Latest Thing To Blame On The Internet: The Death Of Jokes

from the you-just-aren't-funny-any-more dept

Tue, Nov 27th 2007 2:24pm — Mike Masnick

People love to blame the internet for "the death" of things (newspapers, music, social lives, grammar, etc., etc.). Those claims are rarely (if ever) accurate -- but at least you can sort of understand where they're coming from. However, this latest study makes almost no sense at all, claiming that the internet is killing the ability to tell jokes. According to the short blurb about the study, 40% of people would rather forward an internet gag such as a video or a rambling joke email than tell a joke themselves. Of course, given the joke-telling ability of many people, this might not be a bad thing. Furthermore, it seems like, if anything, this has simply expanded the market for humorous content, rather than shrunk it. Perhaps, instead, we should be more worried about the decreasing ability for people to understand jokes than the desire to tell them.

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Filed Under: jokes, online

16 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 27 Nov 2007 @ 2:50pm

GOOD.

Jokes are very 1980s. Unless you're ten years old, who in the hell tells jokes? That is a fad that has long since passed.
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GeekDad256, 27 Nov 2007 @ 3:24pm

Death of Jokes? err... not quite.
Humor, jokes and actual face-to-face or voice communication will never go out of style. I believe you've hit the nail on the head with your assessment that it's the ability to UNDERSTAND jokes that is in jeopardy. (Personally, my theory, based on long observation, is that the amount of intelligence in the world is a constant; only the total population is increasing.)
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charlie potatoes, 27 Nov 2007 @ 3:25pm

see above
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Nov 2007 @ 3:26pm

Re: Death of Jokes? err... not quite.
the amount of intelligence in the world is a constant; only the total population is increasing... that is an funny comment (mainly because it seems to be true)
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Private Tubbs, 27 Nov 2007 @ 3:35pm

I respectfully disagree with you, Techdirt man. Yes, the email and the Web have increased our access to piles of humorous content-- no doubt there.

Joke telling was much more common 15-20 years ago, so yeah... maybe it's a thing of the eighties. I think the Web played a large part in this decline.
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Private Tubbs, 27 Nov 2007 @ 3:40pm

...continued

I'll occasionally chuckle (heh!) at a Web joke, but it's nothing like hearing a good joke told skillfully, which can double me over laughing.

Hearing a good joke : Reading web jokes :: Watching a game : Watching the post game wrapup
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icepick314, 27 Nov 2007 @ 3:43pm

and yet there is this show called Yo Momma...

wtf??? a show dedicated to momma jokes???

10 years ago, i would have never even dreamed of this kind of show...
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DaveZ, 27 Nov 2007 @ 3:52pm

Re: Death of Jokes?
86.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Nov 2007 @ 4:41pm

"Jokes" have been dying out for ages now.

Anecdotes is where it's at, baby.
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Stabby The Clown, 27 Nov 2007 @ 7:10pm

The death of joke telling is greatly exaggerated
Don't take my word for it, ask captainhilariousness...

http://www.comicwonder.com/joke/469512859
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Some idiot, 27 Nov 2007 @ 9:25pm

Two cannibals were eating a clown when one turns to the other and says, "Does this taste funny to you?"
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Clair Ching, 28 Nov 2007 @ 8:36am

I agree with geekdad256 that there's still nothing like telling and hearing jokes face to face. In a way jokes are evolving and on the internet; people do joke in email and instant messaging and chat. It just depends on the culture a person is exposed to? With the people I interact with, we joke around online and offline :) So I personally think that this isn't totally true.
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Bill, 28 Nov 2007 @ 10:19am

In the future comedians will sit on stare IMing the audience. Do you have Prince Albert in a can? Well let him out!
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Con von Hoffman, 29 Nov 2007 @ 11:46am

Is this study a hoax?
I was curious as to why a pork pie maker would spend money on this study and so went looking for it. Turns out the company itself doesn't exist on the web except in a few local news stories. You would think a study like this would have been released on the interweb and/or seen by more than one reporter.

I smell a well-spiced rat.
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Con von Hoffman, 29 Nov 2007 @ 11:48am

Is this study a hoax?
I was curious as to why a pork pie maker would spend money on this study and so went looking for it. Turns out the company itself doesn't exist on the web except in a few local news stories. You would think a study like this would have been released on the interweb and/or seen by more than one reporter.

I smell a well-spiced rat.
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Chad, 21 Jan 2008 @ 11:33am

You got it all wrong, tech dirt person
I think it's pretty safe to say that hearing a good joke told well is better than a text joke. With the Web being primarily a textual medium, I think it's safe to say then that it has in effect helped in the decline of the art of joke telling, no?

With that said, something like this site is pretty cool with competing against the text jokes that have ruined both the art of telling a joke, and the reception jokes and joke culture is receiving...
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