Laughter Catagorized

For many months now, the introspective and dynamic aspects of my mind have lain curiously dormant, wallowing sluggishly in the hollow swamp of mediocrity. Ironically enough, it is during these intellectually lethargic times that a stroke of genius usually finds me and inspires some word or deed of great daring and charisma.

…However, as it stands right now I am finding it difficult to spell even the simplest of words in our English language, much less form coherent thoughts with them. In fact, were it not for spell check, I fear this whole effort would be woefully in vain. Isn’t it amazing how our consonants and vowels are so much like the digital 0’s and 1’s of a computer? Take one out of sequence and nothing works. Put them together just so, and you have the closest thing to magic in the human experience. It is an interesting principle, and in fact it is the only one that can adequately explain exactly how the debacle that was Super Bowl XL came to pass. What I mean by this, I will conveniently fail to disclose.

My true purpose in writing this was to share with you, the reader, a theory that has recently been concocted in my mind. While it will do nothing to enrich your life or explain anything of any consequence, it will nevertheless clarify some confusion on the topic of humor.

My theory is simple: we all have an inner audience that guides both our expression of, and reaction to humor. This is why sometimes you can say something and start laughing in the middle of it. You didn’t think it was funny at the moment of conception, but once your inner audience heard it, it decided it was funny and started laughing. Some people have hyper-passive inner audiences, some have hyper-aggressive inner audiences, still others have hyper-dormant and just plain wrong inner audiences. For the sake of brevity and succinctness (this is off to a poor start already) I will outline the various types in all caps with a brief description below it.

The general premise is that we as humans generally obey or follow what our inner audience does. If out audience laughs, we laugh. If the audience cries, we cry. The IA (inner audience) is the gauge by which everything we say and hear is measured in terms of comedic value.

If The Bard is right, and the world is truly a stage, then this life is merely a performance that our inner audience guides us through. It helps us enjoy the acts and scenes, note the high and low points, sense the climax, and even prepare for the closing curtain.

--This dramatic babble has severely bored and offended my inner audience, and so it is no more.

HYPER-PASSIVE INNER AUDIENCE
These are generally the best inner audiences, and therefore make some of the better people. These are the folks who laugh easy and often, and seem to be content with mostly listening to others when it comes to comedy. Their inner audience is highly sensitive (hyper) to the faintest whiff of humor in the air and reacts accordingly. While the HPIP is eager to laugh, it is not so eager to contribute (passive). The audience does not clamor for repartee or response, merely an encore. The only downside to these kinds of people is that nothing is really funny because everything is. Everything is “the funniest thing ever!” While this can be an ego booster for the ignorant comedian, anyone who recognizes the person with a HPIP will most likely be annoyed in a very short time. Even attempts to not be funny can result in a fit of laughter from someone with a HPIA. The worst common side effect of this is that the person repeats the funny quote, noise, or story time and time again…and they find it funny every time. (People who have conversations forged exclusively from movie quotes often fit into this category.) As a conversationalist, the person with HPIP might be a bit trying, but you couldn’t ask for better support.

HYPER-AGGRESSIVE INNER AUDIENCE
While the HPIP is one of the best and most welcomed inner audience, the HAIA is probably the most despised. This inner audience finds everything funny—including the thoughts of its host. When said host has a thought that is anywhere near abstract or absurd, the inner audience chuckles and applauds, encouraging the host to share his/her thoughts with the outside world (aggressive). In fact, the inner audience is so sure that the thought is funny that they will beg the host to share it with everyone in earshot. This generally means that the person is loud—presumably obnoxious. They express their thought with a faint smile or smirk on their lips, secure in the fact that their inner audience loves this thought and that the outside world will too. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth. Because it is hyper, the HAIA has no true judgment as to what is funny and what isn’t. Everything from flatulence, to pointless stories, to hapless one-liners all find acceptance with the HAIA. One of the most annoying traits of a person with HAIA is the repetition of other people’s jokes that got a laugh. Their inner audience enjoyed the joke so much that they clamor for the host to repeat it in order to illicit a similar reaction in other people’s inner audiences. However, because the person with a HAIA has no idea what was funny or why, generally they lack whatever spark it was that made the joke work in the first place. Yet they will repeat it over and over again, causing their inner audience to laugh with glee each time. Unless the host of the HAIA has many HPIA friends, this person will most likely be lonely and shunned. Seek out rabbits and dragons; avoid rats and monkeys.

DORMANT INNER AUDIENCE
The DIA can create some of the most frightening and unnerving people on God’s green earth. Though these people received nutrients in the womb, their sense of humor and creativity apparently got lodged somewhere in the umbilical cord en route, and thus they were permanently severed from much of their personality at birth. The DIA is sparse—much like the crowd at a Washington Capitals game—and equally as quiet. The result is that the person does not think anything is funny or even amusing. Symptoms include failure to laugh, as well as a complete lack of effort to deliver any potentially humorous anecdote or story with the proper emphasis or timing. There’s not much more to be said for the DIA. It does its job even less effectively than the folks who predict the weather—and that’s saying a lot.

