dalnet22

I used to be a kid who laughed at anything and everything. At 22, I see myself never laughing anymore. This is because I've learned that the things I find funny are not supposed to funny. I laugh at pranks, irony, social issues, and the like. But apparently, people think it's wrong to laugh at that stuff.

The more I've thought about it, most of what we laugh at is bad stuff. Why is it funny to see someone fall down the stairs or to laugh at someone unwillingly get 50 pizzas delivered to their door?

Humor is no longer fun for me. I'm scared of making jokes because I unintentionally offend so many people. This is really starting to bother me because it's like others are allowed to laugh, but I can not.

My question to you - is it ok for me to find bad things funny? It doesn't seem so.

Martian

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."

- Mel Brooks

"We laugh because it hurts."

- Robert A. Heinlein

Comedy is a way of dealing with the idea that bad stuff happens. It's a coping mechanism. Yours is calibrated a bit differently from other people's, but that's not something you need to apologise for in my opinion.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

internetsam

Someone falling down, yeah that's funny, or atleast can be. I've laughed at people hurting themselves, but at the same time I'm happy to be laughed at or laugh at myself when it happens to me. Someone being pushed down, and falling, not funny. Same with someone getting 50 pizzas delivered, not funny. Pranks that put someone out of pocket, or can't be reversed, generally aren't funny but mean. The rest is up to you. Have had lots of fun in the office covering people's desks and computer with foil, and changing their phone ring tone to something stupid and then putting it on the loudest volume, and reversing monitors (dual screens). All quickly reversible! just need to ensure the victim has a sense of humour.
Nothing wrong with laughing at social issues either as long as you can separate the serious side. Personally, I'll make a joke against someone or something they believe or whatever as long as I could handle it in reverse and know they're not going to take offense. Good thing I'm pretty open.
(and there's nothing worse than people that make some really BAD/inappropriate jokes at someone's expense, yet totally explode when a joke is thrown at their expense).

and hell, if you can't laugh at life, you're gonna be miserable.

Tully Mars

Ditto

__________________
I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

dalnet22

Thanks for the responses. I tend to live by two rules:

1. Do unto others as you'd like done to you. (typical)

and

2. As long as my intentions are good, I'm ok.

I never intentionally harm anyone. Internetsam, the 50 pizzas can be easily reversed by the mark refusing the delivery. Likewise, wouldn't your pranks with tinfoil and changing ringtones cost the mark their time? Can you quantify and argue that time is less valuable than money in regards to pranks?

It seems like all pranks cost the mark something. Whether it's health, money, or time.

Punk.of.Ages

Something bad happening to someone is only funny when it's an accident and/or the person didn't get hurt too bad. Oh, and also if they put themselves in a stupid position and reaped the consequences.

Someone trips down the stairs, but gets up at the bottom and is not in too much physical harm = potential for humor.

Someone gets pushed down the stairs, breaks their back, dies = if this makes you chuckle, you definitely have issues you need to work out.

As far as pranks and jokes go, this is where you have to be careful. Everybody has a different sense of humor. Generally, you should know someone well enough to know whether or not they'll find the prank/joke funny themselves before you do it. If you know they won't find it funny it goes from funny to cruel.

As Martian said, never apologize for your sense of humor, humor's a key element in living life joyfully, just surround yourself with people who share it, and gain an understanding for the time and the place.

__________________
"The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion..." - Henry Steel Commager

"Punk rock music is great music played by really bad, drunk musicians." -Fat Mike

Lasereth

How is that funny for the pizza place which has to suffer the loss? That means that the next 50 pizzas they make that night are simply to recover from that order. Not very funny to the pizza place owner if you ask me!!

dalnet22

I don't know, but I can't stop laughing at your post. I guess I should go to jail.

matthew330

I was in a resteraunt recently where a waiter dropped a glass across the resteraunt, out of convenient eyeshot. A guy sitting near me frantically searched for the guy who dropped a glass and when he found him, laughed hysterically and made some ridiculous, completely unfunny comment.

