The art of being funny: The jokes that have been around for millennia and still make you laugh – BBC News

Velez was surprised to learn that the joke had been passed down by word of mouth, starting with the Latin text and ending with the modern joke books she read, without needing to write it down for centuries.

Apparently there is a reason this joke has been around to this day, even though it’s pretty vulgar by today’s standards. But what is it that people still talk about for centuries? Will a modern joke still be funny for thousands of years to come? As a comedy writer for BBC Radio 4, I would love to know the answer.

The earliest written jokes have recognizable characteristics. In 2016, NPR stated that the oldest joke on record comes from Bronze Age Sumer (early Mesopotamian civilization 3300-1200 BC). A joke goes like this: “Is there anything that hasn’t happened since time immemorial?” The answer is “Young wives never fart on their husband’s lap.”

Needless to say, this joke isn’t going to fill today’s comedy clubs. Surprisingly, however, the earliest recorded joke is about toilet humor. The obsession with the vulgar, the physical, and the downright vulgar is not a modern invention, but a universal humor that spans cultures and eras.

Velez, now director of the Center for Folklore and Public Culture at the University of Oregon, has written numerous books on raw comedy. “The early jokes were dirty jokes. People couldn’t resist them,” she said.

Flatulence is interesting because it’s a “physical state we can’t control,” says Anu Korhonen, a professor of cultural studies at the University of Helsinki in Finland.

In an interview with a University of Helsinki magazine, she added that the role of farts in early jokes was to represent our shared humanity and equality. Flatulence affects everyone – no one can control it.

Some researchers believe that humor may have contributed to social evolution because it brings people closer together. Perhaps our ability to be optimistic about bad situations helps us overcome difficulties—and by laughing together, it strengthens our social bonds. Some scholars point to similar teasing behaviors in primates such as chimpanzees as evidence of the early evolutionary origins of human humor. However, captive animals may be mimicking the behavior they see in us.

But not all vulgar jokes travel well across cultures. Cultural norms vary widely, and it can be difficult to find a universally funny joke, explains Peter McGraw, a professor of marketing and psychology at the University of Colorado Boulder. “Even things like hiccups have a cultural element,” he said. “In some cultures, it’s very disrespectful to hiccup at the dinner table. If your kids do that, you might laugh because they don’t know what grace is. And in other cultures, it might mean ‘thank you’ , the meal was awesome’.”

By the Middle Ages, many jokes were so rude that you might think they originated in low-end hotels and dark corners of society. But Velez said that was not the case. “People used to think that there was an official (Catholic) church that was very old-fashioned and that only ordinary people would joke around, but when you do more research, you’ll find that the upper echelons are also joking.”

Outside of schools around the world, you’ll see kids playing hide-and-seek, or singing games, sports or mind games. No hardware or instruction is required, and as long as children have time, they will find a way to play — and it’s not unique to humans. So, what are we going to play? Why do we stop playing when we grow up? Should adults play more?

Velez found that many of the oldest written jokes were scribbled in the margins of ornate early Latin Bibles. Even in a culture where only the academic and religious elite could read and write, early church scholars were busy entertaining each other with obscene comments.

In the age of medieval monarchs with supreme power, joking was a dangerous thing to do. Velez tells a story, a joke and an anecdote between King Richard I of England. At a banquet, two men had been mocking the king—the king was furious, and it was clear that disaster was about to befall them, but one of them replied. “We may have said that, but we haven’t finished the wine yet, and we’re going to say something more exciting!”

The two men were a near miss, Velez said. “If they hadn’t come up with such a witty answer, their fate would have been really tragic.”

Today, the risk of persecution by an angry monarch is reduced, but reading the mood in a room is still an important skill for comedians. Meaningful jokes are a “benign offense,” McGraw said, always maintaining a delicate balance between being too conservative and too extreme. Well-meaning offenses are designed to provoke laughter and disgust at the same time – which may explain why the subject of vulgarity is so prevalent.

“That explains two reasons why the joke fails,” McGraw added. That is, it can be too mild, too boring, like a child’s knock on the door. Maybe too much. It emphasizes the skill of telling jokes because it is easier to fail than to succeed. “So, telling jokes is a serious business, and it requires a strong ability to understand the audience.”

In fact, McGraw believes that innate intelligence is the most powerful indicator of whether a person is interesting. In the days of our ancestors, humor suggested that a person had a great deal of control over their surroundings. These jokes are made in a low-life and dangerous environment. But this basic principle still holds true in the way we handle relationships in modern times, McGraw said. “It’s great to be around interesting people who can help you cope better with difficulties.”

Jokes can help us turn our emotions around. A funny joke can deflect our negativity when dealing with tough issues.

So what about the scare of the demise of contemporary comedy? For McGraw, this is not a unique moment in history.

He said. “It’s been around since comedy.” As the two clowns at the court of Richard I attested, comedy is always risky, and power is always in the hands of the audience.

“What’s right and what’s wrong is not determined by the narrator, it’s determined by the audience. Their mood, the environment they’re in, how much alcohol they drink, their culture, their identity,” McKinsey said. Grau said.

If the power is in the hands of the audience, it’s hard for comedians to please them. Comedian Catherine Bohart knows the pressure well. “The psychology of the audience is really interesting because (if) you look good, they’re willing to trust you,” she said. “But if you’re vulnerable, they can sniff out your anxiety and vulnerability.”

It’s an unusual situation where jokes have gotten so much attention in history, and it’s valuable because the audience wants it. Bohart, who is touring the UK and Ireland, agrees with McGraw that while there may be some common themes across thousands of years of comedy, no single comedy material is 100% effective. Comedy takes risks precisely because comedians face a new audience each time.

The audience’s laughter was mixed, Bohart said. “The moment of shock may stop laughing. Anything we shouldn’t laugh at: death, mental health, cruel self-deprecation. People may be ashamed to laugh out loud.”

Talk shows have developed rapidly in recent years. Kylie Brakeman is the performer of a new kind of trendy comedy that emerged at the start of the pandemic. Her Twitter videos have attracted millions of views, ushering in an era where the events of a day can be parodied in minutes.

“It’s crazy that we’re living in a world where we can’t keep up watching TV every day,” Blankman said. Internet comedians are getting closer to the brink of satire. “If there’s any news in the news, you can perform it right away. That’s an advantage for online comedians. Even if you’re writing for a late-night show, the joke has already been tweeted 17 times before the night’s show airs. .”

This modern comedy can be done in minutes, as opposed to jokes scribbled in the margins of Latin text that need to be stumbled upon by the next scholar.

This accelerated production process presents a different set of risks. But with millions of viewers behind the screen, the online banter feels less catastrophic. Blankman said. “People will like it instinctively, really don’t think about it too much, and let it go. I think it’s a lot easier than being on stage.”

Who knows what viewers will think thousands of years from now, if they discover videos of contemporary comedians. Maybe they’ll see today’s avant-garde comedy and think it’s a lot like a Mesopotamian fart joke: lacking some of the finer cultural details, but having a millennial element.

*Matt Kenyon is a reporter and comedy writer for The Skewer on BBC Radio 4.