signal
to yourself and to others that things were safe,
that things were okay.
As hunter gatherers, when we were laughing
and when we were telling jokes,
it meant that it was time to play, to socialize and explore.
That's why we still enjoy jokes now and comedians now
and humorous things, 'cause it's actually a sign
that we are in fact safe.
Which is really fascinating because in order to understand
the best joke in the world,
you have to understand what it means
to feel safe and unsafe at the same time.
Known as the Benign Violation Theory,
a joke requires three things,
one, an unsafe violation of a situation,
two, a flip of that situation so it feels safe.
And three, both perceptions must occur simultaneously.
Okay, this can sound confusing,
but there is a clear metaphor to understand
and remember this theory.
If a friend tickles you, they are in fact violating you,
but it feels safe because you know them well, you can laugh,
you call have all, can go, you can say, stop, get off.
But if a stranger on the bus tickles you,
yes, they are violating you,
but there's no flip of that situation that feels safe.
You feel unsafe, you push them away, you get upset,
you don't laugh, maybe you pop their eyeballs out
with your thumbs.
It's a completely different situation.
A good joke has to feel safe and unsafe at the same time.
In fact, scientists took people
and put them in an fMRI machine
and made them watch the Simpsons and Seinfeld,
and found that joke detection occurred
in the left inferior frontal and posterior temporal cortices
of the left side of the brain.
That was a lot of big words,
but this is the part of the brain
that tries to make sense of contrasts
and look for resolutions in our lives.
Comedians have a brilliant way of talking about things
that feel taboo, maybe we don't wanna say them out loud,
the darkest thoughts that we might have,
and flipping them to feel resolved and safe
so that we can laugh.
And it is also why there can be such stark contrast
between what you think is funny and what someone else does.
A lot of straight white male comedians
are coming under fire recently
for saying jokes that they think are safe,
but audiences are telling them now are offensive.
This is really fascinating because a lot of these jokes
are at the expense of women or queer people
or people of color.
And historically comedians have mostly been white and male.
In the 1970s, only 2% of professional stand up comedians
were women.
In the 1990s, 20% of professional stand up comedians
were women, and now it's only 35%
of professional stand up comedians that are women.
But it does mean that new voices have emerged
in the comedy sphere.
And comedy has essentially evolved
because audiences are going to feel more safe,
seeing a woman make fun of a woman
or a queer person making fun of the queer experience.
And by proxy, these people are going to be better
at telling these jokes and making their audiences feel safe
while talking about the taboo things that come along
with being a queer person, for example.
This now leaves the white man to have to think of new ways
to make the Benign Violation Theory work for them.
I am about to show you the video of the first time
I ever did stand up comedy.
It is about two years ago to this day almost.
I feel like I'm in a barf, it's one of the cringiest things
I've honestly ever seen.
I've actually only been able to watch it once in my life,
just to like try and learn from it
and then I just couldn't again.
I cannot believe I'm gonna show this to(mumbles).
In this video I say a lot of ums,
which is like the number one rule is like, don't say um.
I'm obviously just procrastinating.
This is a sad attempt at me trying to use
the Benign Violation Theory, here you go.
I actually was a closeted high school kid
who had to try and date guys
while sharing a landline with my parents.
And so I used to go to this thing called the homo hop,
which was like a gay party and I have a dance
and makeup with guys,
and sometimes they wanna get in contact.
And nothing seems screens being mature enough
to date someone then writing like
oh, my parents will know the truth about me
underneath my phone number.
(audience laughing).
The thing here is really how dating works,
but it was like really scary
when they'd actually wanna call.
Every time the phone rings at my house at that time,
it kind of felt like when princess Diana died, it was like,
I was scared and nervous and sad,
but I didn't know if I needed to be.
(audience laughing).
Okay, that was awful, that was the first time
I think I'd ever really been on stage.
Princess Diana dying.
It is an unsafe situation and I think I was trying
to relate it to like my own queerness, my own vulnerability.
As a young person at the time, I didn't understand
why we were all so sad, I just like cried with my parents
'cause it felt like the right thing to do.
And also in fact, scientists have found
that there's a 17 day latency period
between a national tragedy happening and you being able
to make a good joke about it.
This joke that I made was like 21 years after this tragedy,
so I hope it was okay,
but again, it was the first time I ever did comedy,
it was essentially what I would say a bad joke,
so maybe it didn't work.
But how scientists figured out this latency period
is exactly how they figured out what the funniest joke
in the world is statistically.
Known as Laugh Labs,
a website was left up for a year
where 1.5 million participants took part
in a survey studying humor.
Participants around the world
would give their information over, do a survey,
get fed a bunch of jokes
and interesting questions about humor,
sliding scale answers of how funny
or unfunny they thought things were.
And with all of this data,
there were some pretty fascinating things
that we were able to take away.
The most effective jokes are 103 letters long.
So all you Twitter heads out there write that down.
People seem to enjoy jokes the most at 6:03 p.m.,
maybe tired from the day, a little delusional,
laugh, laugh, laugh.
The funniest animals were ducks, which I think makes sense.
They've got corkscrew dates.
And most fascinatingly the joke I am about to tell you
came in as the funniest joke in the world.
It follows the Benign Violation Theory quite clearly,
so you might think it's really funny
or maybe your comedy sense is a bit more alt.
I'm gonna read this to you like a librarian.
Two hunters from New Jersey are out in the woods
when one of them collapses.
He doesn't seem to be breathing
and his eyes are glazed over.
The other guy whips out his phone
and calls emergency service.
He gasps, "I think my friend is dead, what should I do?"
The operator says, "Calm down, I can help.
"First make sure he's dead."
There is a silence then a shot is heard.
Back on the phone the guy says, "Okay, now what?"
I must say a bit too violent for my sensitive tastes.
I find the neurophysiology and evolution of humor
to be extremely fascinating, especially as someone trying
to like attempt stand up comedy.
But the writer E.B. white did famously say that,
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog.
"Very few people are interested and then the frog dies."
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