Ramachandran

What a Joke

Ramachandran thinks he has found the real formula for jokes, which he calls garden path. He believes the longer the joke the harder the laugh the listener will produce upon reveal of the twist. There can be turns along the path, but in the end, the real big twist is what brings out the laugher in people. Ramachandran, however, does not believe in the theories that relate to the upcoming of laughter. The main theory he doesn’t believe in is “The Relief Theory.” This theory discusses the philosophy of why people laugh in a sense of tension relief from certain situations, or jokes. Ramachandran has found the formula for all good jokes, however, he fails to see why humans today truly laugh.

Today jokes can be found in many forms: short, long, pictures, or videos. Ramachandran has found the formula to explain all of them. Ramachandran states, “Typically you lead the listener along a garden path of expectation, slowly building up tension. At the very end, you introduce an unexpected twist that entails a complete reinterpretation of all the preceding data, and moreover, it's critical that the new interpretation…” (Ramachandran 5). What he is saying is a joke must lead you in one direction, thinking a certain way, then at the last part of the joke completely turn you around to what you thought was going on. An example of a joke that would follow Ramachandran’s formula is: “A guy meets a sex worker in a bar. She says, ‘This is your lucky night. I’ve got a special game for you. I’ll do absolutely anything you want for £300 as long as you can say it in three words.’ The guy replies, ‘Hey, why not?’ He pulls his wallet out of his pocket and lays £300 on the bar, and says slowly. ‘Paint…my…. house’ (Wheaton). If you look at the beginning of the joke, it makes you think this is will be a dirty joke about sex. Yet, it leads you in this direction by the guy agreeing and getting out his wallet. At the last part of the joke, he then asks her to paint his house, which is the exact opposite of what people were thinking. Therefore, the final twist that Ramachandran talks about in his theory. This joke is a short example of a longer joke that fits inside of his theory. There are other examples of short jokes that also fit into this theory as well.

There are many ways people today get their jokes. One of the most popular ways is through videos that can be found on Vine or YouTube. Vine in particular has very short videos, most are only about 6 seconds long, that are in essence a joke that are just in video format. If we use what Ramachandran is saying and apply it to a Vine videos, you can see his formula come to life. The buildup is, in fact, the search for of a video, the reading of the title, and the induction. This points us one way of thinking about the idea of the video, and finally end with an immediate weird twist that makes you rethink your whole hypothesis. For instance, there is a video of Donald Trump. The title shows people walking and the thumb nail of the video is a picture of Trump as a painting. When you play the video you hear a beat, then seconds later, the picture moves saying “run.” Minions then run from his hair leaving him practically bald, which is the video’s twist. Vines are just another form of jokes. They work with Ramachandran's theory because they follow the whole idea of the one direction then a sudden twist. Because the theory is so flexible that any joke, in this form, no matter the length, will work.

Ramachandran’s theory called garden path, works with the whole idea of a joke. It, however, does not explain the overarching theory on why we as a species began laughing. WebMD has an article on why we laugh: “Whether it's the giggling of your child or the enthusiastic hollers of a talk show's studio audience, we hear laughter every day. Nothing could be more common. But just because it's common doesn't make laughter any less strange” (Griffin). It stated from a professor that “…only 10%-20% of laughs were generated by anything resembling a joke. The other 80%-90% of comments that received a laugh were dull non-witticisms like, ‘I'll see you guys later’ and "It was nice meeting you, too” (Provine). This is a big idea considering that Ramachandran does not believe in laughter as a way of relieving tension. What the quote is referring to is the idea that we laugh when we are uncomfortable, not just when there is a punchline to be told. This relates to the idea of the relief theory.

This “Relief Theory” of laughter

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