I have been wondering, do people laugh because they think that they are supposed to laugh? My personal answer to that is yes! When a group goes to see a stand up act, or even goes to see a movie, if the entire group is laughing and someone just does not fine the subject mater funny. The odd man out is going to laugh because he does not want to be different. He does not want to group to think that he isn’t smart enough, or well cultured enough to understand the jokes. This makes me ask then how can you tell if something is truly funny. I feel like I’m being too philosophical here but its true that people with laugh just because a group or society is telling them to. This is even true in class. When we watched Ralphie May in class students were looking around to see if it would be ok to laugh at what he was saying. We are at a very conservative catholic school, so most people were not going to find the stuff that he was sing about the pope funny at all. I wonder though if it would be different if we took the same class and watched the same act a say the University of Illinois. I think that while everyone may not be laughing, there also would not be crickets in the classroom like it was in our class. People do not want to be different from the group and this even applies to what people fine funny and not funny.
Another point is the comedian’s status. This can have a huge impact on what the audience perceives as funny. If the comedian is popular and well liked, then there is going to be a lot of group think that is going on during the act. It is expected that what ever comes out of this guys mouth is going to make the entire audience roll on the ground laughing. I feel this could go the other way as well. If the comedian is popular there could be a group of people who refuse to laugh or even watch the act. This is also true with music. You always have those people who refuse to go along with something that is mainstream, they seem to only be able to enjoy comedy if it is slightly secret or underground. Society and status of a comedian play a huge role in whether people laugh or not.
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Is this always so, do you think? What if this were not a class? Often we feel we can't laugh at school--college is serious business. But you are right to point out that certain "edgy" jokes demand that look around so that we are not the only ones laughing. But often as not folks DON'T laugh when others are--for example, Chris didn't find Burr's jokes about women very funny at all. In his post he blasted Burr for this, while others thought he was the best comedian so far...Humans are social creatures and long for acceptance, so they tailor their behavior to a common denominator when they can; but there are times when they break the mold.
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