WEBVTT - The Dad Joke 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.280 My Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:14.160 My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.360 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:20.400 And today we're gonna be talking dad jokes? Now, Robert, 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:23.119 how did we end up here? So? I was just 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:27.280 thinking about it over the weekend. Basically, I was I, 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:30.800 you know, dad jokes are I think a familiar concept 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:33.159 for most of us. Um. I don't remember being a 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:34.960 named thing when I was growing up, but at some 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:38.440 point in my pre parenthood life it became a thing. 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:40.720 And even non dad's would get called out for dad 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:44.440 jokes at times. And uh now as a as a parent, 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:47.479 it's it's like a frequent call out, you know, not 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.199 only in this house, but but I hear it with 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:53.199 with my friends who are who are parents, uh and 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:56.840 also among again friends who are not parents. It's often 0:00:57.000 --> 0:00:59.920 a critique of someone else's joke, often from a child, 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:03.840 more from a spouse, but sometimes it's a self commentary 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:07.680 on one's own joke. And I guess I hadn't thought 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:10.000 too much about it. I didn't like, I wasn't too 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:14.600 self reflective on the concept until until very recently My 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:18.040 my son is is eight going on nine, and he's 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:22.000 definitely at the point where he is capable of sarcastic 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:26.560 laughter for particularly punny jokes, particularly you know, any kind 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:30.640 of like uh, perhaps too lame of an attempted humor. 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:34.480 He is liable to respond with sarcasm. And while he 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:37.720 won't say, oh, that's a dad joke, like, clearly we 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.319 are in dad joke territory. And so I just started pondering, like, 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:44.039 what does this mean? What is the dad joke? Is 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:46.640 the dad joke a thing? Uh? And if it is, like, 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:50.920 how might we um quantify it? And what does it 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:55.560 reveal about things like childhood development or humor itself? So 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:58.280 in your experience, what is the age where where the 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:02.480 child stops rewarding you for criminally weak puns and and 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:06.000 starts punishing you for them. Um, I guess we're kind 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:09.280 of in that territory right now. Like it's not I 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.200 still get get lots of laughs, I'm still pretty good, 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:16.079 I know my audience pretty well, but I'm I'm rolling 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:20.080 out more and more jokes that that he is liable 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:24.239 to either half laugh at or enjoy the awfulness of 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:27.600 the pun. Uh. And part of that I guess is 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:30.359 him picking up on my delivery as well, Like, if 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.840 I know that it's a particularly lame joke, I'm probably 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:37.280 going to lean into that delivery, you know. Yeah, well, 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:39.000 I mean it was definitely a thing you'd see with 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.200 like Dad's on TV the when you were a kid 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:46.000 that like that. Yes, they embarrass their teenager adolescent kids 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:48.960 by telling grown worthy jokes and then get punished with 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:53.960 the dad. Yeah. You know. This actually came up in 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.080 one of the sources I ended up looking at for this, 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:58.200 because because after I was thinking about it, I was like, 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:00.359 surely I'm not the only one kind of lighting this, 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:04.640 and I'm certainly not. But I looked at this one article, uh, 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:07.640 this one post title please stop calling My humor dad 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.560 Jokes by Andrew Bougon. Uh. This was from twenty nineteen 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:15.240 published in The Washington I in and um, they basically 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:18.360 made two two points. And I have to stress that 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:21.200 this wasn't like a super serious article like he was. 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.520 The authors very much engaging and you know, the humorous 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:27.600 nature and the low stakes aspect of the topic. But 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:29.920 they did bring up the idea of ages um and 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:33.960 dad jokes, but also the idea that they tend to 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:37.160 depend uh, some interpretations of them tend to depend on 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.839 outdated gender roles in the household, in which the mom 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.600 handles all the whole hard work around the house and 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:45.840 dad just kind of wanders into the room from time 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.080 to time to score an easy laugh with the kids. 