WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Dad Joke 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.400 Hey are you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind? 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:10.159 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:10.240 --> 0:00:13.640 it's Saturday. Time to Revolt. Episode. This one originally aired 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:18.919 on March and it is called the Dad Joke. It's 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:22.360 about dad jokes. Uh. I almost tried to see if 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:25.040 I could improvise a dad joke. But they can't be improvised, 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:29.200 can they? They were? They require meticulous planning. That's that's right. 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:33.040 There's a certain certain art to them. So without further ado, 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:39.080 let's dive right in Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:48.240 Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey are you welcome 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:50.280 to Stuff to Blow your Mind? My name is Robert 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.159 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're gonna be 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:57.160 talking dad jokes. Now, Robert, how did we end up here? So? 0:00:57.480 --> 0:00:59.680 I was just thinking about it over the weekend. Basically, 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:04.440 I is, um, I you know, dad jokes are, I 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.080 think a familiar concept for most of us. Um. I 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:09.400 don't remember being a named thing when I was growing up, 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.520 but at some point in my pre parenthood life it 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:14.920 became a thing, and even non dad's would get called 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:18.399 out for dad jokes at times. And uh. Now as 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:21.440 a as a parent, it's it's like a frequent call out, 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:23.920 you know, not only in this house, but but I 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:26.440 I hear it with with my friends who are who 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:29.479 are parents, uh, and also among again friends who are 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:33.440 not parents. It's often a critique of someone else's joke, 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:37.520 often from a child or from a spouse, but sometimes 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:41.480 it's a self commentary on one's own joke. And I 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:43.920 guess I hadn't thought too much about it. I didn't like, 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:47.600 I wasn't too self reflective on the concept until until 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:52.040 very recently. My my son is is eight going on nine, 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:55.440 and he's definitely at the point where he is capable 0:01:55.600 --> 0:02:00.920 of sarcastic laughter for particularly punny jokes, particularly you know, 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:04.600 any kind of like uh perhaps too lame of an 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:08.919 attempted humor. He is liable to respond with sarcasm. And 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.360 while he won't say, oh, that's a dad joke, like, 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:14.600 clearly we are in dad joke territory. And so I 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.680 just started pondering, like, what does this mean? What is 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:20.440 the dad joke? Is the dad joke a thing? Uh? 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:24.360 And if it is, like, how might we um quantify it? 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:28.680 And what does it reveal about things like childhood development 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.720 or humor itself. So in your experience, what is the 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:35.680 age where where the child stops rewarding you for criminally 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:39.960 weak puns and and starts punishing you for them. Um, 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:42.880 I guess we're kind of in that territory right now. Like, 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:46.280 it's not I still get get lots of laughs. I'm 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.440 still pretty good. I know my audience pretty well. But 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.280 I'm I'm rolling out more and more jokes that that 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:57.600 he is liable to either half laugh at or enjoy 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:01.640 the awfulness of the pun. Uh. And part of that, 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:04.960 I guess is him picking up on my delivery as well. Like, 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:08.120 if I know that it's a particularly lame joke, I'm 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:12.040 probably going to lean into that delivery, you know. Yeah, well, 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:13.800 I mean it was definitely a thing you'd see with 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.000 like Dad's on TV the when you were a kid 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.440 that like that. Yes, they embarrassed their teenage or adolescent 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:23.560 kids by telling grown worthy jokes and then get punished 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:28.680 with the dead Yeah. You know, this actually came up 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:30.440 in one of the sources I ended up looking at 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:32.400 for this because because after I was thinking about it, 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:35.160 I was like, surely I'm not the only one contemplating this, 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:38.560 and I'm certainly not. But I looked at this one article, UM, 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:42.440 this one post title please stop calling My humor dad 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:46.360 Jokes by Andrew Bourgeon. Uh. This was from twenty nineteen 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:50.040 published in The Washington I In and um, they basically 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:53.160 made two two points. And I have to stress that 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:56.000 this wasn't like a super serious article like he was. 