Cracking up about crack!

April 28, 2009 9:18 AM

Why do many people in American society find crack funny?

Crack.
Crackpipe.
Crackhead.
Crackwhore.

*giggle*

Any mention of the above words usually bring people to laughter. Something about crack just makes us laugh. Not meth, not pills, not heroin, not ecstasy, not shrooms, not roofies (well, every now and then), not weed (sometimes, but not as much as crack). Not even cocaine that much.

Looking on a deeper level, what is it about crack that so many of us find funny?

posted by sixcolors to society & culture (78 comments total)

Because it makes us think of butt cracks.

Just me? OK, then.
posted by ferociouskitty at 9:20 AM on April 28

It's a funny word. Lots of "K" sounds.
posted by musofire at 9:20 AM on April 28

As with most "why does everyone think/do/say" this questions, the answer is confirmation bias.
posted by Loto at 9:23 AM on April 28 [16 favorites]

Because it plays to racist Amos 'n' Andy stereotypes.
posted by nasreddin at 9:23 AM on April 28

I think it has a lot to do with the extreme deviant label it has. Using crack is inconceivable for most people, so they ridicule it and the people using it.
posted by schyler523 at 9:23 AM on April 28 [5 favorites]

Because it cracks people up?
posted by iconomy at 9:23 AM on April 28 [2 favorites]

It's a funny sound (besides the buttcrack idea).

Get Chris Rock's voice in your head and compare:

"sToopet. Waat. Traysh!"

"sToopet. Cuh-racka!"

See what I mean?
posted by notsnot at 9:24 AM on April 28 [1 favorite]

Laughter helps lessen the blow of tragedy?
posted by Burhanistan at 9:25 AM on April 28

I believe if you Google "plurium interrogationum" you may find an answer to your question.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:25 AM on April 28 [9 favorites]

Crackhead: Black person.

Meth addict: White person.

I'm willing to bet this has a lot to do with it. We don't instinctively feel as sorry for crackheads as we do for meth addicts, so we can laugh at the crackheads. I also think "crack[person]" is pretty much code for "poor black person in the inner city and it's okay to laugh because he/ she's on drugs and it's his/her own fault."
posted by PhatLobley at 9:26 AM on April 28 [4 favorites]

I think it's just your group of friends, not American society.
posted by Houstonian at 9:26 AM on April 28 [3 favorites]

Anything that is pushed on a culture as being the ultimate taboo becomes the perfect fodder for humor, which is built on unexpected language (whether it's sexual or racial or excretory).

Crack was held up in the 80s as being the worst possible drug that you can do. Hence when someone says they did it, particularly someone totally incongruous to the stereotype of a drug user you get a laugh.

To be honest it's not that funny these days. I think meth is much better as a punchline given the current crop of anti-meth DOOM propaganda.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:26 AM on April 28 [1 favorite]

Any mention of the above words usually bring people to laughter.

This is untrue for pretty much everyone I know. Except for the use of the phrase "Are you/Is he on crack?" when responding to a completely absurd proposal or statement.

But then, I'm pretty much surrounded by public health/harm reduction folks, so YMMdefinitelyV.
posted by rtha at 9:27 AM on April 28

Any mention of the above words usually bring people to laughter.

"A crackhead broke and stole our stuff!" would not prompt laughter.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:28 AM on April 28

I didn't know what "cracker" meant, but the first time I heard it, the person who said it laughed and I thought "cracker" (the food) was a funny thing to call a person. I even thought about it later and still thought it was funny sounding and laughed. (I think I though it meant "crazy" and pictured a box of crackers popping out of a box and falling all over the floor.) I later learned it was meant to refer to a white person.
posted by anniecat at 9:29 AM on April 28

Tom Waits once said "I'm so horny the crack of dawn better be careful around me."
posted by fourcheesemac at 9:29 AM on April 28 [7 favorites]

For what it's worth, I hear offhand jokes about dope, meth, coke, and/or booze just as much as about crack. So I think you might consider the possibility you have some selection bias going on.