DORMANT INNER AUDIENCE WITH TURRETTE’S SYNDROME
You just have to feel sorry for the folks with ADIATS (sometimes pronounced “idiots”). These folks are much akin to the DIA’s in that they don’t think much is funny, and so react very little to comedic stimuli. They also don’t make many attempts at presenting comedy. However, somehow the ADIATS knows it’s not doing its job, and whether because of impatience or a chemical imbalance, it will randomly choose to endorse a thought from the host as funny, and begin screaming for him or her to say it. Unprepared for any such kind of reaction from his/her inner audience, the host will usually be panicked into heeding the screams. Unfortunately, because the person has no timing or presentation, 9 times out of 10 the “joke” falls flat and the ADIATS becomes indignant. It continues to insist that the thought was in fact funny. It is difficult to live with a pissed off inner audience, and so the person generally becomes irritable and even more unsocial. The upshot to this is the 1 time out of 10 that the “joke” does in fact hit the mark. This is when you have the phenomenon of someone incredulously saying “You mean Joe said that?!” after you give a second-hand account of the joke. The bonus is that the joke usually becomes funnier simply because someone born without a personality made it. Occasionally this outburst happens when the DIA hears something someone else said and randomly decides it’s funny. The result is laughter at inappropriate times, or at something very trite. You can usually tell if someone has a DIA because when you ask them why something was funny, they have absolutely no idea.

SELECTIVELY AGGRESSIVE INNER AUDIENCE
This is the audience found in most of your comedians. Having this audience is a gift and a blessing, because it happens to align itself with the Truth of comedy. Generally this audience doesn’t laugh at much that it hears, nor does it always endorse the thoughts that cross the person’s mind. In fact, if the person’s brain worked in the same fashion that other people’s did, there would be almost no laughter at all. However, if the normal person filters an average of 2.4 thoughts (some funny, others practical) through their inner audience per second, the comedian averages about 5.6 in the same amount of time. Often this is the case because of an attention deficit of some kind, but it is always because normal, useful thoughts are frequently replaced by observations and abstract notions. Therefore, the SAIA hears nearly 4 potentially funny thoughts every second, keeping it on its toes. Frequent alignment between inner audience laughter and normal audience laughter bolsters confidence, and the high volume of thoughts helps compensate for any jokes that fall flat. Again, the SAIA is selective and picky, but when it laughs, the world laughs with it.

SELECTIVELY DORMANT INNER AUDIENCE
The SDIA is found in many folks who are perceived as funny in social situations, but don’t always make the best comedians. First of all, they don’t have the high volume of thoughts going past their audience, so there isn’t as much feedback. This results in a lag between jokes, or dry patches of humorless drivel in an otherwise funny story. The biggest difference between the SDIA and the SAIA is that the SDIA is far less inclined to laugh, irregardless of whether something is universally funny. This audience isn’t as sparse or lethargic as the DIA—it’s just very selective. Many things that a SAIA will pick up on and laugh about will be missed by the SDIA. The result is that the person has less confidence in their presentation because there is no inner audience feedback. As an audience, these people tend to smile, nod, chuckle, and occasionally laugh as they realize that what someone said was funny, even if their inner audience seemed to have missed it. Since one cannot laugh without their inner audience, these people seem to be melancholy some of the time and rarely appear to be amused. The good part about having a SDIA is that there are many unexpected laughs from others in response to what the person says. Because the inner audience didn’t laugh, the host doesn’t think what they are about to say will be seen as funny by others. As a result, making people laugh seems effortless for these people because they are just talking and saying nothing that they themselves find amusing. The severe downside is that when they can’t make people laugh, they aren’t sure why. Sometimes their inner audience laughs…sometimes it doesn’t. It becomes a dangerous game of hit or miss that can make life miserable at times.

SELECTIVELY WRONG INNER AUDIENCE
This is almost the exact opposite of the Selectively Aggressive Inner Audience. The thoughts are numerous and the audience is picky…it just endorses the duds instead of the hits. Obviously if the person says enough, one joke is bound to work out, but for the most part, this person can be counted upon to be very not funny. They have the delivery and set-up, but you know as soon as they open their mouth some of the dumbest things are going to come out. The SWIA laughs selectively, giving the person the illusion of having the comedic gift. After all, they don’t laugh at everything. Sadly, because of the confidence involved, it is difficult for someone with a SWIA to fathom the fact that they are the anti-funny. The good news is that these folks fit together with each other perfectly. The world may cringe, but two people with SWIA’s will consider the other to be the funniest person alive. In addition, the presentation, delivery, and confidence of the person will often disguise or bolster poor material in such a way as to trick the inner audiences of others into finding the joke humorous. As a result, many people with SWI’s are relatively successful comedians, and can still have friends.