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:50.840 And I feel like that's the kind of thing reflected 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:55.160 in this sitcom model that you're you're discussing here, With 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:58.000 a lot of American sitcoms like it, it fell upon 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:00.720 the mom character to be the respond constable one in 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:03.040 the family, and the dad got to be the goofball, 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:06.440 you know, the Homer Simpson right, right. Um. So, I 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:08.160 mean not to say there wasn't truth to the trope, 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.040 but it's probably a situation too where having this trope 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:15.280 so readily occur in our sitcom culture, it kind of, 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.680 you know, echoes back on us. You know, it reverberates 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:21.719 back on the culture itself, and we lean into it 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:24.919 even more, you know. Okay, So I assume at this 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:28.120 point most people are familiar with what a dad joke is, 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:30.520 But then again, I don't know. I often feel disconnected 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.160 from terms that people use in this Internet age, especially 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:35.480 since I'm like trying not to look at the social 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:38.280 media's and all that. So like for people who are 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:40.920 not so familiar, what makes a dad joke a dad 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:44.000 joke in the parlance of our times, all right, in 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:47.240 the parlance of our times, Dude, they are they're they're 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:49.479 jokes that are a bit on the lane side in 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:52.640 some estimates. They're often punny, and that they use puns, 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:57.800 and they're generally family friendly. Uh. And the punchline, I 0:04:57.839 --> 0:04:59.919 was trying to figure out how the best phrase. I' 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.080 like the punchline hits like a crashing clown car. And 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.760 your intended audience, like the ideal audience that is actually 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:09.640 going to laugh at this joke is five to seven 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.800 year olds. You know they're abouts, um, but that is 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:16.120 in this is key regardless of the current age ages 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.800 of those presents. So you might be in the you 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:22.679 might be in the room with say a forty something 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:26.760 and a teenager, but you're still firing out jokes like 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:28.760 you have a whole room full of five to seven 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:31.320 year olds. Now, you mentioned that these jokes are often 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:34.400 puns and that they're often family friendly. Of course, dad 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:39.120 jokes do tend towards very much like uh, simple word play, 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.360 and what might be called clean comedy. But another tendency 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:45.760 I've noticed in dad jokes is, I don't even know 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.520 what you'd call this, the tendency to make a joke 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:53.760 that is, uh, that is edgy to a really tame extent. 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.520 And so this might involve, say, references to people's butts 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:02.320 or extremely minor crude language. So one example cited in 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:05.040 a New York Times article that we're about to talk about, uh, 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.960 the author mentions the joke, what has two butts and 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:13.080 kills people an assassin? Uh? Okay, Yeah, that that is 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:15.839 a little edgy for the for the young crowd. But yeah, 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:18.720 I mean not to me. That's very much in the 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:21.360 in what is understood to be the dad joke zone, 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:25.800 because it is a joke that simultaneously violates some kind 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:28.080 of taboo with the use of the word ass but 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:32.080 it is an extremely minor taboo. Yeah, I mean, for instance, 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:36.080 Bart Simpson would love that joke. Uh. So it's it 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:39.240 is it is aimed appropriately, and yeah, there there is 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:43.279 this tendency oftentimes for the jokes to take on this 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:47.840 this child's uh scatological zone. You know that. So it's 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:51.600 gonna involve butts and maybe it's gonna involve poop. There'll 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:54.120 be more of a tendency for poop jokes because this 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.640 is something that the young folks enjoy. We can we 0:06:57.680 --> 0:06:59.520 can again think of it as kind of the rude 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.360 Bart Simpson territory of of of joke craft. Yeah, and 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:06.279 and lots of lots of Dad jokes are completely clean, 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:08.320 but they've got a special purchase on this place that 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:12.760 we might call the edgy side of tame. Yeah. Yeah, now, Um, 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:14.240 One of one other thing I want to touch on 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.720 here is that, Um, obviously the terminology we're using here 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:22.200 is is largely gendered, but I think I tend to 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:26.240 reject the idea that it's distinctly gendered phenomenon we were 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.200 talking about, Um, you know, it doesn't seem to be 