Scientists love to take the fun out of everything by studying it and, unsurprisingly, fun is one of the things they have done the same with. However, understanding why we laugh (or just exhale sharply through the nose) at an image of a dog that looks like an ancient philosopher is actually quite interesting.
For example, in her article Liz Sills, an associate professor of communication studies at Northern State University, argues that funniness happens when you take a truth and turn it on its head. “It takes our perceptions of reality, scrambles them around in our heads, and leaves them even more open to interpretation than they already were.” She believes that jokes make us question the truth.
In a way, that’s what the images posted here do, too. When you see a picture of Pharrell William’s house that he put on sale, you might think, 'oh, another rich person’s mansion'. That is the reality or the truth of the situation. However, when you read the comment below that points out how similar his house looks like to a community college, the reality in your head shifts. For a moment, you escape into a fictional world where college students are treating a celebrity’s house as a campus. You do know it’s not the truth, but questioning it is very amusing.
Of course, that’s not the only explanation for why we find things funny. There are multiple distinct theories that consider the reasons for humor appreciation. A paper published in 2020 breaks it all down to four things: surprise, simultaneity, superiority, and violation appraisal.
Surprise is probably the easiest to explain. As the philosopher Blaise Pascal puts it, “Nothing produces laughter more than a surprising disproportion between that which one expects and that which one sees.” As in, you might expect a joke about being disheveled when you see a picture of a tired-looking Justin Bieber, but a comparison to a doll from “Rugrats” might be so out of the blue, you simply can’t help but laugh. It works so well because it increases physiological arousal which, in turn, makes us appreciate the joke a little more than usual. However, surprise is not necessary for something to be funny. For example, you might watch a comedy multiple times and still find the jokes in it funny.
Then there is simultaneity or any ability to evoke contradictory feelings or present incompatible ideas in one thing. Puns are a good example here, where words have more than one meaning which makes them amusing. When it comes to pictures, it’s the images that require a double-take. Yes, this is a picture of a rug under a chair but it also looks like a crazy party with a big crowd of people and impressive lights. The fact that the image presents both of these ideas is what makes it so amusing.
Superiority is basically laughing at someone else’s defeat. This is not about a video of someone falling down the stairs or a picture of someone’s unfortunate make up or design choice. It is actual, meanspirited laughing at other people’s misfortune that veers into aggression territory and often crosses the line. Making fun of someone, for example, is a type of superiority humor. “Yo mama” jokes can be considered superiority humor, too. It’s a tricky side of funniness and there haven’t been many studies exploring it.
Violation appraisal is the milder version of superiority humor that’s usually easy to stomach for most. It includes a violation of some sort of norm. This could be a social, cultural, conversational, linguistic, or logical threat to the status quo. It’s why we find farts funny. Fail videos and memes belong to this category. Edgy humor about risqué topics can be seen as a violation of some norms, too.
On top of these four types of humor, there’s also one secret ingredient that seemingly has to be a part of all of these to make them funny. That is the benign nature of whatever is happening. Seeing someone young and healthy slip and fall can be funny because it’s easy to assume they weren’t seriously injured. Seeing an old person fall over might illicit a different reaction because the context can make you believe that there is a serious threat there. It’s also the reason why when you’re telling a story of a terrible experience you’ve had that went over without any serious consequences, you are able to make light of it and laugh.
All in all, humor is quite a complicated matter. There’s no one simple formula for what makes things funny or a sure-fire way to make a person laugh. We all have different thresholds for what’s benign too, so things that are funny for some are offensive to others. Either way, this collection seems to have combined surprise with simultaneity in quite a genius way, and we hope that a picture of Nicolas Cage as Ross from Friends will make you giggle.