There was nothing funny about that and the guy laughing was a tool getting off on making an embarrassing situation humiliating for this dude. That's more than a poor sense of humor, there's something psychologically demented with him.

Does that sound like you?

lotsofmagnets

everytime a glas is dropped the custom i know is to yell "taxi!" here in iceland i´m the only one who does it (back in melbs there will be a chorus of it no matter where you are) which makes it even more funny to me

__________________
mother nature made the aeroplane, and the submarine sandwich, with the steady hands and dead eye of a remarkable sculptor.
she shed her mountain turning training wheels, for the convenience of the moving sidewalk, that delivers the magnetic monkey children through the mouth of impossible calendar clock, into the devil's manhole cauldron.
physics of a bicycle, isn't it remarkable?

Punk.of.Ages

That's a light-hearted joke intended to cut the tension. To actually hunt the dude down and make fun of him is a little uncalled for.

__________________
"The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion..." - Henry Steel Commager

"Punk rock music is great music played by really bad, drunk musicians." -Fat Mike

lotsofmagnets

i know. just makes the guy seem like a desperate loser.

__________________
mother nature made the aeroplane, and the submarine sandwich, with the steady hands and dead eye of a remarkable sculptor.
she shed her mountain turning training wheels, for the convenience of the moving sidewalk, that delivers the magnetic monkey children through the mouth of impossible calendar clock, into the devil's manhole cauldron.
physics of a bicycle, isn't it remarkable?

Bacchanal

I laugh at plenty of shit that apparently "isn't funny" to other people. My coworkers almost always wonder why I find certain things funny, but I can't explain it, it just is to me. I don't laugh at the things they find hilarious, so whatever...

It is your sense of humor after all, and while you may not be able to define or defend it, you can't control what makes you laugh, bottom line.

__________________
Universal Truth Is Not Measured In Mass Appeal

KellyC

I have a pretty twisted sense of humor. A lot of my girl friends called me mean or cold hearted because I laugh at things that are not funny to them. To me, almost everything is potential humor. There are very, very little things that I will not laugh at. I contend that it's either funny or it's not, and I don't care about offending people when I laugh. I think some people just need to relax a little.

__________________
Him: Ok, I have to ask, what do you believe?
Me: Shit happens.

echo5delta

See, now that shit right there made *me* laugh.

__________________
"Peace" is when nobody's shooting. A "Just Peace" is when we get what we want. - Bill Mauldin

World's King

A guy smacking his wife and calling her a bitch isn't funny.



Two Drag Queens fighting over a wig calling each other bitch is funny.

__________________
heavy is the head that wears the crown

MSD

If everyone thinks your sense of humor is inappropriate, the two possibilities are that 1: you're so far removed from normality that you're a danger to society, or 2: they need to lighten the fuck up and pull the broomsticks out of their asses. I was in category 2 for a long time thanks to the insistence on political correctness at school and my mom's attitude that "there are somethings you don't joke about" (turns out "something" means "almost everything, especially if it might upset someone else.")

Bad things happening to people are funny. Everyone laughs when someone falls down at their wedding, especially if they hit the cake. Everyone laughed when I superglued my finger to my teeth. Everyone laughs when a cat falls off of something and spends a few seconds looking confused. Everyone laughed when one of my friends said to me, "My boss reminds me a lot of you, Ian; he cut off his finger with a meat slicer yesterday and I had to drive him to the hospital." I'm not even going to get into the racial, ethnic, and sexual jokes my friends sling at each other that would probably make my mother's ears catch fire.

PayUp

Sorry MSD we need more on this.

__________________
Born to Lose.

Punk.of.Ages

I laugh when you tell me you did that! Hahaha

__________________
"The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion..." - Henry Steel Commager

"Punk rock music is great music played by really bad, drunk musicians." -Fat Mike