What makes things funny | Peter McGraw | TEDxBoulder
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- čas přidán 15. 05. 2024
- Pete McGraw is a leading researcher at the Humor Research Lab at the University of Colorado, Boulder. In this talk he not only discusses what is funny, but what makes something funny as well.
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Wonder what he'd do if nobody laughed in the beginning 😂 took the risk for a high reward, I respect that
He'd hold the pause longer, because somebody will laugh at the uncomfortably long pause. Then, everybody will join in.
@@jacobshirley3457 Or even just keeps staring at him in silence and thinks, 'tf is wrong with this guy? this isn't a mild violation, i'm not open minded at all."
this is the best explanation of humour I've seen so far.
mild violations are funnier when it is closer because mild violations happen to someone we don't know, all the time; therefore they stop being violations and become the norm. Someone out there is mis-stepping and falling, all the time but it doesn't happen around us all the time.
falling down stairs, not hurt: no laughter
falling down stairs, hurt: laughter
unless it happens to another person: EXTREME LAUGHTER
The way I heard it is-
When you fall down the stairs its comedy.
When I fall down the stairs its tragedy.
That's sadistic.
Oh my! It is true that some people find it funny when someone falls into a staircase and gets hurt haha...
But it is more due to the shock and surprise at something that happens completely unexpected like that.
Laughter is just a way to express shock, something that is very normal in people, and not because we are laughing at the other person, we are only laughing because it happened in an unexpected way.
This type of laughter is only a way of expression of a surprise, not of the pain that the other person feels.
I watched this whole video without knowing what benign meant
You my Sir are a man of culture!
your comment is a fine example of a benign violation. It's funny haha
i checked the replies to this to see if someone told you what it meant to hide that I didn't know what it meant either
Benign means not harmful/kind/gentle
The thing I think we should learn from this talk is that there's limits to humor it may hurt people's feelings and we should respect these limits.
🤦♂️
if you can deliver a joke without laughing or smiling, boom
I tried this out at my first open mic.Any feedback is appreciated!!
But sometimes the persons laugh telling the joke can make u laugh too
Actually laughing is more funny beacuse you share a feeling with the audience making them feel more secure by making that you create a safe space for the humor and laughter to flow.
I’m really good at this, which I hate cus people think I’m being serious 🙄🙄
It depends on the joke or gag. If it's the kind of thing that laughter would distract from the punchline, you should deliver it dead-pan. If it's too easy to assume you're being serious, you should at least present a timely grin... "the gotcha face"... to let your audience know it's not serious, and they will laugh.
Some gags are entirely based on the context of delivery, so it really matters that you deliver an "over the top" sentiment with a deathly serious tone and expression...
Others are just funny enough on their own merits that it doesn't matter how they're delivered. ;o)
takeaways:
-humor helps cope with pain, stress, adversity
-it`s funny only when 3 conditions are met simultaniously: situation of benign, situation of violation and their intersection
-Violation means put things out of norm
-benign means be psychologicaly distant
-pay attention to your audince
-additional strategy - highlight what is wrong with normal everyday situations
-example of algorith: start with violation, then benign (create a distance), provide an alternative interpretation
benign means harmless, psychological distance is its own takeaway
This explains why I laugh when terrible things happen to me.
My coping strategy is to look at myself from a distance.
I have confused alot of people...
I really enjoyed the circular structure that this lecture had, starting by asking the audience to tickle themselves, and at the end, picking up the same topic but this time with sense after the whole explanation about humour. I didn´t realise before about what separate humour and being annoying or even cross the line, but after hearing about the bening violation I grasped it. Just to conclude, a very interesting and well explained speech.
I’ve learned why some things are funny. I can use this. Friends and family appreciate his talk!!
This will certainly makes me more considerate of others while cracking jokes . Thank you so much
Excellent explanation of humor! Thank you 😄
Humour research lab omg and I struggle finding a job
You’re British aren’t you.
@@fourthmusketeer2745 lol
This is actually a fantastic video. Thanks Peter!
This is EXCELLENT.