That said, the unique quality to crack jokes ("crack cracks"?) I notice is the "this food is so good it must have crack in it" sort of thing, but that's a Homer Simpson "mgmgmgm" food-lust aside rather than the "crack is funny" hilarity you mention, and simplistically depends on the popular perception that crack is the most addictive thing ever invented, rather than an actual knowledge of anything about crack. Or maybe what you're talking about is a younger-crowd phenomenon I don't have exposure to (I'm a 40something)?

Well, anyhoo, there's a medium-sized Value Meal of over-thinking for you to enjoy or flag at your leisure.
posted by aught at 9:30 AM on April 28 [1 favorite]

Any mention of the above words usually bring people to laughter
I also have to say I have not experienced this either. Houstonian may have a valid point, but you may want to research some sociology journals to see if this is something that has been observed across a population.
posted by pointystick at 9:30 AM on April 28

Because it can easily conjure an amusing visual image, since the word "crack" is a widely-used and versatile word.
posted by desuetude at 9:30 AM on April 28

I forgot to mention that I was not raised in America.
posted by anniecat at 9:30 AM on April 28

Because using it in everyday conversation as a joke is an antidote to the dark hysterical media frenzy that was shoved down our throats in the 80's.

I'm not undermining crack's devastating effect on some people and communities, but at one point it was painted that we were all inevitably descending into some apocalyptic drug destroyed future.
posted by Frasermoo at 9:31 AM on April 28 [5 favorites]

Actually, I just realized what I said is not entirely true - we used to joke with a mutual friend about how she had left her cat in someone else's care because she went to live in a crackhouse (actually, she was in school). It was the kind of joking that Potomac Avenue referenced. It's been years since that came up, though.
posted by rtha at 9:31 AM on April 28

Google Dave Chappelle. Also, people high on cocaine (and stereotypically crack) tend to act like morons and have verbal diarrhea, which is funny if they're talking to someone else. If they're talking to you it'll annoy the crap out of you.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 9:31 AM on April 28 [1 favorite]

Two possible answers:

First: Stimulants are generally funnier than depressants. Picturing your best friend furiously cleaning the apartment on crack/coke/meth/caffeine/diet pills/RedBull is funnier than picturing them in a k-hole. Did you ever see that episode of Saved by the Bell where Jessie sings "I'm so excited! I'm so excited! I'm so... scared"?


Secondly: It's largely abused by the poor. My guess is that the people who find it hi-lar-ious do not personally know anyone who has used it. Maybe this ads an extra layer of distance and/or discomfort to the humor.

Also, more generously, as ferociouskitty said, it sounds like butt crack.
posted by ladypants at 9:35 AM on April 28 [1 favorite]

I can't imagine finding any of those words funny unless they were part of an amusing story. There might be a good question about why "Are you on crack?" is used instead of "Are you on [some other drug]?", though of course it could be that the word already had meanings relating to insanity or brokenness. But that's not a line used to get laughs anyhow.

Possibly the group of people you are imagining have some injoke -- possibly forgotten by now -- about crack, so it is funny to them. This is not some widespread truth.
posted by jeather at 9:35 AM on April 28

I love me a good meth lab joke. I even use "meth-labby" as an adjective to describe certain towns in the California desert.

That said, i think it's because, as alluded to above, the humor has entered the culture through the work of certain comics, notably Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle. When rural white America starts producing as many funny people as urban black America, maybe meth will be considered just as funny.
posted by drjimmy11 at 9:36 AM on April 28

People like to laugh at their, uh, perceived inferiors.
posted by box at 9:37 AM on April 28

Of all the words that could be used in this particular category, "crack" is the only one that is, under other definition, an onomatopoeia. I think there's a real linguistic satisfaction that comes from those, even if the context is wrong.
posted by gnomeloaf at 9:38 AM on April 28 [2 favorites]

With Frasermoo, I think the "crack is wack" messaging of the '80s, while it was a serious and true message, was also absorbed into the "users are losers and losers are users, so don't use drugs!" ad-jingle of the antidrug late 80s and early 90s. So a lot of people who remember that kind of associate joke-ish statements like "sorry I made a mistake, I must have been smoking crack" associate it with the D.A.R.E hysteria-kitsch of that era. Ha ha, remember the early 90s?!
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 9:38 AM on April 28 [1 favorite]

Part of the hysteria about crack in the 80s was that it was instantly addictive--one hit and you were gone for life. It's the epitome of dangerous drugs, the worst, most badass drug evah. Adding "crack" to any bit of humour trades on this connotation. Adding "crack" to something (e.g., blackberry->crackberry) is a joke about it's addictiveness. Adding "crack" to a person implies the lowest of the low, since crack is so powerful that you'll do anything to feed your habit (e.g., whore->crackwhore).