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:59.360 The authors very much engaging and you know, the humorous 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:02.360 nature and the low stakes aspect of the topic. But 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:04.680 they did bring up the idea of ages um and 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:08.720 dad jokes, but also the idea that they tend to 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.960 depend Uh, some interpretations of them tend to depend on 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:15.640 outdated gender roles in the household, in which the mom 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.360 handles all the whole hard work around the house and 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:20.599 dad just kind of wanders into the room from time 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:22.880 to time to score an easy laugh with the kids. 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:25.640 And I feel like that's the kind of thing reflected 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:29.960 in this sitcom model that you you're discussing here, With 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.800 a lot of American sitcoms like it, it fell upon 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:36.000 the mom character to be the responsible one in the family, 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:38.080 and the dad got to be the goofball, you know, 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:41.479 the Homer Simpson right, right, Uh. So I mean not 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:43.520 to say there wasn't truth to the trope, but it's 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:47.279 probably a situation too where having this trope so readily 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:50.640 occur in our sitcom culture, it kind of, you know, 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:53.800 echoes back on us. You know, it reverberates back on 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:57.039 the culture itself, and we lean into it even more, 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:00.240 you know. Okay, So I assume at this point most 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:03.080 people are familiar with what a dad joke is, But 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:05.480 then again, I don't know. I often feel disconnected from 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:08.400 terms that people use in this internet age, especially since 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:10.760 I'm like trying not to look at the social media's 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:13.080 and all that. Uh. So, like for people who are 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:15.719 not so familiar, what makes a dad joke a dad 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:18.760 joke in the parlance of our times? All right, in 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:22.039 the parlance of our times, Dude, they are they're they're 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:24.280 jokes that are a bit on the lane side in 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:27.440 some estimates. They're often punny, and that they use puns, 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:31.400 and they're generally family friendly. Uh And the punch line, 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:34.599 I was trying to figure out how to the best phrase. 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:36.520 I feel like the punch line hits like a crashing 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:40.880 clown car, and your intended audience, like the ideal audience 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:43.599 that is actually going to laugh at this joke. Is 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.839 five to seven year olds. You know they're abouts um, 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:49.640 but that is in this is key regardless of the 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:52.960 current age ages of those presents. So you might be 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:56.320 in the you might be in the room with say 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:00.520 a forty something and a teenager, but you're still firing 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:02.880 out jokes like you have a whole room full of 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:05.320 five to seven year olds. Now, you mentioned that these 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.600 jokes are often puns and that they're often family friendly. 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:12.160 Of course, dad jokes do tend towards very much like uh, 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:16.320 simple word play and what might be called clean comedy. 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.800 But another tendency I've noticed in dad jokes is, I 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:22.479 don't even know what you'd call this, the tendency to 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:26.560 make a joke that is uh, that is edgy to 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:30.680 a really tame extent. And so this might involve, say, 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:36.120 references to people's butts or extremely minor crude language. So 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:38.240 one example cited in a New York Times article that 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.000 we're about to talk about, uh, the author mentions the 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:44.599 joke what has two butts and kills people an assassin? 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:48.599 H Okay, yeah, that it added a little edgy for 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:51.240 the for the young crowd. But but I mean not 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.200 to me, that's very much in the in what is 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.280 understood to be the dad joke zone, because it is 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:01.400 a joke that simultaneously violate some kind of taboo with 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:03.360 the use of the word ass, but it is an 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:07.480 extremely minor taboo. Yeah, I mean, for instance, Bart Simpson 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:11.200 would love that joke. Uh. So it's it is, it 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:14.680 is aimed appropriately. And yeah, there there is this tendency 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:19.360 oftentimes for the jokes to take on this this child's 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:24.400 uh scatological zone, you know that. So it's gonna involve butts, 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:26.840 and maybe it's gonna involve poop. There'll be more of 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.600 a tendency for poop jokes because this is something that 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:33.080 the young folks enjoy. We can we