Humor Has It!

Topic: Humor

Source:  Humor as we know is depicted in different ways throughout the world. I decided to see how humor was used in our everyday life by the use of my personal observation over a period of three days. I left Humboldt County to Seattle, Washington for an interview to a private university.  My trip took me approximately 30 hours to Washington and 30 hours back to Arcata because I decided to take the train and the bus.  Although, the train and bus is an experience I wouldn’t want to do again, it was the perfect place for an observation. As I sat on the train heading to Seattle, I listened and watched the various people I encountered from the trip. Whether I was handing tickets to the conductor or sitting in my seat, everything I could see and hear that relates to my humor topic would become part of my observation work.

Description:   So it all started with me just being noisy and joining in listening to the conversations going on around me. Most of my observations were done on the train to and from Seattle from Sacramento. As I was sitting and getting settled in, I began listening into a conversation of a an older man and a younger women behind, although I don’t have the whole conversation scripted, I can remember many of the points that related to my topic , in my opinion, of humor.  The man began describing his life story, explaining the various drugs he had tried, from eyes drops, to shots, while the women compared her own stories of taking mushrooms.  They laughed as they told these stories, explaining that how they couldn’t remember much of anything while they were on drugs, while engaging in laughs. One would explain their story, pause, then they would both laugh, the pause is what struck me the most as something underlining the conversation.  Once at the school I traveled to visit, a mother made some jokes in regards to her daughter’s admission.  Her jokes were just surrounded around whether her daughter would become admitted into the school or not.  While on train ride back to Sacramento, there was even some “dirty” joking by a younger man and older women.  When it became nights out time on the train, the women had mistakenly taken the comment from the man as a pass at the women. The man said he was somewhat offended by the joke but since they were on the topic, the women should consider it.  The “mistaken” comment soon turned into a joke. There were many laughs throughout the trip, jokes and that were thrown around, and general statements made by various people who came together to make their trips across the states.

Relation/Analysis: In the Robbins text on page 103 it states, “But social scientists, beginning with Sigmund Freud, have long recognized jokes as expressions of anxieties, doubts,   and uncertainties. After reading this I was better able to recognize why it is we joke, in the story of the two joking about drugs the pause was something more than just a sudden silence. Sigmund Frued would most likely put the pause in the categories of the anxieties, doubts and uncertainties. The joke containing the mother and the daughter’s admission would stream along the lines of uncertainties. The mother was uncertain if her daughter was going to get accepted so she used a joke to make that situation more comfortable.  In the last joke, of sense of humor that was used I would find it hard to categorize it within the anxieties, doubts and uncertainties.  The Robbins text continues with saying, “The switch in interpretation may also overcome some anxiety of fear”, I believe this would better fit the situation for the mistaken comment. I would say this because when you look at the situation the miscommunication became a fear, because the communication created an awkward environment the humor allowed that feeling of awkwardness to be surpassed by the humor.