Meth is the more current drug, but anti-drug hysteria in general is down. The crack epidemic in the 80s, though, was on the nightly news, moreso when the Iran-Contra scandal broke, since part of that scandal was the intersection of the Contras and drug smuggling into LA (leading the mistaken general perception that the CIA was responsible for the crack epidemic as a means to fund Central American wars that Congress wouldn't).
posted by fatbird at 9:40 AM on April 28 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure, but I don't think the hysteria around Meth these days really reaches the levels hysteria around crack back in the 80s. Plus, people are just used to saying 'crack' to mean "crazy drug user" now, it's entered the lexicon, so it won't get replaced with Meth.
posted by delmoi at 9:41 AM on April 28

Because (1) the name lends itself to a sharp, exaggerated pronunciation that can easily be used for comic effect, and (2) because it was sufficiently demonized that joking seems transgressive.

Naturally, reason #2 also means that many will find it unfunny; humor involving shock naturally encounters a certain bound in popularity. But I think it remains fair to say that many people find it amusing.

P.S. Per usual, the suggestion that "As with most "why does everyone think/do/say" this questions, the answer is confirmation bias" is itself a product of confirmation bias, which is especially strong on this board. Favorite away, lemmings.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 9:42 AM on April 28

Confirmation bias all the way down, eh? It's like an infinite recursion or a fractal or something.

Maybe it's a little early in the morning for me to start smoking crack.
posted by box at 9:46 AM on April 28

Geez, I really don't get the opposition to this concept, crack really is employed as a joke a lot more than other drugs-it's just a fact of pop culture.

Examples:

Waterboy
Internet Meme-shirts
Slang prefix for "Addictive".
Cracky Kreme

Also anyone equating this with distance from the problem or racial snobbishness needs to explain why it's such a fixture of black comedians (like Chappelle and Rock) to make fun of crackheads.

My explanation is that crackheads are fucking hilarious in real life as well.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:49 AM on April 28

I agree with those who say class/racism has a lot to do with it. The dominant media image of "the crack epidemic" was a black woman living in state of depravity (usually on welfare), usually unable to care for her (illegitimate) children. It's always easy to point and laugh at someone else's "bad behavior".

So yeah, go ahead, whoop it up.
posted by mkultra at 9:54 AM on April 28

Also anyone equating this with distance from the problem or racial snobbishness needs to explain why it's such a fixture of black comedians (like Chappelle and Rock) to make fun of crackheads.

Black comedians (Chappelle in particular) often become successful by appealing to their white audience's racial prejudices, which would be unacceptable coming from a white comedian. This is also why, e.g., Carlos Mencia and Yakov Smirnoff were popular.
posted by nasreddin at 9:54 AM on April 28 [2 favorites]

As fatbird mentioned, in the bad old 80s the perception was that crack was an instant addiction. My favorite "joke" of the era was that a crack-head is still dressed in the same clothes they were wearing when they first tried crack. In fact, I can recall that jail inmates complained that crack addicts were ruining the ambiance of the lockup, as they were "low quality."

These factors caught the imagination, and fed our popular perception of the relative amusement value of various addictions.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 9:54 AM on April 28

Yeah I don't think it has to do with it being associated with poor black people, 100%. Somewhat? I think "yes"

But weed is also often associated wtih poor black people, so is syrup or should I say sizzzzzzuuuurrrppp.