can again think 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:36.120 of it as kind of the rude Bart Simpson territory 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:38.760 of of of joke craft. Yeah, and and lots of 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:41.600 lots of dad jokes are completely clean, but they've got 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:43.640 a special purchase on this place that we might call 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:47.760 the edgy side of tame. Yeah. Yeah. Now, um, one 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:49.240 of one other thing I want to touch on here 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:52.560 is that, um, obviously the terminology we're using here is 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:57.680 is largely gendered. But I think I tend to reject 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:02.000 the idea that it's distinctly injured phenomenon we were talking about, Um, 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:03.880 you know, it doesn't seem to be especially tied to 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:07.600 masculine ideas. And I'm willing to bet anything that their 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.920 parents of all identities out there that make what can 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:14.240 be classified as dad jokes. Oh, of course, obviously this 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:16.920 is something that transcends dad dumb. I do think there 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:20.120 must be some kind of observation of at least a 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:24.360 slight trend toward these kinds of jokes among dad's in particular, 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:26.880 but yeah, all kinds of people tell dad jokes. In fact, 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:30.920 the first dad joke that came to my mind, um, 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:32.719 when when I was thinking about this, when you said 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:35.600 you wanted to do this topic, was it's it's now 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:37.720 a legend in my in law's family. But it wasn't 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:40.320 a joke told by a dad, but a joke told 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.680 to a dad, And it was in fact told to 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.480 a dad by a daughter. It was something Rachel said 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:48.439 to her dad when they were posing for a family 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:50.800 photo and they were trying to get everybody to smile, 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:53.640 and she told the joke. You've probably heard this one before, 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:57.240 but I'll see where did George Washington keep his armies? 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:00.120 I don't know. Wheed George Washington keep his armies in 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:07.800 his sleevies? Like, and the legend goes that that my 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:10.640 father in law like just laughed so hard at this 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:15.320 that his head nearly exploded. Yeah. I mean there's something 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:18.320 about a pun like that, um, which is hard. It's 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:20.160 hard to classify what was that a really good pun 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:22.560 or a really bad one? Uh, you know, because you 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:24.600 kind of you can kind of trip over it trying 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.200 to figure out what the connection is, Like you're trying 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:31.400 to like you're visualizing it. Um, You're you're thinking about history, 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:33.480 and it has nothing to do with any of those. 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.920 It's just you know, these association between various words. It 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.280 is just making a silly sound at the end of 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:41.920 a word. Yes, that's the connection. So you kind of 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:45.680 feel tricked by it. Uh, But you have to admire 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:48.680 the ingenuity of the trap as well. Like, you know, 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:50.559 it's I can laugh all day at this bear trap, 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:52.240 but my legs stuck in it, So I guess it's 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.280 pretty good. So I would not be surprised if research 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:57.679 were defined. I do not think such research exists. I 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:01.360 would not be surprised to find that dad are especially 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.800 prone to telling dad jokes. But it is undeniable that 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:09.120 dad jokes transcend the dad category. Everybody tells dad jokes. Yeah, 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:13.000 I would agree. Yeah, parents, nonparents, people of all ages, 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:16.040 people of all genders, um. But this seems to be 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:20.440 a way that we are as a culture classifying them today. 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:23.280 So again I was thinking about this over the weekend, 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.040 trying to figure out like what what it meant, and uh, 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:30.160 my main observation has to do with identity, importance, and 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:35.199 enthusiasm of the audience. So becoming a parent, in my opinion, 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:37.480 is is pretty much the best worst thing you can do. 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.480 It's it's not for everyone and for many great reasons, 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:43.240 but I can say from experience that it will at 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:45.959 the very least totally change the shape of whatever your 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:50.480 life was prior to the arrival of tiny humans or 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:53.640 a tiny human in your life. Nothing will be the 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.720 same again, including your humor. And a lot of this 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:58.600 just have to have has to do with like very 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:02.480 basic realities about there being a growing human in your house. 