Why you have a unique sense of humour

A roarboar report

Because only you are you. Only you know the combination of things that you know. And only you know the combination of what is fair and what isn't.

Consider the image above. If you already saw it before, it may not be all that funny to you. Because so often what we find funny has a lot to do with being surprised. Unusual things are funny. Usual things are much less so.

Frequent users of the roarboar find headlines that their friends share less funny because they laughed at it first on the roarboar. The same goes with the image above. If you saw it before, and recently, it's less funny to you.

People know different things. People consume media and memes at different speeds. Some people not much at all. Some keep up. Some people run ahead. And that drives different kinds of humor.

People have different kinds senses of fairness and justice. This can have a lot to do with how and where you grew up. If you were taught strict deference to authority, you may not think that jokes that punch up are funny. If you were taught compassion and justice, you may not think that jokes that attack vulnerable people to be funny. People may laugh at the violations of some of those social norms.

The image above is a koala with the caption Eucalize Legalyptus. Finding that funny requires some knowledge. The first is that the words are scrambled. It should read legalize eucalyptus. The second is that koala's only eat eucalyptus. The third is that people who have consumed a lot of cannabis, weed, or marijuana in a single session can often scramble their words in that way. And the fourth is that people who are high on marijuana frequently look tired, a tell tale look of being stoned. The koala looks stoned. It is unusual for a koala to look stoned. The image might be funny to people with the knolwedge of marijuana. The image might be funny to people who believe it to be fair to laugh at marijuana use. This entire desription might be funny if you did not understand the joke.

What you know to be funny depends on what you know. What you know to be true. What you know to be fair. And you are inevitably unique in what you know to be true, and what you know to be fair.

That's why you have a unique sense of humour.

You're a star!



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