And roofies are associated with white guys, and appears that its laughter quotient has been increasing over the years.
posted by sixcolors at 9:55 AM on April 28

For certain people, especially younger people, mentioning things you're not "supposed" to talk about is funny. For toddlers, it's often poop and butts. In third grade, just the word "sex" was its own punchline. When my friends and I were fifteen, crack was funny. At my age, I can talk about anything I want in the proper company, so the taboo-ness is gone a little bit; as a result, I've come back around to butt humor.

and roofies? not funny. not funny ever.
posted by Metroid Baby at 9:56 AM on April 28

Oh, for those who mentioned its association with the 80...good call! I didn't take that into consideration at first.

Almost everything associated with the 80's is funny, why not crack?
posted by sixcolors at 9:56 AM on April 28

The media when crack-crazy in the 80's. They were hysterical and over the top. Many of us (myself included) were subjected to anti-drug messages in high school that featured "crack babies as a recurring theme. It's hard not to see it as a ridiculous exercise now, 20-30 years later. Racism has a lot to do with it too but I mostly blame the media's moral panic in the Regan years.
posted by chairface at 9:57 AM on April 28

It's easy to rhyme with "wack" and "heart attack".
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:00 AM on April 28

This is also why, e.g., Carlos Mencia and Yakov Smirnoff were popular.

Equating Dave Chappelle and Yakov Smirnoff doesn't help your case much. Why don't you run your assertions about him appealing only to base stereotypes by some actual black people and then get back to us?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:10 AM on April 28

But weed is also often associated wtih poor black people

Since when??
posted by lullaby at 10:16 AM on April 28

Here's a song from 1932 you might dig, lullaby.
posted by box at 10:18 AM on April 28

[sixcolors, this is kind of a bumpy question as presented. I'm leaving it up, but you need to not start throwing extra assertions around or it's going to be really hard not to see this as an excuse for you to chat about your take on drug slang rather than an ostensible good-faith attempt to get a question about your perception of "crack" usage answered.]
posted by cortex at 10:19 AM on April 28

double what

An example, in the book The Maxims of Manhood, the author came up with a rule that real men dress their age. Somewhere he jokes that the 40 year man who dresses like an 18 year old, is the same man who carries around roofies.
posted by sixcolors at 10:20 AM on April 28

Ok, cortex. Noted.
posted by sixcolors at 10:20 AM on April 28

and roofies? not funny. not funny ever.

Dinner, my house, two nights ago. I sit down at the table in the spot I guess my boyfriend had in mind for himself.

"Oh, that was gonna be my bowl of soup," he says.
"Yeah, so it's that one's got the roofies in it then?" I ask.
He smirks, sips away at the soup.

Crack is funny to some extent because coke is still prohibitively expensive for most people, only rich assholes get to do a lot of coke, so crack retains a "bargain basement" sort of derision on top of all the other rotten aspects of it.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:24 AM on April 28

I think mostly it was a "laugh so you don't cry" reaction by people in Crack ridden neighborhoods that spilled into popular media via stand-up comedians. I used to be appalled, but after spending enough time dodging Crackheads, I now find it pretty funny too.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 10:26 AM on April 28

[Roofies are] usually [funny] in the context of putting down desperate men who would do anything to get laid, never in the context of what happens to the victims.

And yet prison rape victims are so funny. Crack is funny because everyone in the 80s was being warned away from it, but most of us had never even seen the stuff or could even acquire it.
posted by malp at 10:32 AM on April 28

What's in a name: The late great Bea Arthur and Rock Hudson were played with puns on drug nomenclature even before the days of crack.
posted by ladypants at 10:42 AM on April 28

Crack is not an uncommon theme in stand-up, especially with late-90s black comics like Chris Rock, etc.
posted by charlesv at 10:44 AM on April 28

Crack has also become synonymous with "junkie". Many of my suburban coworkers talk about the crackheads around downtown, when in actuality they're probably heroin addicts.

But I think the humor part arises from the idea that any exposure transforms you into a crack seeking zombie that will do anything for crack. Think Reefer Madness, but with crack. It sort of became shorthand for anything crazy, desperate, dirty, whatever. Example.
posted by electroboy at 10:51 AM on April 28

Many years ago I heard about a band named, "Crack Baby Casserole" I thought that was pretty funny. As I recall, a lot of transgressive, disgusting things were ironically hilarious when my friends and I were more naive. Nowadays these things elicit only wan smiles as our memories are quickly overshadowed by a desperate and fearful present and certain mortality looms in an uncertain future, not distant enough for comfort. We're all goatse guy now.
posted by wobh at 11:13 AM on April 28 [2 favorites]

Why crack is funny:

Newspapers and nightly news broadcasts run those 'bizarre-news-of-the-day' pieces, and invariably whenever someone becomes convinced they are a chicken or is found taping leaves back on a tree...it turns out the person is completely fucked up on crack.