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:32.040 especially tied to masculine ideas. And I'm willing to bet 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:35.280 anything that their appearance of all identities out there that 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:38.760 make what can be classified as dad jokes, oh of course. Yeah, 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:41.720 obviously this is something that transcends dad Dum. I do 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:44.920 think there must be some kind of observation of at 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.360 least a slight trend towards these kinds of jokes among 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.080 Dad's in particular, but yeah, all kinds of people tell 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.440 dad jokes. In fact, the first dad joke that came 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:57.480 to my mind, um, when when I was thinking about this, 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:00.160 when you said you wanted to do this topic was, uh, 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:02.360 it's it's not a legend in my in law's family. 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:04.440 But it wasn't a joke told by a dad, but 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:08.200 a joke told to a dad. And it was in 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:10.480 fact told to a dad by a daughter. It was 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:13.000 something Rachel said to her dad when they were posing 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:15.080 for a family photo and they were trying to get 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:18.000 everybody to smile, and she told the joke. You've probably 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:20.920 heard this one before, but I'll see where did George 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:24.320 Washington keep his armies? I don't know where George Washington 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:31.080 keep his armies in his sleevies like his And the 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:34.280 legend goes that that My father in law like just 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:39.640 laughed so hard at this that his head nearly exploded. Yeah. 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.800 I mean there's something about a pun like that, um, 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:44.640 which is hard. It's hard to classify what was that 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:46.959 a really good pun or a really bad one? Uh, 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:48.600 you know, because you kind of you can kind of 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.400 trip over it trying to figure out what the connection is, 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:55.160 Like you're trying to like you're visualizing it. Uh, you're 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:58.040 you're thinking about history, and it has nothing to do 0:08:58.080 --> 0:08:59.800 with any of those. It's just you know that these 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.680 association between various words, It is just making a silly 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:06.240 sound at the end of a word. Yes, that's the connection. 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:09.520 So you kind of feel tricked by it. Uh, But 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:13.600 you have to admire the ingenuity of the trap as well, Like, 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:15.240 you know, it's I can laugh all day at this 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:17.080 bear trap of my legs stuck in it, So I 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:19.840 guess it's pretty good. So I would not be surprised 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:22.800 if research were defined. I do not think such research exists. 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.640 I would not be surprised to find that dads are 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:29.920 especially prone to telling dad jokes. But it is undeniable 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:34.360 that dad jokes transcend the dad category. Everybody tells dad jokes, Yeah, 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.199 I would agree. Yeah, parents, nonparents, people of all ages, 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:41.280 people of all genders. Um. But this seems to be 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:46.040 a way that we are as a culture classifying them today. 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.480 So I again, I was thinking about this over the weekend, 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:50.960 trying to figure out like what what it meant, And 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:55.400 my main observation has to do with identity, importance and 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:59.920 enthusiasm of the audience. So becoming a parent, in my 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.360 opinion is is pretty much the best worst thing you 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:04.880 can do. It's it's not for everyone and for many 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:07.920 great reasons, but I can say from experience that it 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:10.560 will at the very least totally change the shape of 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:14.760 whatever your life was prior to the arrival of tiny 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:18.600 humans or a tiny human in your life. Nothing will 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.719 be the same again, including your humor. And a lot 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:23.320 of this just have to have has to do with, 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.960 like very basic realities about there being a growing human 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:29.880 in your house. So the larval human develops, it grows, 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:33.200 it learns, it develops language and thinking skills, and so 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:35.800 of course it picks up on humor. It begins experimenting 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:39.800 with its own humor. It's uh, this is a process 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:43.720 that is at times delightful, at times arduous. Uh. But 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:46.640 there's a lot of laughter, and you help to cultivate it. 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:49.520 And by the way, speaking of when, the sort of 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:52.320 loose time frame from this, though it varies a bit, 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:56.480 is babies typically start laughing between two and four months. Now. 