Monday, May 14, 2007
Great Joke! Response by Darren
Dear Mom,
Thanks.
Right, if you need to say, “just joking,” then it probably wasn’t a good joke. Likewise, if it’s a touchy subject you shouldn’t add to the stress by trying to joke about it. Some people can do jokes that make fun of other people and have people laugh, but these are mostly professional comedians and shouldn’t be attempted by anyone who doesn’t really know what he was doing.
Darren
Thanks.
Right, if you need to say, “just joking,” then it probably wasn’t a good joke. Likewise, if it’s a touchy subject you shouldn’t add to the stress by trying to joke about it. Some people can do jokes that make fun of other people and have people laugh, but these are mostly professional comedians and shouldn’t be attempted by anyone who doesn’t really know what he was doing.
Darren
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Great Joke!
Hey Darren, great joke!
Humor can be tough for people with Asperger Syndrome and that was a good joke. So I’m going to take a moment to talk about why it was a good joke.
It’s hard to do your joke justice in this blog because as with most jokes, you had to be there. Jokes are all about the context, that is, they work because of the situation. So they don’t usually sound very good when they are described. But I’m going to try.
We’re moving into a new house. The current owners have the house incredibly clean. It is impossibly spotless. Every corner shines. So I lamented that it would go downhill the moment we set foot into it. You said, “No, it will not go downhill the moment you set foot in it, it will go downhill the moment I set foot in it.” This is called self-deprecating humor, and the reason it is funny is that it is just true enough to make us all laugh and groan, but not true enough to make us all really mad.
Self-deprecating humor is put-down humor that puts yourself down instead of someone else. This is much safer than putting other people down, because you could hurt their feelings if you put other people down. Claiming that you’re “just joking” doesn’t always keep their feelings from being hurt. So it’s much better to put yourself down. Except you wouldn’t want to put yourself down if it was something that was really bad or really serious, because then you would be being too harsh on yourself and making yourself look too bad. But being a messy teenager isn’t terribly awful, so that works fine.
Also you wouldn’t want to joke around about something that someone is really angry about. If you were about to get fired because you were too messy in a physics lab, then maybe it wouldn’t be such a good joke. Or if you were married and your wife was about to divorce you because you were so incredibly messy that it was a health hazard and she was extremely angry, then it wouldn’t be a good joke. But I am only mildly frustrated and worried about getting the new house messy. So I am able to laugh about it.
Oh, and remember - a good joke, like lottery tickets or chewing gum, is only good the first time!
Mom
Humor can be tough for people with Asperger Syndrome and that was a good joke. So I’m going to take a moment to talk about why it was a good joke.
It’s hard to do your joke justice in this blog because as with most jokes, you had to be there. Jokes are all about the context, that is, they work because of the situation. So they don’t usually sound very good when they are described. But I’m going to try.
We’re moving into a new house. The current owners have the house incredibly clean. It is impossibly spotless. Every corner shines. So I lamented that it would go downhill the moment we set foot into it. You said, “No, it will not go downhill the moment you set foot in it, it will go downhill the moment I set foot in it.” This is called self-deprecating humor, and the reason it is funny is that it is just true enough to make us all laugh and groan, but not true enough to make us all really mad.
Self-deprecating humor is put-down humor that puts yourself down instead of someone else. This is much safer than putting other people down, because you could hurt their feelings if you put other people down. Claiming that you’re “just joking” doesn’t always keep their feelings from being hurt. So it’s much better to put yourself down. Except you wouldn’t want to put yourself down if it was something that was really bad or really serious, because then you would be being too harsh on yourself and making yourself look too bad. But being a messy teenager isn’t terribly awful, so that works fine.
Also you wouldn’t want to joke around about something that someone is really angry about. If you were about to get fired because you were too messy in a physics lab, then maybe it wouldn’t be such a good joke. Or if you were married and your wife was about to divorce you because you were so incredibly messy that it was a health hazard and she was extremely angry, then it wouldn’t be a good joke. But I am only mildly frustrated and worried about getting the new house messy. So I am able to laugh about it.
Oh, and remember - a good joke, like lottery tickets or chewing gum, is only good the first time!
Mom