A couple of months ago that gal Nicole Arbour got a ton of attention for her "Dear Fat People" rant, which most people did not find funny. But also, very few people did a good job of being able to EXPLAIN to her why it wasn't. Hope the people at The Humor Research Lab (Really? Can I work there?!) sent her a link.
This also gets at the heart of how different things for different people qualify as "benign". I love hidden camera jokes, but a good friend of mine can't stand them, as she internalizes that discomfort of personal boundaries being crossed as not being "benign".
Love it! Great info!!!
That's a great example. I also don't care for hidden camera jokes, and you described exactly why.
So good...thank you! Needling more laughter in my life.
Some Ted speakers just speak about their research and don't actually provide the main core information. You gave out gold to everyone for free. Thanks a lot 🎉
Probably the best explanation I have heard
thank you for this upload! :)
i learned much about it.
Excellent explanation of what makes things funny. Wow. Good topic and good examples. The speaker is very deliberate and keeps it ...well....funny !!
We love Peter McGraw and his Benign Violation Theory! A simple way to remember this theory is "if laughing at this is wrong, why does it feel so right?"
Maybe you're immoral?
No, it’s funny because it seems harmless at the same time. To us or in general
Best TEDx talk ever.
One of best video that I have seen about theory of humar ❤❤
There are many things that make things funny.
It could for example be when someone says something that was unexpected or something we didn't expect at all happens.
It could be due to a situation (or someone's actions) that can be funny because of its absurdity, or because of a misunderstanding.
It could be humor that comes from something that is related to yourself, or that you can relate to (maybe because you've experienced something similar).
Peter McGraw, you rock!
Stellar stuff !!! Real dimension with feeling how pedagogic this was.
When nobody laughs at your joke so you violate them with your fart unexpectedly.
I have achieved comedy.
You’re sus
6:16 also when nobody realized he said AMOGUS
You made an achievement: oh thats funny..lol
"When nobody laughs at your joke so you violate them."
Awesome, though so much more detail to get into. Great research subject!
Amazing. Very close to the truth. Bravo. Keep researching mr mcgraw..
Best unifying explanation I've heard so far.
Yeah, it is pretty good.
- I'm not any funnier now though than I was 15 minutes ago, and dog-gone-it i want my money back!
You can tickle yourself if you're ticklish enough. Trust me, I know.
YesReneau .
ohuuu verified
I can tickle myself so I don't know what are they saying
100% true for me as well.
Ikr, I couldn't wash my feet because I was so ticklish that it was a torture
i need this FAST!
Thank You For Sharing ❤
Fascinating. As I rewrite my comedy lines I will work towards benign-violation while keeping in mind my audience, the situation and "distance" and see if that generates more laughs.
Hi Edward, did it work?
Edward Wedler worth a shot, let us know if you succeed or not
Lovely talk. Very benign😊
Benign retaliation is just one of 13 tools in the Comedy writers belt.
This was very well presented
Well? Don't be a tool and tell us!
Great. Presentation! You learn me something! Many. Thanks!🎈🎈
"How do you make this a malign violation?" Laughed so hard.
Marytyr coz it was benign to listen and not to actually see someone wear.
I love this! Life is complex and ridiculous all at once. It's good to take a step back and see what's funny about it.
This is clearly one of the greatest TEDx Talks, but then most of the people who wanted to watch it and invariably commented are sad people
Funny and informative. I think TED is making headway.
irish humour is very accurate , of Oscar Wilde they said "being Irish he had a great sense of tragedy ,that sustained him through his temporary moments of joy"
This is my favorite video, more like it over here!
Would you plot things on a number line, with negative numbers indicating level of violation, positive numbers indicating benign-ness, and zero as the sweet spot where they overlap?
Or would it be more like a two-dimensional graph, with X and Y as the two qualities?
In other words, are the two qualities opposite (line) or complementary (graph)?
If the answer is that they are complementary: Does the intensity of the two qualities affect the humor, or does it only matter that they balance? In other words, if something is both intensely violating and intensely benign, is it funnier than something mildly violating and mildly benign?
Can something be very benign and very violating at the same time, or does that balance out to neutrality? Can anything be neither benign nor violating?
