What's Funny About It

(Image taken from here)

We've all seen at least one version of What People Think/What I Really Do sequences. And it's difficult not to find them funny. Whoever made the first sequence must be congratulated and thanked for such a simple idea to entertain us all on the Internet!

So why do we find it funny? We can all relate to the incongruity (i.e inconsistent ideas) of the different perceptions about our careers. For instance, a sequence on Marine Biologist (below) makes fun of the vast difference between the societal perception of what marine biologists do (working with whales and dolphins) when actually, a lot of their work is in the lab doing "boring stuff".

(Image taken from here)

Humour, I think, arises from a superiority complex. Whenever we laugh at something, we must first feel superior to the subject we laugh at. We are all familiar with the comedian who would make fun of everybody - including himself! - and tease their cultures, beliefs, accents, and anything that's different about them.

What about laughing at ourselves? This happens when we identify with the "superior me" and look down on the "inferior me" who has made of fool of himself. When we've made a mistake and later laugh at ourselves for the mistakes we've done, we dissociate ourselves from " the person who has made a mistake", and identify with "the person who has learn from it". This is a useful tool to allow us to move on in life, especially when we are all too human to be susceptible to make a lot of mistakes.

Coming back to the What People Think/ What I Really Do sequences, there are actually many things to laugh about them. First, there is the ridiculousness of other people's perception and expectations of what we do. We are in fact laughing at their distorted ideas and misconceptions about our careers.

Then, we also laugh at our own self-inflation when we think we do really cool stuff, when in reality this is not true at all. 

This feeling of superiority ("I'm better than you") behind every laughter may be why it's always fun to laugh at others, but not so when others laugh at us. 


*My hypothesis on humour that I have briefly discussed here is actually a well known theory of humour called the Superiority Theory. There are other theories that have been proposed including Incongruity, Relief, Benign Violation, as well as Evolutionary explanations. 


I hope I haven't spoiled any comedy and laughter from this discussion. Haha.