Erika Luo - Can I tell a joke? - Week 4
I like to make people laugh. Not a huge surprise to anyone who knows me. I really liked listening to jokes since I was a little kid and it really got me thinking about the principles of humor. There’s always a specific time and place to tell a certain joke, as well as a direct correlation to the impact of your joke. To me, jokes are like a special type of verbiage that certain thaumaturges can truly master. People who can use humor correctly truly have so much power in our society. They can lift other peoples’ moods in an instant, gain popularity quickly, and can even insult people for fun on occasion. I know that the latter may seem kind of rude, but it’s really true. Oftentimes, people make jokes at the expense of others to make people laugh. In fact, one of my favorite comedian YouTubers commented on this seemingly niche phenomena. He himself used this knowledge to get through a period in his high school life in which he was bullied. He detailed how he went home every night feeling absolutely miserable; this led to dark thoughts that made him even more miserable. One day, he felt sick of feeling sorry for himself, so instead he decided to ask himself: “Why?”
More precisely, he decided to ask himself why these kids were bullying him. He realized that the main reason that they were making fun of him was to make others laugh. And what did he do with this revelation? The next time his bullies tripped him or made fun of him, he just made even more fun of himself. Surprisingly, this worked.
Humanistically speaking, I think that it’s awesome that he was able to use humor to push through this terrible time. However, I also think that it’s terrible that the main reason that people started bullying him was to make others laugh in the first place. When I heard this story, I really wanted to start taking into consideration making jokes about others. Humor can be the most useful, and the most detrimental tool in our society today.
Comments
I definitely agree with you on how powerful humor can be. I wanted to add on that humor can be used to bring awareness about political events. There are many talk shows that incorporate both news and humor in order to gain a large audience. However, humor can also be easily used to hurt other people. The person might think they are simply joking around and believe it is just for a laugh without realizing how damaging their jokes are to the other person.
I agree with how humor has a big impact on our society, and like all other things, can be used for both good and bad. Many people put others down to appear funny. Something else that I noticed was that people also often put themselves down to be funny, especially once they reach middle school. By then, there is an unwritten rule that you have to put yourself down to be humble, and if you don't, you are stuck up. But this type of negative thinking towards yourself negatively impacts your mindset and self-perception. Humor is important, and we should realize that we don't need negativity to be funny.
Utilizing humor can be powerful; it can appeal to a large audience and allow them to more relate to otherwise boring news or information. However, there are times when humor isn’t appropriate to use. Some things are just not made to be made fun of. Laughing is often associated with joy and a good experience, but this isn’t all real. It’s important to consider when making jokes about something, to determine how sensitive your audience is and how they will react to said joke.
-Angel
Your blog post reminds me of a video I watched related to bullying. The speaker asked a volunteer from the audience to make fun of him and bully him. He countered their hurtful words with words that uplifted and encouraged the antagonist. Soon, the antagonist ran out of ways to intentionally hurt the speaker and gave up. I found it interesting how people can use humor or positivity to counter bullying, these tools are surely powerful when it comes to defending ourselves in social situations. Of course, it is still wrong to make fun of others just for the enjoyment of others, and I believe bystanders should take further action to stop bullying.
Sincerely,
Faith Tong
I agree that humor has been a large part of our daily lives. Bullies only make fun of others to their pleasure as many feel insecure about their friendships and like you said to make jokes to gain laughter and attention. Bystanders should really step up and once bullies get over the satisfaction of bullying someone for laughs; they will later feel depressed and why they did it in the first place. After that step , the bystander has therefore changed the life of the bully as they continue to reflect on themselves and not continue bullying others.
It's very obvious that I love to make people laugh whether it's through sarcasm or simply making a stupid joke. I find myself a pretty funny person but the embarrassing side of me tells me that I'm just not funny and it's sad. I love people who randomly just tell me a joke and start laughing like there aren't a good 100 people around (I'm talking about a certain someone here). Pick-up lines are actually the best when the right person says them just like a comedian is the best person to make people laugh at a silly joke.
Sincerely,
Mrinmayee
I totally agree that funny jokes are part of what makes our days better. But of course, there are those certain jokes that you want to be weary of making whether it could be insensitive or it is just overall a bad joke that can just end up being a bad take. Something very similar just happened this past week regarding somebody making a very insensitive joke in a classroom setting. It literally costed our entire class test corrections.