A funny thing happened on the way to this forum..

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   How would you describe your forum sense of humour?  What are some of your favourite humorists? And I think this topic might work well as a repository for posts that made you laugh on any given day you visit here. I quite often LOL at people's posts but quite rarely mention it when I do.  Some are more direct than others and avoid the "frivolities" of humour altogether.  One can tell much about a person's psychology by their humour, or seeming lack of it.

At the forum I belonged to before this one, I would say that most of the members shared an absurdist, rather macabre or disturbing sense of humour (definitely silly/ weird, but also veered towards black comedy), and were more prone to flights of fancy and creative writing style humorous posts.  I don't think Proggers would tend to share a common sense of humour; we often don't even share the same taste in music (the Prog umbrella is large).  I do find a greater majority of posts to be more serious, and much briefer, than at past forums I've belonged to, but humour is common with some posters, and with others very rare or almost non-existent it seems when it comes to posting (partially that's comfort with the English language in some cases I would expect -- I use puns quite frequently which would often get missed).

Also maybe share some posts that you think illustrate your sense of humour.

This wasn't funny, but then my humour rarely is (for my father's eulogy I said, "His humour was often very clever, but rarely funny", and I inherited the rarely funny bit at least), but sometimes I like to make up ludicrous stories by way of example (and sorry if this seems overly self-indulgent):

From the topic: "The great prog band you're sure noone else's heard".

"I could think of many that would be little known, but none that I believe no one has heard, nor that I would be confident to say no else, even here, has heard.

Well, maybe that's not quite true, there is Songs from the Deaf by Deaf Leotard.

Deaf Leotard was an English 80s Hairy Prog band made up of four hirsute amateur musicians whose days jobs were Aerobics instructors. What's remarkable is that all four were completely deaf, and one sure played a mean guitar. Their sole album was recorded, mixed, mastered and engineered by deaf people (though they never finished engineering or recording it due to an unexpected tragedy). Tragically, a fire broke out in the recording studio, and all four died as they were not alerted to the fire alarm while possibly re-recording some portions that they thought didn't look and feel right, but that's a guess. The deaf production team also died in the fire. While the studio was badly damaged, remarkably the recordings were largely undamaged. I had happened to be in the near vicinity of the studio on that fateful day testing some homemade fireworks when I saw the inexplicable fire that broke out near me. I courageously dashed in and was able to save the recordings for posterity. Sadly, I was not able to save the people as they were inexplicably locked in for some strange reason right after I heroically retrieved the recordings from certain obliteration (I will never forget the surprised and horrified looks on their faces as I left, but I also sensed gratitude for saving their magnum opus -- I like to think they would have thanked me had they survived). I had been meaning to release the recordings out of respect to the dead, but due to a subsequent investigation of the fire, I decided to lay low despite my total innocence when it came to starting the fire and locking them in. I'm sure I would have been held blameless, cause I was totally innocent, and maybe I would have been held up as a kind of a hero for saving the music and protecting their legacy, but investigations can be tedious, and I had other commitments. I mailed the recordings to my house in Canada, and flew back to Canada later that day. To this day I have never shared the music with anyone, but it's pretty great all things considered. At least their legacy lives on through me."

Silly, not well-written, not very creative, and not funny, which I think sums up my sense of humour quite well.  That said, I probably have come up with some things that did work and were funny.

I rather liked this from a God topic (this coming from me as a non-theist):

"It certainly might seem ungracious to pray hard for a sign and then casually reject it.

The setting: a sunny day in parched lands. Moses wanders alone.

Moses: "Yahweh, give me a sign!"

God conjures up a rainbow

Moses: "I don't find that sign very convincing. It could be a natural phenomenon. Give me another sign!"

God sets a bush alight

Moses: "That could still be down to natural causes. Give me another sign!"

God: "Oh for heaven's sake!" [strikes Moses down with lightning]

Moses [badly singed]: "Yeah, I think that will do, erm... even if it... [Moses thinks better of it as thunder rumbles] No, never mind, that will do very nicely thank you.""

As I think it works better as to illustrate an idea and has a certain economy about it that I tend to lack.

So what about your sense of humour as exhibited by your forum posts, and is there a dominant kind of humour here?  I guess most of the humorous posts are found in Just For Fun, but I rarely visit that forum.  I would say that sarcasm/ irony is common at PA.  I use irony, but I tend to avoid "mean-spirited" humour.

What I love about humour is the way it can bond people together, though quite often it lends itself to tribalism, and that bonding experience is often at an out-group or out-individual's expense.  Humour can be very divisive, and sometimes when I've made jokes that were not intended to be cruel in any way, people have come back at me very angrily (a misinterpretation of intent). I've been physically threatened for a little joke I made in the real world by a stranger, which had the opposite effect of how I had intended to use it as something of an ice-breaker.  I guess it may have been inappropriate under the circumstances, it was not intended to offend or be unfriendly, but to get threats of violence against my person in return shocked me.  I find humour can build empathy. Perhaps he was having a real bad day and mine was an inappropriate joke under the circumstances.  I don't remember what I said now, I just remember the reaction.  The guy was twice my size (well, not literally), I wasn't trying to provoke him.

Some posters have been kind enough to PM me about deleting certain posts which may have crossed certain lines of decency over my years here such as when someone posted "I cant get into Tool", and I replied "One must not try to get into Tool, you must let Tool get into you" which I then illustrated with some pictures (nothing pornographic, I assure you, but suggestive).   I really didn't need to drill/ nail it home with the pics as the innuendo was clear enough. ;)

Enough about me, what about you?

Also, what humorists do you most like and how much do they inform your sense of humour on or off the forum?

Edited by Logan - October 23 2019 at 12:15

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