In order to explain this subreddit's massive success we need to get a little academic. Part of its appeal could probably be understood with the incongruity theory of humor.
According to Dr. Alex Borgella, who is an assistant professor of psychology at Fort Lewis College, it "suggests that we find fundamentally incompatible concepts or unexpected resolutions funny. Basically, we find humor in the incongruity between our expectations and reality."
This is similar to the techniques of stand-up comedians today — they speak of the set-up and the punch (line).
The set-up is the first part of the joke and it creates the expectation while the punch (line) is the last part that violates that expectation. In the language of the incongruity theory, the joke’s ending is incongruous with the beginning.
Indeed, many of the posts on 'Comedy Heaven' involve setups that lead to unexpected punchlines, such as a girl who drew a picture of her cat and thanked the vet for "carefully removing its testicles," or a chat between two people discussing Roe vs. Wade, only for one to reply they don't watch boxing.
The first philosopher to use the word incongruous when analyzing humor was James Beattie (1779).
When we see something funny, he said, our laughter "always proceeds from a sentiment or emotion, excited in the mind, in consequence of certain objects or ideas being presented to it."
Our laughter "seems to arise from the view of things incongruous united in the same assemblage."
And the cause of humorous laughter is "two or more inconsistent, unsuitable, or incongruous parts or circumstances, considered as united in one complex object or assemblage, as acquiring a sort of mutual relation from the peculiar manner in which the mind takes notice of them," Beattie thought.
For more posts that have "ascended" into 'Comedy Heaven,' fire up our earlier publications on the subreddit 50 Times Accidental Comedy Gold Was Spotted On Social Media and 50 Social Media Posts That Are Comedy Gold.