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.360 So the larval human develops, it grows, it learns, it 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.600 develops language and thinking skills, and so of course it 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.439 picks up on humor, it begins experimenting with its own humor. 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:16.040 It's uh, this is a process that is at times delightful, 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:20.000 at times arduous, but there's a lot of laughter and 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:23.120 you help to cultivate it. And by the way, speaking 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:25.560 of when, the sort of loose time frame from this, 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:29.360 though it varies a bit, is babies typically start laughing 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:32.080 between two and four months. Now. I was thinking about 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:35.600 this because there are obviously several different ways that having 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:40.439 a child in the household will change the households humor profile. 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:45.040 Because on one hand, babies and young children are often humorous, 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:48.680 like they can be the thing that is funny. Then 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:50.800 at a certain point, you might say it like two 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:54.199 to four months, they start becoming the audience for humor. 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:58.479 They think things are funny. But then also they change 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:02.280 essentially what people are thinking about in the household, and 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:04.760 most humor is based on whatever is on your mind 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:07.199 at the time, so they will also become even if 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:09.760 it's not like referring to something they just did or 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:13.800 reacting to something they just did, baby and child humor 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:16.720 will sort of occupy the mind to become the subject 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.400 of a lot of humor. Yeah, yeah, there's there's there's 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:21.000 a lot that ends up going on there, you know, 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:23.000 and you know it's like they say, you know, a 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.360 little little pictures have big ears. They pick up on 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:27.960 so much and they end up, uh, you know, mimicking 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:32.199 and trying to understand the humor that you're using. For instance, 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.480 when you're you're talking to a non child. UM. So 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:38.760 it's it's really in half the time you're not even 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:42.240 really aware of what's going on, but you're kind of 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:47.520 all in this, uh, this this complex learning process together. Um. 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:50.400 But yeah, it does. I feel like it does definitely 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:55.240 change the way you you calibrate your jokes because for me, example, 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:58.080 an example, um and I'd like to think that I'm 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:01.000 a reasonably funny person and I enjoy it when I 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:03.800 can genuinely make a person laugh, though like all of us, 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:08.120 I'll also settle for some polite laughter from someone else. 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:10.959 I feel like I probably had a pretty good success 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:14.360 rate with my humor prior to my son coming into 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:17.800 my life, but with with him once he reached the 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.080 point where he was because obviously a three, you know, 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:23.079 super young child is not really going to be able 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:25.240 to understand jokes. You could go up to a baby 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:27.360 in a scroller on the street. You could tell it 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:29.880 a joke and maybe you'll get a laugh out of 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:31.920 him if you're making a goofy enough face. But they're 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:33.600 not really going to pick up on the nuances of 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:35.960 your punchline. Right, If you want to make that that 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:38.679 like two to four month old baby laugh, you're you're 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:41.800 more in the prop comedy realm at that point. Yeah, yeah, 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:44.920 you're in the peak a booth stage. So that's another 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:46.120 thing to get to keep in mind. It's like the 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:51.120 barrier to humor starts, uh, you know, in a weird place, 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:53.160 in a very low place. Then you work up from there. 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:56.040 But but I would say that from the point on 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:59.439 at which I could actually make my my son laugh, 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:03.600 I suddenly had just an insanely good success rate with 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:07.600 this audience of one um. Generating laughter with almost every 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:12.200 joke was just guaranteed. And the big kicker was it 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:16.000 was authentic laughter every time. Because he's for the longest 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:19.800 he simply wasn't capable of faking laughter like it was. 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:21.600 You knew that if he was laughing at a joke, 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:25.320 he genuinely found it funny or or certainly that is 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:29.120 that was the impression. Very young children are not. They 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:33.240 haven't learned politests yet, right. Um. But one of the 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:35.040 reasons I was reflecting on this is because I've now 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.080 reached the point where the boy is perfectly capable of 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:41.880 doing a sarcastic ha ha at my lambur jokes. Um. 