A few weeks ago while I was in New Jersey, me and Teresa were walking down the street and she told me how these hooligans started driving by and throwing their ice cream at her, hooting and hollering and then following her around when she expressed her disapproval. I thought this was a pretty funny story, and, out of curiosity I suppose, asked her, "were they colored??"
This probably wouldn't have flown by with some (though these days, that word is pretty universally funny since it's so archaic), but as one of my closest friends, and someone whose known me for maybe a decade and a half now, I felt comfortable telling the joke. I didn't even hesitate really. This was because we were so familiar with one another, and there was a background of years of extensive joking and messing around, that a joke like that wouldn't really be offensive in the least.
Now think about if this were a first date, and I had just met this person for the first time. They look a little gloomy and embarrassed about the situation, and we can see the shyness in their face. They say, "yeah, and then they started following me and throwing ice cream at me," without mentioning race whatsoever, and I respond, "Wow... fuKKiNG BLACKS!!!!!"
Of course, this is somewhat funny from an outside point of view, since it's such an exaggeration of something that doesn't really make much sense (kids driving around in a goddamn jalopy throwing desserts at people =/ black people), but had we not known each other, this person might be pretty offended at my response (especially if they were black). But in the original story, since I knew Teresa, and since I used a more archaic term, it became a funny line, versus a line that could lead to an awkward situation.
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Another good example of knowing your audience, is the oft used expression, "would you tell that to your grandmother?" (short aside - I remember how loving my grandmother was, and how funny I thought it was to stretch her face while kissing her on the forehead, so there were probably things that I'd tell my grandmother that I wouldn't tell anyone else)
There are lots of stories and ideas that would offend one group of people, but would be perfectly harmless to others. This generally lies in knowing the person, though I'm sure you've been in a situation where you thought something would be funny and okay, and it actually led to an awkward moment where no one laughed, which usually leads to some kind of embarrassment.
You hear a lot of people say that they really want someone to have a good sense of humor, someone that can make them laugh. But what does this actually mean? There are a lot of funny people who are single and miserable, and lots of people who are in relationships with people that don't actually make them laugh a whole lot, but are generally fulfilling as a whole.
This is just a theory really, but I feel like when people say they want someone with a sense of humor, what they really mean is, "I want someone who makes me feel comfortable letting my guard down, while at the same time, allowing me seeing the brighter and happier sides of life."
A sense of humor is so subjective that not everyone is going to have exactly the same tastes right when they first meet. I've found though, in my friendships and relationships with people, that the more time you spend with someone you like, the more their sense of humor tends to rub off on you. This may be because you like that feeling of joy and happiness that comes with laughter, and that as a person, you try to emulate that frame of mind even when you're away from that person, simply because it makes you feel good. I know that I laugh a lot at jokes I've told my friends, just driving in the car by myself, staring ahead smiling like a maniac, mostly because I love bringing myself to that place of comfort and warmth, where for just a moment or two, everyone involved forgot about the difficulties of life, and focused on something wonderful and silly and ridiculous, simply because it felt good to do so.
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But how does one actually get a sense of what someone might find funny or not? That's a much more difficult question to answer. For me personally, I always thought the peculiar things in life are some of the funniest things one could joke about. Like I remember I was at the airport a few weeks ago, and I saw this old guy, maybe about fifty or so, sitting in the middle of the terminal with a big salad jutting out from his body, shaking it vigorously for what seemed like four or five minutes. I remember watching his body violently vibrate as he shook the hell out of his goddamn salad, looking around trying to see if anyone else thought this was funny. Of course, no one seemed to think anything of it. But I know that if I had a friend or two there, they probably would've found that situation to be rather humorous.
But WHY???
Well, in that specific story, it's mostly based around exaggeration. There's no real reason why someone would need to shake a salad for that long and with such force. There's also something to an older gentleman, somewhat dignified looking, doing such a silly and physically ridiculous action, in the middle of the airport no less, with everyone looking at him, shameless and full of focus.
Think about this for a moment:
So you've enrolled in a college class, and you walk into class for the first day and find a seat. You look around, and you see some kids having a nice conversation, giggling, and you see other kids just looking at their phone not saying much. Eventually class starts and your professor greets themselves and starts going over the syllabus. Some students remain focused as time goes by, some start aimlessly staring into space. A few more moments go by without much of anything really going on, more first day syllabus stuff. People start looking at even more nothing, each person finding a fixed point in the classroom they can look without making eye contact.
WHEN SUDDENLY!!!
an older gentleman, heavyset, maybe in his late 40s or early 50s, comes and sits down in the middle of the room. he pulls out an ENORMOUS salad, one that no person could possibly eat themselves, and starts SHAKING THE HELL OUT OF IT! he vibrates SO wildly that he starts moving the desks of the students around him. they start vibrating so wildly it creates a chain reaction, lettuce leaves flying all over the goddamn place, sauce whacking people in the face and in the eyes, maybe even BLINDING some kids! and all the while your professor is looking on, mouth agape, HORRIFIED that someone would make such a disturbance in their class.
then, SUDDENLY, even more heavyset gentlemen start entering the room, wearing all kinds of tight-fitting outfits, their big stomachs protruding out of their pants, all of them looking rather uncomfortable. they all begin to bring out enormous salads of their own, shaking them VIOLENTLY and ANGRILY, some even without any DRESSING! and yet they continue to shake their salads for some reason, continually filling up the classroom until there isn't even any room to MOVE to BREATHE even. everyone continues to vibrate wildly until the classroom explodes and dressing starts getting on adjacent classrooms. then THEY start vibrating wildly all because of this one goddamn guy who started a chain reaction of vigorously shaking his salad
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so
getting back to
audience
There are lots of things that make each of us laugh. I'm going to try my hardest to go through each element of life and of comedy that make me laugh personally, and try to relate that to the people around me. It's hard to say what exactly each of those things are for other people, so I really can only just talk about what makes me laugh and the topics and ideas and people that I'm drawn to personally, and try to flesh out why exactly that is. It's been fun so far, and I'm starting to really feel my rhythm again.
On a side note, I was looking through my old blog, and found a random post from 2004 which I thought was quite funny.
"I've decided that I fucking hate people talking about me, and about this journal. It's starting to happen way too much without me knowing. I'm going to take this damn thing down. Fuck off."
I was so ANGRY!! I'm not actually sure of the context of this post (or if there even WAS context, outside of being 17 years old), but I thought it was kind of endearing so I decided to share it here.