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:59.280 I was thinking about this because there are obviously several 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:02.360 different ways that having a child in the household will 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:07.520 change the household's humor profile because on one hand, babies 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:11.320 and young children are often humorous, like they can be 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.920 the thing that is funny. Then at a certain point, 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:17.320 you might say it like two to four months, they 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:21.400 start becoming the audience for humor. They think things are funny. 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:26.280 But then also they change essentially what people are thinking 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:28.680 about in the household, and most humor is based on 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:31.120 whatever is on your mind at the time, so they 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:33.680 will also become even if it's not like referring to 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.560 something they just did or reacting to something they just did, 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:40.680 baby and child humor will sort of occupy the mind 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:43.760 to become the subject of a lot of humor. Yeah, yeah, 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:45.960 there's there's there's a lot that ends up going on there, 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:48.160 you know. And you know it's like they say, you know, 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:50.560 little little pictures have big ears. They pick up on 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:53.199 so much and they end up, uh, you know, mimicking 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:57.439 and trying to understand the humor that you're using. For instance, 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:00.719 when you're you're talking to a non child. Um. So 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:04.040 it's it's really in half the time you're not even 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:07.400 really aware of what's going on, but you're kind of 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:12.720 all in this uh, this this complex learning process together. Um. 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.560 But yeah, it does. I feel like it does definitely 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:19.960 change the way you you calibrate your jokes because for me, 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:23.120 example an example, um, and I'd like to think that 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:25.920 I'm a reasonably funny person, and uh, I enjoy it 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.520 when I can genuinely make a person laugh, though, like 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:31.120 all of us, will also settle for some polite laughter 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.360 from someone else. I feel like I probably had a 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:38.800 pretty good success rate with my humor prior to my 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:42.520 son coming into my life, but with with him once 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.040 he reached the point where he was because obviously a three, 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:48.000 you know, super young child is not really going to 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:50.000 be able to understand jokes. You could go up to 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:52.360 a baby in a stroller on the street, you could 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:54.920 tell it a joke and maybe you'll get a laugh 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:56.640 out of him if you're making a goofy enough face. 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:58.120 But they're not really going to pick up on the 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:00.640 nuances of your punchline. Right If you want to make 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:03.360 that that like two to four month old baby laugh, 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:07.040 you're you're more in the prop comedy realm at that point. Yeah, yeah, 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:09.880 you're in the peak abooth stage. So I guess that's 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:11.280 another thing to get to keep in mind. It's like 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:15.760 the barrier to humor starts, uh, you know, in a 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:17.760 weird place, in a very low place. Then you work 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.520 up from there. But but I would say that from 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:23.840 the point on at which I could actually make my 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:27.640 my son laugh, I suddenly had just an insanely good 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:31.680 success rate with this audience of one. Um, generating laughter 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:36.600 with almost every joke was just guaranteyed. And the big 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:40.520 kicker was it was authentic laughter every time because he's 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:44.400 for the longest he simply wasn't capable of faking laughter 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:46.360 like it was. You knew that if he was laughing 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:49.839 at a joke, he genuinely found it funny or or 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:53.120 certainly that is that was the impression. Right. Very young 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:57.839 children are not They haven't learned politests yet, right. Um. 0:13:57.880 --> 0:13:59.480 But one of the reasons I was reflecting on this 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:02.000 is because I've now reach the point where the boy 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.520 is perfectly capable of doing a sarcastic ha ha at 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.960 my lamber jokes. Um. But I would say that period 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:12.320 from five to seven years of age, even on up 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:16.120 into year eight here this was probably the most fruitful 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:19.240 comedic period of my life. And and here's the kicker, 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:21.960 I'll never have this rate of success again. I'll never 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:26.200 make another human being laugh this much and laugh this 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:29.880 