Since its creation in 2017, the Technically The Truth subreddit has been steadily growing and becoming a powerhouse of more than 2M truthers, as the moderators like to call them. Members of this community share the hilarious comebacks, obnoxiously literal puns, and dad-joke-worthy replies they come across online, and the forum has become a great source of entertainment for many. After all, who doesn’t enjoy letting out a few genuine laughs?
There’s a particular type of wordplay that gives a joke the dubious distinction of being a dad joke, Stanley Dubinsky, an English professor at the University of South Carolina and co-author of the book Understanding Language Through Humor, told The Atlantic.
You see, polysemy (from the Greek meaning "many" and "signs") is the coexistence of several meanings or uses for the same word. "Most jokes rely on some semantic ambiguity or grammatical ambiguity," Dubinsky said. "The things people call 'dad jokes' are the ones where the ambiguity is crushingly obvious."
One reason why parents are fond of such clean and simple humor is that they feel some amount of loss and nostalgia when they see their kids grow up. "You don’t have children anymore," he explained. "One way to get back to that time is to go back to the stupid old jokes they used to think were funny."
Yet, this phrase is often associated with immature or sometimes even dense jokes. "One of the things about language is that we judge the sophistication of our peers by how sophisticated they are with use of language. Your smartest friends can use deadpan sarcasm, and your smartest friends can get it when you’re deadpanning sarcasm," Dubinsky explained. So when a person is telling a lame joke, the listeners are often quite disapproving.
Even if some say that such humor is childish, naive, and sometimes very cringe-worthy, it’s hard to deny that it’s also very charming. Dad jokes are usually clean, quite generic, brief, and require no additional context or explanation. When the English professor tells someone a dad joke, "you know that no matter what I say, my joke won’t hurt you—and I want everybody to get my joke, so I’m going to make it so stunningly obvious that anybody can get it."
Dubinsky explained that people might be attracted to this type of humor since they want to receive a momentary break from their everyday burdens. After all, laughter is a great form of stress relief.
Just by letting out a chuckle or two, you can quickly notice several short-term benefits. A good laugh can stimulate your heart and other vital organs, and enhance your intake of oxygen-rich air. Plus, it activates and then relieves your stress response, leaving you feeling calm and at ease. Not to mention that it can also stimulate circulation and help your muscles relax, which reduces some of the physical symptoms of stress.
If you catch yourself giggling on every occasion you possibly can, you might also notice some long-term effects, like a stronger immune system. Laughter is also famous for making the body produce natural painkillers, so it’s a great way to relieve pain. Then, you have your naturally improved mood: "Many people experience depression, sometimes due to chronic illnesses. Laughter can help lessen your stress, depression, and anxiety and may make you feel happier. It can also improve your self-esteem," according to Mayo Clinic Staff.