Biology Of A Joke

Ever attended a standup comedy show? The Jokester is on stage with a mic in hand. She’s pacing back and forth, eyes cast downward, maybe shooting a furtive glance at the teleprompter, or otherwise trying to conjure the next lines of her delivery all on her own. Either way, when eventually that next Funny Thing enters her brain, the first thing that happens is a constellation of motor neurons fire. This causes her mouth and tongue and vocal chords to activate in a just-so way, producing a sound wave in air, which is detected by the eardrum of the listener, there converted into a mechanical impulse, followed by conversion in the cochlea to an electrical impulse, which is conducted along the auditory nerve to the brain stem (initial processing), and from there relayed through the thalamus and on to the temporal lobe where it is finally – finally! – converted into the meaning of the Funny Thing spoken. Phew! I bet you thought hearing was simple.
What happens next? Pop quiz
A. You cry
B. You laugh
C. You cheer, like when your team scores a point
D. You experience a profound feeling of dread
E. None of the above
The correct answer of course is B. When someone tells a joke, unless you don’t find it funny, or don’t get it, you laugh (or chuckle, whatever, depending on the concentration of the Funny Thing. Because let’s face it, just like Love, Comedy is a drug). Hold this thought.
Now let’s turn our focus to an apologist for tRump. Say he accepts an invitation to participate on a prime time CNN news show, to give his take on the show’s topic du jour, namely: An assessment of presidential readiness for office. He’s joined on this panel by five hostile pundits, all of whom are all ideologically opposed to tRump (and by association, to our apologist as well). In this context, we’ll call the apologist the token republican punching bag. Feel free to imagine his appearance however you’d like. He and the five pundits are seated around a long and wide, boomerang-shaped, see-through glass table. Seated at one end of the table is a middle-aged, attractive black woman, necklaced in a plain string of pearls, who holds a law degree from a credible college and has professional creds working as a DA in under-served communities in Louisiana, and is said to have modeled her career on the same of VP Harris’ in California; seated next to her is another woman, white, also attractive, freshly primped in makeup, a young up-and-comer in the punditry circuit who’s cut her teeth as an embedded reporter to the Assad atrocities in northern Syria, so she’s come to understand the importance of a clear-eyed commander in chief in matters of foreign policy; next to her we have the roly-poly boomer, now a lecturer in academia, who’s old enough to recall he served as an advisor to an advisor to the Clinton administration, oh, and he’s also co-authored some bestsellers about politics; next to him we have the show’s lead, an attractive, high-cheek-boned news anchor, recently promoted to the role for her uncanny ability to cut to the heart of any issue and bring out the best of her guests through bitingly challenging questions – she’s dressed professionally in a blouse, jacket and skirt, with her stocking’d legs strategically crossed and visible through the glass tabletop, where she can be seen distractedly dangling a stylish nude pump; to her right is a retired military general wearing the jacket of his rank, replete with insignias running the length of his arm, staring directly at the camera, steely-eyed and humorless; and lastly, to his right, as if exiled from the discussion, our republican punching bag. Having a two-hundred-fifty pound, retired, four-star general who’d served multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, seated between the punching bag and the show’s lead is seen as no coincidence.
This is all made up by the way. You should not have the impression I’ve described a real CNN panel of pundits and guests. OK, with the table set, let’s move on.
After a commercial break the camera focuses on the lead. After she issues the boilerplate caution to viewers – that some viewers may be disturbed… – she queues several clips taken from tRump’s recent stump speeches. The panel turns to watch the clips on the studio monitor, the same thing TV viewers watch. Once the clips finish, focus returns back to the studio where all five pundits are aghast, their heads bowed and shaking in disgust. The punching bag is unmoved, stoic. The lead finally raises her head and turns to face the punching bag, and puts the questions to him, “Are you not horrified by this misogynistic bile that tRump spews at his rallies? Do you really think this is consistent with the character we want our president, the commander in chief, to possess?“
The punching bag straightens in his chair, casts a disappointed glance at each of the pundits, pauses briefly, then turns again to look at the lead. He smirks and says, He was joking!
You instantly see the problem with that answer, right? We’ve just reviewed the basic biology of a Joke as it passes from one brain into another, and the typical emotional response the average hearer of said joke would have. And the answer was not C. (cheer). And yet, when tRump spews at his rallies – I love women! Why I’m going to be the Bestest Protector of Women Ever. I’m going to protect them good and hard (whether they like or not) – how did His Followers respond? Like it was a joke? No, they cheered, uproariously they cheered. So unless His Followers are biologically atypical human beings, and I’ve no reason to presume they are atypical human beings in terms of their basic biology, then tRump could not possibly have been joking there. An audience doesn’t cheer when they hear a joke. To hear tRump’s promise that he’ll be the Grand Protector of women – like it or not! – and respond by cheering, that is consistent with approval of a point tRump scored, not the feeling of amusement. Cheering and laughter have very different emotional activators. And that’s a statement of biology, not prejudice.
But our (hypothetical) panel of very serious pundits at CNN didn’t swing when slow-pitched a softball. Why not? When the republican punching bag declared tRump was merely joking about what he spewed about women, a couple of them may have rolled their eyes, sure, but that was it. Why on earth did no one on that panel quickly respond as I did here? Why acquiesce like that when, surely to a one, each of their bullshit detectors was pegging? I hope it wasn’t due to a misplaced nod of collegial respect for a fellow pundit. Good grief, the man made a claim that was unequivocally false! That’s professional misconduct undeserving of anyone’s respect. He makes a fool of you, and all you do is abide it with a disapproving eye roll. Seriously, that’s it? You wouldn’t see the liberal punching bag on FOX’s The Five skate by unmocked were she to dismiss as a joke some Democratic candidate’s nonsense. No, to a one they’d be champing at the bit to have their turn with her. I am not a fan of allowing others’ putrid ethics guide my own, but for chrissake in a battle of wits try arming yourself next time CNN.
I recently heard what sounded like a credible report that the Joe Rogan Experience podcast has more subscribers than CNN & FOX combined. In addition to podcasting, Joe Rogan is also a comedian. Joe’s jokes make comedy club audiences laugh. I’ve personally watched only a couple of those performances online, though I feel confident that not once has his audience ever cheered when he cracked a joke. Whereas his breezy interview style on his podacst has gained him a gazillion likes, the online equivalent of a cheer of approval. Audiences respond differently to Joe depending on the context of his performance. On his podcast he is respectful of his guests, some say to a fault. Yet when he hosted tRump and challenged tRump’s belief that he won the last election, Joe laughed at tRump. He laughed because tRump is joke. I did not laugh when later Joe endorsed tRump. I also did not cheer. The human emotion of anger has different triggers entirely.