So this MeFite walks into a bar

May 24, 2007 9:23 AM

Where do jokes come from? Every day I get a joke via email from a friend. Every once in a while, I hear a great joke at a party or the bar. Where do these things originate? Do most of them start out as a bit from a professional comedian? Are there people who are professional joke writers? Do jokes evolve from anecdotes that had been embellished over the years?
posted by jasondigitized to society & culture (21 comments total)

Jokes are a result of memetic evolution. There's no particular single source or small group of sources. The funny ones survive and spread and the unfunny ones die. The ones that spread mutate, and maybe some mutant children become even funnier.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:26 AM on May 24, 2007

I've made up jokes, and I'm no professional anything. Check this one out. Oy is it rotten.

Q: If you have a big chunk of food, and you're at the zoo, which animal should you share it with?

A: Sloth, because Sloth love Chunk!
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 9:30 AM on May 24, 2007

Ordinary people make them up, and other ordinary people make them funnier. Like SCDB said.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 9:30 AM on May 24, 2007

But what is the genesis of that meme?
posted by jasondigitized at 9:31 AM on May 24, 2007

But what is the genesis of that meme?

The human creative instinct. For whatever reason, something pops into someone's head or out of someone's mouth—in casual conversation, during a standup comedy improv, during a shower, etc. Maybe they were trying to think of something funny to say. Maybe they were just free-associating, on purpose or out of idleness.

The person says the thing. Other people laugh, or don't; repeat it with refinements, or don't. If it's funny, it'll probably get repeated. If the person is a comedian (pro, amateur, tavern, pick your weightclass), they'll probably repeat and refine it themselves. The more universal the appeal of the humor, the wider it's likely to spread and the longer its probable life.
posted by cortex at 9:48 AM on May 24, 2007

I have heard that jokes all begin in jail. This makes a certain kind of weird sense to me although I don't remember where I heard it and googling is getting me nowhere (did you know that there's apparently an entire subset of Paris Hilton in jail joke sites out there? Huh.) so I don't have any corroborating evidence. But if you think about it, prisoners have lots and lots of time on their hands, and what better way to fill it than making up jokes?
posted by mygothlaundry at 9:49 AM on May 24, 2007

Previously on AskMe.
posted by Miko at 9:53 AM on May 24, 2007

Well, golly gee... you think like me!
posted by ORthey at 9:55 AM on May 24, 2007

Um, like Miko said.
posted by ORthey at 9:55 AM on May 24, 2007

Some jokes seem to evolve from private quips. Sometimes they happen due to a major event, and many people come up with the same/similar joke. This was especially true of Princess Diana and 9/11.

One joke I heard quite a few times in slightly different variants within 24 hours of Diana dying was this.. "Hey, did you hear about Princess Diana dying on the radio?" "No." "Yeah, and the dashboard, the steering wheel, the sunroof.."

Some Internet memes also appear to crop up in a similar way.. such as the countless number of "holiday snaps edited to show a plane about to hit the building" type pictures that cropped up rapidly after 9/11.

But if you think about it, prisoners have lots and lots of time on their hands, and what better way to fill it than making up jokes?

Of course, nowadays that could apply equally to the millions who appear to have time to make elaborate videos on YouTube, write blogs, post to Fark, and all sorts ;-)
posted by wackybrit at 10:02 AM on May 24, 2007

Some jokes are so obvious that they make themselves.

For example, here in NYC, we have trains that are named after letters of the alphabet. So, I "made up" this joke :

"How does a pirate get to work?"
"He takes the arrrrr train!"

However, when I tell this joke to people, they sometimes guess the punchline. Even worse, I've even heard others tell "my" joke.

My guess is that most jokes start out this way, and then are modified by the mutation process that SCDB mentions.
posted by Afroblanco at 10:15 AM on May 24, 2007

Well, the above answers the question generally, but specifically these emails are generated by 'joke of the day' sites. These sites usually lift entire joke books (and other sources) without paying and send them off to your forward-happy coworkers and friends. You don't see credit because they dont want to pay the authors.

Most of these jokes are really old. Most of the new ones are olds ones with a new twist like replacing Michael Jackson with Paris Hilton.
posted by damn dirty ape at 10:22 AM on May 24, 2007

Well, as a syndicated daily cartoonist, I'm one of those people who has to think of a joke a day, every day. (No snarking. Mine is a panel with a real joke every day.) There's funny stuff all around but, as someone mentioned, it's not refined. Comedians (I was one of those for awhile, too) notice this stuff and can see the joke. They understand form and pacing and meter and can pull it out and shine it up.

But that's only half the time. The other half you just lie down and think real hard for real long and stuff comes to you. Some people can sing; others can't. Some people can conjur jokes out of the ether; others can't. And some people pass them along to capture a little of the shine for themselves.

But when you have to write 10-15 a week for years, you develop all sorts of tricks and habits to 'make' jokes. Enough people do that over enough time and pretty soon they populate the universe and people forget where they come from.
posted by lpsguy at 10:34 AM on May 24, 2007

Punchline first, setup second.
posted by rhizome at 10:37 AM on May 24, 2007

Aliens.

But please, don't let on that you know.
posted by conch soup at 10:40 AM on May 24, 2007

Aw, conch soup beat me to it!
posted by misha at 11:09 AM on May 24, 2007

Asimov didn't just write fiction about jokes, he analysed them as well. In several books in fact. And his collections of limericks are well done. If AIDS hadn't got him, he would easily have hit the 1,000-book mark by now!
posted by meehawl at 11:17 AM on May 24, 2007

I don't think you will find any one answer to your question. It's like asking where poems come from, or where trite sayings come from.
posted by yohko at 11:51 AM on May 24, 2007

I hear jokes all the time that I swear I made up myself. So, first answer would be 'me'.

The one about the baker and his smelly hands -- that's my joke! But, I guess there are plenty who would claim it as theirs.

When my sister was a kid, she assumed that all jokes were made up by the people who told them. This led her to feel quite inadequate. Neverless, she came up with a few of her own; they were quite good and quite original for a five year old.

My second answer would be, jokes come from comedians (most of the time). No matter what profession they're in, the moment someone comes up with a joke they are a comedian -- right?
posted by popcassady at 12:43 PM on May 24, 2007

Are there people who are professional joke writers? Yes. From Letterman all the way back to Bob Hope and beyond, performers have hired writers to come up with new jokes.
posted by exphysicist345 at 8:03 PM on May 24, 2007

The vast majority of repeated jokes come from professional comedians, followed by places like Wall Street and newsrooms, where intense pressure and media access combine to make the humor sharp and the dissemination quick.
If I had my damned coursepack for my humor research class, I'd give citations, but I threw it out just a couple days ago.
posted by klangklangston at 7:14 AM on May 25, 2007