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.000 But I would say that period from five to seven 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.800 years of age, uh, even on up into year eight here, 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.400 this was probably the most fruitful comedic period of my life. 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.400 And and here's the kicker, I'll never have this rate 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:58.720 of success again. I'll never make another human being laugh 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:03.320 this much and laugh this consistently at my humor. Well, 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:06.320 in a way, like having spent that long trying to 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:08.960 get laughs out of a young child, you've sort of 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:11.520 to some degree. I mean, I'm not saying you can 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:14.240 never change Robert, but a person at this point has 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:17.840 cemented a large part of their adult brain in that mindset, 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:21.880 right right, And yeah, and neurologically there are reasons you 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:24.520 can't go back. But also it's just like, if I've 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:26.920 been going for that low hanging fruit dad joke for 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.400 so long and I've had such a great success rate 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:31.360 with it, why would I ever give it up? You know? 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:33.560 It's like if you're a bear and you found an 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.800 incredible food cash in a prius once, and now you're 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:40.000 just gonna forever target prius is even though most prius 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:41.800 is that you break into are not going to be 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:44.880 filled with groceries. You you still broke into a prius 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.280 once that had plenty of groceries, and you're never going 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:51.840 to forget that. So even when the sarcastic ha has 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:55.720 come with more, um, you're gonna come more often. I'm 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.520 probably still going to make the same jokes. And this 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.000 seems to be a big part of what's going on 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:03.840 with Dad jokes. Like you go through that that period 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.680 of success and then you change, like you just got 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:11.840 such positive rewards from this style of humor, you don't 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:14.680 evolve beyond it. Yeah, the the Young Child is a 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:17.480 kind of a skinner box and you're the rat inside it, 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:21.120 and it's repeatedly rewarding you for years on end for 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:24.040 for doing the low hanging fruit joke. And then when 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:27.040 that doesn't work quite so well anymore, Like at that point, 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:30.240 can you really stop? I mean you are conditioned? Yeah, 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:35.280 so um. Thinking about the sarcasm aspect of this, I 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:37.760 I looked I looked into this a little bit, and 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:40.800 uh in the literature that the idea seems to be 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:44.720 that children begin to develop the ability to comprehend ironic 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:47.840 utterances around five to six years of age, so it's 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:51.640 a relatively late developing skill. Though this this varies a 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.960 fair amount as far as individual kids go. And I 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:58.760 was reading this paper from this from n by Capelli 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:02.440 at All titled how Children Understand Sarcasm, and this is 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.240 pretty interesting. They point out that for an adult to 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:09.560 catch sarcasm, they depend on two different cues. There's context 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:13.480 and then there's the speakers uh intonation. So you know, 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:17.040 I think we can all imagine like the context situation 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:20.520 where I could say something that is meant to be 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:23.639 picked up as ironic, but I could do so in 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:27.800 a very flat, believable tone, you know, um. And if 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.000 you you were able to compare what I'm saying with 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:32.800 the situation and and or you know me, you can 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:35.600 you know what I'm I'm getting at um. But the 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.760 study found that the children initially depend more heavily on 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:43.560 intonation uh than on context and recognizing sarcasm. So that 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:49.439 sarcastic uh voice that you use, uh, that's key for 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:52.520 these younger children to being able to pick up on it. 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:54.640 And I feel like I found this in my own life. 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:58.120 If I'm going too dry with my humor, uh, it'll 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.800 often like steamroll right past boy. But if I'm making 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:04.760 the sarcastic voice, he's he he'll get it. And if 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.080 he's being sarcastic, oh boy, he will totally lean into 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.320 a sarcastic voice. And I feel like I've encountered that 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.120 with other kids as well, like they will really really 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:15.800 lay it on thick. Well, I think this ties into 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.479 the way that irony and sarcasm so often fail in 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:22.119 writing in written media. You know that, Well, I don't know. 