Naturally, crackheads are also featured heavily in the crime reports as well. But let's be honest, 90% of the public couldn't care less about the real news but certainly enjoys their daily dose of 'stranger-than-fiction'.
posted by wabashbdw at 11:18 AM on April 28

00s: Dave Chapelle. He grew up in DC in the 1980s. He knows crack. He incorporated it into his act.

90s: Chris Rock. He grew up in Brooklyn in the 70s and 80s. He knows cocaine and crack. He incorporated them into his act.

80s: Eddie Murphy. He was on SNL in the 1980s. He knows cocaine. He incorporated it into his act.

70s: Richard Pryor. Famously set himself on fire while freebasing cocaine. He incorporated it into his act.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:24 AM on April 28 [1 favorite]

As someone who interacts with people who are high on crack on a fairly regular basis, I have to admit that people who are high on crack are apt to do some seriously nonsensical shit. They are also apt to have crazy hair and filthy clothes because they haven't slept and/or are homeless. The physical presentation of your average actively using crack addict is unfortunately not too terribly far from the stereotype. So, while a desperate and filthy person who's crawling around on the ground frantically grasping at anything white and putting it in a stem to fire it up and see if it smokes is totally not funny, the iconic crazy character archetype that has emerged from this reality is distanced enough from it to be funny. This is similar to the hobo humor that predominates online. Homeless alcoholics laying in pools of their own piss at the subway station are not funny. But the iconic archetype that has come from this, which is distanced from the reality and not meant to comment on it in anyway, can be. There will often be an argument in the wake of these jokes between those who think this type of humor is NEVER FUNNY and those who think those people should LIGHTEN UP.

I agree with those who say class/racism has a lot to do with it. The dominant media image of "the crack epidemic" was a black woman living in state of depravity (usually on welfare), usually unable to care for her (illegitimate) children. It's always easy to point and laugh at someone else's "bad behavior".

There is little to no sympathy for crack addicts in the black communities I've worked in, actually quite a bit less than there is among white liberal communities like Metafilter.
posted by The Straightener at 11:55 AM on April 28 [12 favorites]

As a side-note, a cracker, as far as my colloquial Southern understanding goes, was the guy on the plantation who whipped and beat slaves for punishment.

fyi.
posted by YoBananaBoy at 12:12 PM on April 28

As a side-note, a cracker, as far as my colloquial Southern understanding goes, was the guy on the plantation who whipped and beat slaves for punishment.

Wikipedia suggests that this is a apocryphal folk etymology.
posted by burnmp3s at 12:30 PM on April 28

This is a pretty good question. "Crack" is the go-to funny drug, and I'm guessing a lot of it has to do with:

1- Perception as the "worst" drug (which is pretty accurate)
2- It's a pretty silly name
posted by Damn That Television at 12:31 PM on April 28

Part of it has to be that it's kind of a funny word. I'd say "smack" is sort of funny in the same way, while "heroin" is not.
posted by squarehead at 12:46 PM on April 28

Crack is funny because the sound of the word "crack is funny.

Same reason we like to use the word "monkey" especially when talking about apes. Apes aren't monkeys but monkey is a funny word. It doesn't even sound like what it means. Except in the case of spider monkeys.
posted by I-baLL at 12:46 PM on April 28

"Crack" is funny because punch lines need punch. It's a short word with a "k" sound, as pointed out above, so it really sells the joke.

Huffing paint is much, much funnier, but lacks the convenient and euphonious single-syllable term.

Heroin is sad, cocaine is elitist, weed is banal. But crack? That shit's funny, right there.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 12:50 PM on April 28

Non americans find it funny too, and relative to other drugs crack is quite rare here in australia.
posted by onya at 12:52 PM on April 28

MeTa.
posted by box at 1:01 PM on April 28

Stereotype + sound.

