Funny starts
If you want to know why we laugh, you need to know why we needed to laugh in the first place.
Dr T. Dobzhansky, the pre-eminent geneticist, emphasized this point in his famous aphorism, “Nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution”
Humour is a biological process and as such is subject to the whims of evolution.
Obviously, some if it is learned, otherwise you couldn’t explain the differences in humour in genetically similar but culturally distinct populations… The Germans, for example, have a notoriously odd sense of humour, especially as far as us Brits are concerned.
But what did we need it for? Social bonding perhaps… it seems that laughter is a re-inforceable behaviour, that is it makes you feel good when you do it, so you’re more likely to do it in the future. If you can make other people laugh then you’ll be making them feel good and so on.
In this context humour can be used as a non-violent way of setting social status – The funnier you are, the more you can make every laugh and feel good, the more you are respected.
It’s a theory that bears out later on, such as when fools were the only people in a court allowed, encouraged even, to disagree and make fun of a king… Just like the one in King Lear.
But this doesn’t explain it all. It doesn’t explain why clowns are supposed to be funny but are often not or why slapstick (surely an indication of incompetence) rates so highly as funny.
It also doesn’t explain why certain mundane biological functions are funny too.
Emitting gas is not intrinsically funny – there is no build-up, no incongruity and no punchline – but for some reason it illicits the same degree of response as the funniest joke in the world.
And I know it’s traditionally seen as a male genre, but I don’t think that’s true, rather it is just more socially acceptable for men than it is for women to admit to finding these things funny.
So, in an effort to figure this one out, I need you to supply me with the best evidence and anecdotal stories you have concerning this rather base topic…
Here’s why women don’t find farting funny: they don’t fart. At least not in front of anyone else.
Like most rules this one has exceptions: when I lived at home my sister used to nonchalantly fart at inopportune times, such as once when she let one slip while walking through the room and it made a noise like a bicycle horn.
That’s not why the stereotype tends towards women not finding farting funny. Hiding it is an effect of them not finding it funny, not t’other way round.
Perhaps it is incongruous with the way that we would like to view ourselves. We’re human after all, and not animals. We are masters of what we survey, makers of tools, divorced from the natural *BRRRRFP* world and have biological functions only when it suits us to have them
I haven’t found farts to be funny since I was a child, and am constantly perplexed when those in my same age range continue to guffaw whenever somebody rips one. Note that I do not find the fart itself offensive, but rather the tenor of the laughter that follows. This perhaps bears further investigation in that farts appear to have the power to elicit slack-jawed “Hurh hurh hurhs” from otherwise sophisticated and intelligent individuals.
Hahaha, you are absolutely right.
Although I do feel bad about it
sometimes, like laughing at someone
stubbing their toe in the dark.
Some girls find it funny.
Whilst in my mates rather small car with him and his fiancé, she farted, a real pearler, and turned around to give me grief about it.
She had a laugh.
Then I farted.
Whilst not as stinky, the inside of the car heated up, the air became more humid.
It was open the windows and freeze or leave them shut and suffocate.
She has never forgiven me.
Which reminds me, I still need to fart next to the methane detector and see if that sets it off.
not too long ago i farted while doing sit-ups in karate class, the classroom is a small not very well ventilated room.
It all depends on the reaction of other people to the biological function.
I mean
It’s the reaction that’s funny, rather than the actual fart.
For me, at least.
I read through all the archives, and you’re awesome. I love the comics!
As for farting, I don’t find it funny, though it’s by no means disgusting either. Unless it is disgusting in which case it also becomes funnier as people have more trouble breathing. In my head I can see a graph comparing laughter to smelliness…
Thanks Sam… glad you checked out the archives… I’m starting to think that they’re getting a little too large and intimidating now, just a long list of obscure titles.
Ahh, to see the world in graphs.
i, um
i have no fart stories
sorry?
i do however find these drawings of cavemen incredibly sweet
That’s nice to hear on both counts
I actually have a problem where my gut cultures sulfur-metabolizing bacteria… eat foods high in sulfur, and everyone starts looking for the rotten eggs. But they have trouble. Because of the tears in their eyes. And because of the DEATH!
A good friend of mine recently showed me how comfortable she was with me by farting while we were sitting on my classroom mat together. Apparently I should be grateful as it’s a signifier of personal intimacy………………..I’ve rowed with my boyfriend as when he does it I take it too be a sign that he no longer cares about impressing me………….My kids are 18 and 17 and the other day when we were talking about farts and stuff it came out that they didn’t think I ever farted in my whole life.
Funny thing I saw on telly once, a British woman seriously referring to it as ‘shooting bunnies’.
woops tried to change fated to farted…but it didn’t work…..crikey I seem to have gone all to pieces just thinking about farting…
I sorted that out, just after I picked myself up from the floor from laughing at the phrase ‘shooting bunnies’.
I love your comics. I’m going to read through them some more, and then I think I’m going to add them to my links list on my site.
I read an article once about how some animals, like rats, make a laugh-like sound when they are play-fighting or being tickled. It suggested that laughter evolved as a way of distinguishing play from real fighting… if the rats laugh while scuffling playfully, they both understand that it’s not really a fight, and so it doesn’t escalate into something that could get them hurt.
This makes sense in terms of humans, too, seeing as how we laugh or smile when we jokingly say something that might otherwise be seen as a threat or insult.
But humans, of course, have a much more complicated system of humor, and it’s hard to explain a lot of the things that make us laugh. Much of our laughter is in response to absurdity, things that don’t make sense, or certain types of misunderstandings. You wouldn’t think we’d have a positive reaction to that sort of stuff. But maybe evolution decided it was better to have a positive reaction than a negative one.
I don’t know why body gas is laughed at so much. Maybe it goes back to the play-fighting rats– we want to show the person who farted that we don’t intend to inflict any real violence on him for surrounding us with malodorous gases. We’ve evolved a strong distaste for anything that smells like excrement (for good reason, given the diseases it can spread)… and a fart is a situation that would be very uncomfortable if we didn’t have a way to defuse the awkwardness.