consistently at my humor. Well, in a way, like having 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:32.920 spent that long trying to get laughs out of a 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:35.720 young child, you've sort of to some degree. I mean, 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.080 I'm not saying you can never change Robert, but a 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:40.840 person at this point has cemented a large part of 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:44.880 their adult brain in that mindset, right, right, And yeah, 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:47.800 and neurologically there are reasons you can't go back. But 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:50.400 also it's just like, if I've been going for that 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.320 low hanging fruit dad joke for so long and I've 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:55.560 had such a great success rate with it, why would 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:57.040 I ever give it up? You know, It's like if 0:14:57.080 --> 0:14:59.920 you're a bear and you found an incredible food cat 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:02.800 in a prius once and now you're just gonna forever 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:05.680 target prius is. Even though most prius is that you 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.040 break into are not going to be filled with groceries, 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:10.680 you you still broke into a prius once that had 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.280 plenty of groceries, and you're never going to forget that. 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:18.320 So even when the sarcastic ha has come with more um, 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:22.000 you're gonna come more often. I'm probably still going to 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:24.920 make the same jokes. And this seems to be a 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:27.080 big part of what's going on with dad jokes. Like 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:30.800 you go through that that period of success, and then 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:34.920 you change, like you just got such positive rewards from 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:38.560 this style of humor, you don't evolve beyond it. Yeah. 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:40.720 The the young child is a kind of a skinner 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:43.760 box and you're the rat inside it, and it's repeatedly 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.080 rewarding you for years on end for for doing the 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:50.000 low hanging fruit joke, and then when that doesn't work 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:52.560 quite so well anymore, Like at that point, can you 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:58.000 really stop? I mean you are conditioned? Ye? So um. 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:01.040 Thinking about the sarcasm aspect of this, I I looked, 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:04.040 I looked into this a little bit, and uh. In 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:06.680 the literature that the idea seems to be that children 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:11.400 begin to develop the ability to comprehend ironic utterances around 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:13.720 five to six years of age. So it's a relatively 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:17.440 late developing skill. Though this this varies a fair amount 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:20.720 as far as individual kids go. And I was reading 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:24.560 this paper from this from n by Capellia at All 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:28.280 titled how Children understand Sarcasm, and this is pretty interesting. 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.479 They point out that for an adult to catch sarcasm, 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:35.400 they depend on two different cues. There's context, and then 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:40.120 there's the speakers uh intonation. So you know, I think 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:42.920 we can all imagine like the context situation where I 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:46.800 could say something that is meant to be picked up 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:49.520 as ironic, but I could do so in a very flat, 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:53.520 believable tone, you know. Um. And if you you were 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:56.440 able to compare what I'm saying with the situation and 0:16:56.440 --> 0:16:58.480 and or you know me, you can you know what 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:01.400 I'm I'm getting at. Uh um. But the study found 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:05.560 that the children initially depend more heavily on intonation uh 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:11.439 than on context and recognizing sarcasm. So that sarcastic voice 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:15.719 that you use, uh, that's key for these younger children 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:18.000 to being able to pick up on it. And I 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:20.000 feel like I found this in my own life. If 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:23.679 I'm going too dry with my humor, uh, it'll often 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:27.000 like steamroll right past the boy. But if I'm making 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:29.959 the sarcastic voice, he's he he'll get it. And if 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:33.280 he's being sarcastic, oh boy, he will totally lean into 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:35.520 a sarcastic voice. And I feel like I've encountered that 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:38.359 with other kids as well, like they will really really 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:41.000 lay it on thick. Well, I think this ties into 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:43.679 the way that irony and sarcasms so often fail in 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:47.320 writing in written media. You know that, well, I don't know. 