Janis Ian: We gotta crack Gretchen Wieners. We crack Gretchen, and then we crack the lock on Regina's whole dirty history.
Damian: Say crack again.
Janis Ian: Crack.

We don't instinctively feel as sorry for crackheads as we do for meth addicts, so we can laugh at the crackheads. I also think "crack[person]" is pretty much code for "poor black person in the inner city and it's okay to laugh because he/ she's on drugs and it's his/her own fault."

Tweaker.
posted by granted at 1:40 PM on April 28

I'd say "smack" is sort of funny in the same way, while "heroin" is not.

That's why they had to start calling it "junk," but it's still not as funny.
posted by small_ruminant at 4:52 PM on April 28

Something to do with the Crackhead Shuffle.

Seriously. Having lived in a crack-infested neighborhood, I'd rather watch crackies interact than TV.
posted by mannequito at 4:57 PM on April 28

I was just a little one in the 80's so I don't remember the media hype but in high school we'd say things like "taco bell is so good cause the put crack in it!". Also I am sure that various mentions of crack head, smoke some crack is in my yearbooks. Now in my 20's I still hear various crack monkey jokes but more meth head, when I grow up I wanna cook some meth type jokes are funnier and more common. Meth is the new crack (at least in my world).
posted by saradarlin at 6:39 PM on April 28

The only crack "jokes" I and most people I know make are when we say something must be so addictive "because they put crack in it," like what saradarlin said.

I know I find meth and coke jokes funnier than crackhead jokes, probably because I personally come from southern"white trash" stock (meth), but I also encounter a lot of hipster and yuppie assholes (coke). So I've encountered more meth heads and cokeheads. I also sense the racism of making jokes about crackheads, since crackheads are stereotypically black (I've met plenty of white ones, though). Cokeheads are probably the least pitiable as far as circumstance goes, because cocaine is more expensive and more typically abused by people with more money. Rich people are generally considered less sympathetic.

Also, there was a trend of crackhead jokes thanks to the likes of Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle (Tyrone Biggums character), but I think meth is kind of becoming the trendy drug to make fun of, also like what saradarlin said.
posted by fructose at 6:52 PM on April 28

It has seemed to me that at some point before my time it was much more socially acceptable to make fun of people for being alcoholics, which I think may have changed because alcoholism is now regarded as a disease and because there's much more awareness of depression and the interaction between depression and alcoholism. Is it possible that this change resulted in a transfer of the same sort of humor to illicit drugs and that crack was just the most handy substitute comedically speaking when this started happening?
posted by XMLicious at 7:02 PM on April 28

Meth is definitely trending up, as fructose has it. It brings with it a slew of delightful associations about "white trash."
posted by grobstein at 7:28 PM on April 28

I think we find desperation, addiction and obsession humorous in general, and crack is currently a popular example that embodies it all. Just look at Wile E. Coyote, Comic Book Guy, or even Metafilter itself.
posted by sambosambo at 8:31 PM on April 28

Have you ever seen anyone do crack? It's hilarious and tragic to watch. The person can't get high, so they keep sucking on the crack pipe or trying to get a hit or whatever. Nonstop. over and over. It is the ultimate in useless, unfullfilling addictions, and anyone who has seen it, knows it's simply ridiculous. I'm sure a lot of comedians from the 80s and 90s have seen it or done it, and so it's in our culture as the example of a completely ridiculous (and yes, tragic) addiction.
posted by gt2 at 8:51 PM on April 28

I said the person can't get high, but I guess I actually mean that they can't stay high for very long.
posted by gt2 at 8:53 PM on April 28

It's not "meth" that's trending up in comedy; it's "meth lab," with its direct parallels to prohibition-era backwoods moonshine stills.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:10 AM on April 30

The word has two "c"s in it. Johnny carson once said that the letter c, when spoken, is funny, in and of itself.

I did not have the patince to read through another of these threads so if someone else has already made this point, OK then.

Now get out of your car and cut off your slauson.
posted by longsleeves at 10:41 AM on May 1