Also, does humor arise from the duality of something being both benign and violating, or, instead, from the uncertainty about which category it fits into? When a joke has both qualities, does the listener assess it first one way, then the other, oscillating between the two, or is it more of an instant comprehension that both qualities are present?
Watched it 5th time, one of the best talk
This is a pretty good explanation about what makes things funny. But what I'd really like to know is, why funny things make us laugh and how that reaction works in the brain. I wonder if they study that with fMRI.
Do you know the answer yet?
There's a vsauce video on the subject. Basically humour destroys a prediction on the outcome of something in our minds, and the change of context from this unexpected realization, is releasing quickly the electrical energy in those neural pathways, and the quickest way to do that, Is to dissipate the energy through the motor cortex which in turn, makes you move your muscles in a certain way.
Most humorous thing ever “people you date and mate”
Excellent talk!
the only ted talk assignment for english i enjoyed
This Is the best talk ever
SO SMART, SO SIMPLE
Very true humor really helps everybody truly smile and get through a tough day and when you ask someone how are you it becomes sincere 5 star information . And i am going to order larg pens to hand out that say my pen is Huge with my business logo! To give out :)
7:22 - channelling Sheldon Cooper...heheh!
If you're dissecting something it's already dead. If something dies in the process, that's vivisection.
Pop2323pop Unless its your friend. Then its comedy.
I think you just vivisected that joke
Pop2323pop hmm, very interesting
+vincentmack37 Hahaha...
Youre a nerd if you laughed
Don't you hate it when a sentence doesn't end the way you refrigerator?
Yeah. It sucks.
Hahahaha 😂
this comment is 1 year old and i find it hilarious
@@pork43 really? It left me cold
@@gideonpalmer8809 pun
Hopefully I can up my humor using this technique
Hopefully you can cause this comment wasn't funny at all
so every humor have a root to somekind of violation. thankyou
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I don't like that notion.
this is the greatest humour theory ever. simple and accurate for most cases.
there is one thing i think is still unexplained:
- why it can be funny (mainly for kids) just to identify themselves with one another. Like, "i like ice cream", "me too!". there's no violation. Also, this pattern can be seem at people laughing at things like "i fear travelling by airplane... i hate people that don't".
i call this "identification humour". i've splitted recently some stuff in "expectation break" (something better explained by him as violation) and identification.
because it is very benign when there are people around like you. We do like people like us
this could be a premise, but not the final reason. We only laugh at ANY joke if we identify ourselves with the person/joke. otherwise, the violation would be always perceived as malign.
it can be very benign, as you said, but as peter says on the video, only benign is not funny...
point is that, sometimes, there are some incongruences (violations) that are so small we can't even notice as an incongruence... i think that quoting a reference from one thing in another is so unexpected... it can be a violation in itself.
Gustavo Du Rocher I boiled it down to things being : Wrong,negative or ambiguous or amy combination of the three.
I think it's because we think we are alone and unique, but the realization that we are not that alone and not that unique is a benign violation of our previous beliefs. It's benign because it allow us to connect with others, and isn't a threat to our selves . In kids i think it's more clear, as kids are just learning and realizing that they're not the center of the world, and that there are others who are just like them. For adults, i think the same identification can be found with things we think are our personal kinks or things you simply don't know that happens to others too. It's the breaking of the isolation we believe we are (in certain aspects, i don't mean complete lonelyness) what makes the benign violation.
That's why not everything with which we can identify is funny. It's only with those things you share with others, but you don't really know you do.
I will take what I've learned into the world!
*starts tickling strangers*
*several pending lawsuits*
Aww, he is adorable :)
Bravo, encore encore
This was fantastic.
great talk!
I had thus question in my meditation and got to think it thru. This is a great answer to the question albeit on the surface level because it more so defined whta humor is in our modern day culture, not necessarily the case for all humans in general. The answer is in the frequencies incase anyone's interested in knowing but it'll hurt a lil to get to the answer because it'll require ya to think a lil. Awesome video nonetheless.
this video is over 8 years old and i find it pretty interesting
This was like a math lesson , I was left more confused
he said over a long period of time. as a child, depressed people laughed and had fun, but over time they lost it.
