Being publicly degraded is distressing. However, a popular subreddit on Reddit, /r/roastme, is populated by people asking to get roasted by strangers. The results are… pretty funny. actually: The Benign Violation Theory helps explain what makes this process so funny. Humor arises when something is wrong yet okay, threatening yet safe, or what we call a […]
Charles Darwin is best known for outlining the theory of evolution. The Darwin Awards showcase humans who have “self-selected” themselves out of the gene pool by doing something outrageously stupid. 2004: An Italian named Fabio had quit his job as an ostrich farmer to drive trucks, and in his spare time built his own spy […]
An Internet sensation, a testament to depravity, and something you will have to Goggle on your own if you haven’t seen it, 2 Girls 1 Cup, has scarred pop culture. There have been a slew of reaction videos added onto YouTube. Watching people’s reactions to 2 Girls 1 Cup is often amusing. Humorous reactions to […]
At some point we have all been the victim of an unexpected scare by a friend or family, which often ends with one or both parties laughing. This Mannequin Scare Prank shows how fear is typically replaced by laughter: According to the Benign Violation Theory, humor arises when something is wrong yet okay, threatening yet […]
From the T9 function on flip phones to Swype on smart phones, spelling mis-predictions are the bane of handheld communication. It’s hard to catch all the typos that result from Autocorrect Fails. Using The Benign Violation Theory, we can break down when Autocorrect Fails will be (especially) funny. Humor arises when something is wrong yet […]
Public shaming often makes the viewer uncomfortable. What happens, however, when you replace the shamed person with his or her’s best friend? According to the Benign Violation Theory, humor arises when something is wrong yet okay, threatening yet safe, or what we call a benign violation. This intersection explains why it is often funny to […]
In this article, Joel Warner and I discuss when jokes are ‘too soon.’ How long does someone have to wait before making a joke about a sensitive topic? We explain how to find a balance using the benign violation theory. The benign violation theory highlights the role of psychological distance in comedy: Not enough distance, […]
When we released the Humor Code, Joel Warner and I wrote a series of articles for Slate. In our first article, we talked about my attempt to create a universal theory of humor (i.e., the benign violation theory). Over the past five years, at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado, Boulder, […]