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:49.600 I guess it depends on what you call fail. But 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:54.240 like they sometimes people fail to detect irony and sarcasm 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:57.159 in written media. Uh. And this is one of the 0:17:57.240 --> 0:17:59.240 reasons that I was actually just reading about this a 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:01.240 while ago, thinking that it might be worth doing an 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:05.359 episode on the idea of ironic punctuation. You know, in 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:08.600 in some writing conventions, there's a way of marking a 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.880 sentence to say, like, I don't really mean what I'm 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:14.840 saying in this sentence, I'm saying it for humorous effect, 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:17.520 with like a special you know, a special like upside 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:20.200 down exclamation point or something like that at the beginning 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:22.800 of the sentence. And it's weird because I was thinking 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:24.560 about that, and I was thinking, well, on one hand, 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:28.320 that would help clear up a lot of confusion, because 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:30.879 it just seems inevitable, especially if you're writing for an 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:34.320 audience of multiple people, that you will at some point 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.840 make a joke saying something that's the opposite of what 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:41.000 you really think in writing, and people while they might 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:43.200 get it if you said it out loud, will will 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:45.960 not understand you in writing, and they'll be like, how 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:48.240 could you say that? I don't understand you know why? 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:51.800 And so irony punctuation would help clear that up. But 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:54.879 I think it would also make those statements less funny, 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:57.199 Like if you mark them as a joke at the 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:59.840 beginning of the sentence, then is that is it actually 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.600 earth making the joke? Like will most of the audience 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:05.639 would normally laugh at it actually find it funny? I'm 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:07.960 not sure. Yeah, it's kind of like announcing I shall 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:12.040 now make a pun before proceeding. Um. But then again, 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:15.239 I mean some languages use this, so it you know, 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:17.600 if it is used, it must work to some extent. 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:21.000 I can't judge it too much. Well, writers, remember what 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:23.399 you're supposed to do. If you have a character in 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:27.320 the third person and they're being sarcastic, you're supposed to say, um, 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:31.040 he said sarcastically, and then the reader will know that 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:36.920 this character is being sarcastic or she said ironically. That's 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:42.040 just good writing and being sarcastic. Um, let's say um. 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:44.640 Well brings me back to this paper you mentioned from. 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:47.680 Was that the year I think it was. If this 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:50.160 is correct, that there are two major cues that people 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:53.600 used to detect irony or sarcasm in a statement. One 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:56.800 is context and the other is intonation. If you're in 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:00.119 a written context, you can't use intonation unless you have 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:02.680 some kind of special punctuation or something like that to 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:05.719 give a you know, a visual version of intonation. So 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:08.720 you're down to only context. Basically you're losing half of 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.640 your tool kit for detection. Yeah. And then of course 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:16.840 in the written form, context can vanish as well. Uh so, Uh, 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:19.479 I can see where one might lean on having some 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:23.040 sort of strange punctuation choice that would like forever branded 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:27.960 as ironic, course sarcastic. Yeah, it might be a good idea. Yeah, whoever, 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:31.800 whoever is in charge of English, you know, get on that. Yes, 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:40.840 present this to the Board of of English. So, like 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:42.920 I said, I was thinking about this, and then I 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:45.040 I looked around to see who else had written about it, 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:48.199 and I found an excellent article from just back in 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:51.560 twenty nineteen in the New York Times titled A Dad 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:56.359 Defends Dad Jokes by author and critic Jason Zinoman. And 0:20:57.240 --> 0:20:59.160 this seems like a decent person to lean on because 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:01.600 I looked, I looked them up there about my age. Uh. 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.320 They've written a book on horror films called shock Value. 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:06.720 So I figured, you know, this might be my people, 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:10.080 and uh and yeah, Ultimately I found that a lot 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:11.560 of what he broke down was kind of like what 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:13.840 I was I was thinking about, you know, with some 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:17.680 additional layers as well. So I want to just roll 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:21.000 through some of of his key observations from this article. 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:25.680 So he observed that quote procreating turns men into miserable comics. Uh. 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:28.960 I think he's you know, he's he's joking a bit there. Um, 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:31.200 though I think we also have to stress that a 0:21:31.240 --> 0:21:34.520