HI I LIKE CATS, thank you for listening to my TED talk
One thing is certain, it's hard and takes a genius to be able to explain humor humorously.
The moment he said start tickling, i was done with the video 😂
We both have the same name bro.
The opening statement let me know this video was made BC (before covid) 😆
This Boulder guy is very gifted at Not Funny. I hope he is an exception among the rest of Boulder guys.
that last statement is true but so is the fact that you can only take offense to something, even if something is intended to insult you directly
i love tickling my sugar glider to see her bark and shake with joy!
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die." --Mell Brooks....A malign violation, and funnier because of it.
Sure if you're a sadist. Are you?
@joshsarles Me too! I hate it when people say its impossible!
Bravo
WOW!
Someone really managed to dissect and analyse "humour" and what's more, it was funny as well! So the frog was not killed. Certainly benign!
Youd hope it was. I dont trust any comedy advice that comes from someone who doesn't make me laugh. I mean it's self evident right there, isn't it?
When you do an unacceptable thing in an acceptable way🙂
Although what defines acceptable can be subjective.
6:31 Tbh, this made it funnier in a surreal way.
It's still tickling yourself. But I get your point and it's true, too.
Me tells a joke
People:-laughs
Me:-tells the reason why we laugh
People:-laughs
6:33 somehow the missing of the hammer made this actually really funny
6:40 and this is even better
Me too - on the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet.
@ausendundeinenacht
His theory isn't about violation of norms, it's specifically about the violation of expectations, for example: failed expected threats. What makes something 'benign' is the fact - which I inferred above - that the viewer can laugh at the violation, because the viewer is genetically wired to give the impression of superiority over the unexpected occurrence, or empathy with the superiority of a viewer being viewed by that empathizer...
This theory is basically the Push Pull tactic in practice
Sheldon cooper had his own theory to tell jokes and be humorous, he would love this vid
Sheldon Cooper isn't a real person, though
@@swine13 he was inspired out of a real one. That was not my point though.
at the end i was expecting: "now please stand up"
No Funny bone is but a cruel joke
Like an egg without the yoke
Like no fizzling in your coke
Like the smile that is broke
Humor is something to provoke
There's 12 comedy structures and 7 laughter triggers
Laughter and happiness is an expression of superiority. You see in all animals. It is the nervous reaction to someone who is mildy intoxicated. A partner which is either an alpha male, or short-lived. An animal with rabies. The body auto-defensively conveys intimidation, to confuse the viewer which witnesses uncoordination.
Benign-gentle or kind not harmful or okay
humor is about building trust
that's it
I just gave a 3 hour lecture on comedy. I could've just showed them this video. 😆
Finally someone cracked the secret of what make something funny
A not funny person should not lecture on comedy.
thats why i laughed so hard last friday
@0:42: It doesn't "beg the question"; it raises the question. To "beg the question" is to commit a logical fallacy in which one assumes the conclusion. To raise a question is to pose it for consideration.
What about the element of surprise? Of the benign violation also making a new unexpected kind of sense?
he totally paid people to laugh that hard in the audience, smart guy
+Jordan Scruggs (jordan scruggs) HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH
+Jor Sc (jordan scruggs) Just because you didn't get the jokes, it does not mean he had to pay people to laugh.
+JustKeith His jokes are awesome,and it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm rich
No he didn't. Go look-up TED cult.
Jor Sc I was dying the whole time and I'm broke. And u can't b the funniest urself since ur here
does anyone else know what benign means?
+Ben Cadet (the pastafarian) opposite of malignant
+Nizzio Zaphaux and what does that mean
malignant is being evil, while benign is being good. those are words of latin origins, so they are easy answers for latin languages speakers like me: in portuguese for example, we have the words "benigno" and "maligno", coming from the same latin roots but more commonly used than in english
Nizzio Zaphaux , what is the meaning of the word benigno?
Benign - not harmful in effect
falling down stairs not being hurt
Grandma falling down stairs and breaking an arm
Moral benign
Someone who deserves and can handdle what happened(buying oranges in a third world country where you earn 3-5x more)
Someone who doesn't deserve it(locals having to pay more than rich tourists)