I was watching various stand-up comedians on Netflix the other day. I could pretty much tell which acts would appeal to me in less than 5 minutes. This caused me to think about the nature of “humor” – why do some people find certain comedians or types of humor appealing while others do not?
I think that sharing common experiences with the comedian dramatically influences if we find them funny, but there is certainly more to it. For example, I find Jim Gaffigan to be extremely funny, probably in large part due to our similar experiences as parents. However, there are other comedians who are parents, but I don’t find them as funny.
Humor seems to be granular – you may laugh at some jokes by your favorite comedian, but not necessarily all of them, whereas another fan may find those to be funny. Can this be explained?
I plan to look into the science of humor – if it has actually been studied.