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:24.400 I guess it depends on what you call fail. But 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:29.040 like they sometimes people fail to detect irony and sarcasm 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:32.000 in written media. Uh. And this is one of the 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:34.040 reasons that I was actually just reading about this a 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:36.040 while ago, thinking that it might be worth doing an 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:40.159 episode on the idea of ironic punctuation. You know, in 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.359 in some writing conventions, there's a way of marking a 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.680 sentence to say, like, I don't really mean what I'm 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:49.560 saying in this sentence, I'm saying it for humorous effect, 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:52.280 with like a special you know, a special like upside 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:55.000 down exclamation point or something like that, at the beginning 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:57.600 of the sentence. And it's weird because I was thinking 0:18:57.600 --> 0:18:59.359 about that, and I was thinking, well, on one hand, 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:03.120 that would help clear up a lot of confusion, because 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:05.679 it just seems inevitable, especially if you're writing for an 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:09.240 audience of multiple people, that you will at some point 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:12.639 make a joke saying something that's the opposite of what 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.800 you really think in writing, and people, while they might 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:18.000 get it if you said it out loud, will will 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:20.760 not understand you in writing and they'll be like, how 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:23.520 could you say that? I don't understand you know why? 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:26.600 And so irony punctuation would help clear that up. But 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:29.679 I think it would also make those statements less funny, 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:32.000 Like if you mark them as a joke at the 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:34.680 beginning of the sentence, then is that is it actually 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:37.359 worth making the joke? Like will most of the audience 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:40.080 who would normally laugh at it actually find it funny? 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:42.520 I'm not sure. Yeah, it's kind of like announcing I 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:46.840 shall now make a pun before proceeding. Um. But then again, 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.040 I mean some languages use this, so it you know, 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:52.399 if it is used, it must work to some extent, 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:55.800 I can't judge it too much. Well, writers, remember what 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:58.199 you're supposed to do. If you have a character in 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:00.880 the third person in there being sarc plastic, you're supposed 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.919 to say, um, he said sarcastically, and then the reader 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:08.040 will know that this character is being sarcastic or she 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:14.760 said ironically. That's just good writing and being sarcastic. Um, 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:18.439 let's say um. Well, brings me back to this paper 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:21.560 you mentioned from. Was that the year I think it was. 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:24.560 If this is correct, that there are two major cues 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:27.680 that people use to detect irony or sarcasm in a statement. 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.440 One is context and the other is intonation. If you're 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:34.720 in a written context, you can't use intonation unless you 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:37.440 have some kind of special punctuation or something like that 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:40.159 to give a you know, a visual version of intonation. 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:43.400 So you're down to only context. Basically you're losing half 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:46.400 of your tool kit for detection. Yeah. And then, of course, 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:51.639 in the written form, context can vanish as well. Uh so, Uh, 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:54.239 I can see where one might lean on having some 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:57.719 sort of strange punctuation choice that would like forever brand 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.720 it as ironic or sarcastic. Yeah, it might be a 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:04.280 good idea. Yeah, whoever, whoever is in charge of English, 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.399 you know, get on that. Yes, present this to the 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:16.080 Board of of English. Than So, like I said, I 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:18.280 was thinking about this, and then I I looked around 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:20.879 to see who else had written about it, and I 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:23.840 found an excellent article from just back in twenty nineteen 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:27.080 in the New York Times titled A Dad Defends Dad 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:32.399 Jokes by author and critic Jason Zenoman. And this seemed 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:34.240 like a decent person to lean on because I looked. 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:36.640 I looked them up there about my age. Uh, they've 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:39.320 written a book on horror films called shock Value. So 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:42.200