Hey, Vsauce. Michael here.
And today we're going to talk about
humor, comedy.
What makes something
funny and when something's funny, why do we laugh?
What's the purpose of laughing and why
do we laugh when we're tickled?
Well, people study this.
They're called gelotologists
and we don't have all the answers yet,
but what we do know is that you are
thirty times more likely to laugh
if there are other people around.
We also know that babies laugh before
they learn a language
and that babies born blind and deaf will laugh.
There are thousands of languages,
hundreds of thousands of dialects, but yet we
all
laugh in much the same way.
Our brains are constantly looking for
patterns - ways of understanding the world and
predicting what's next. It's to our
evolutionary advantage. And so when
something begins in a way that we expect
and then all of a sudden changes and
surprises or delights us,
we often react with laughter,
because we have just
learned something.
We've learned a new
logical order.
This theory posits that things are
funny because there's an incongruity
between what we expected
and what happened.
Whether it's a dog
dressed like a human or a clever use of word play.
In other words, comedy is about learning.
But once you've learned the new logical
order of the joke,
well it ceases to be funny,
which is why jokes are funny the first time,
but not every other time after that.
Take a look at this
percentage sign.
Alright, so you know what a percent sign is.
But besides the percent, there's also a permil
and permyriad symbol.
But that's not
funny, because even though it might be
new information to you, it still falls
right in line with the logic of the
percent symbol. But what Demetri Martin shows
us
with just one more line,
you can make it look like a man cheering
after taking a dump... well, that surprises us.
But we don't only laugh when something's funny.
What about tickling? How does that make any sense? Most of us don't like being
tickled, but when tickled we can't help but smile
and laugh.
Well, a possible explanation is that tickling
helps teach children at a young age
proper defensive
behaviors. Is it a coincidence that the
most ticklish areas are also
the most vulnerable
and the ones that we instinctively cover
when startled. Also, because being tickled
makes the person laugh,
it may encourage others to tickle them,
teaching them
these defensive skills.
Tickling may even play a role
before you are born.
In order to avoid being tickled, a baby
gets into a better position to be delivered.
Now, physically, laughing involves the
epiglottis - a little flap thing that
protects the trachea
whenever we swallow, so that food and water
doesn't go down into our lungs.
I know it doesn't look very funny,
but this is where the laugh happens.
The epiglottis constricts the larynx
and we get the LOL.
Interestingly,
the epiglottis actually has taste buds
on it, which means that,
anatomically speaking, comedy truly is
a matter of taste.
Get out of my house!
And as always,
thanks for watching.
