Emily Hainze
landlocked
Sitting down to write my S&B column this week, I feel a little unsettled. Now is the time when things like magnolia trees and term papers are blossoming, and attention span and the winter wind have blown on to distant peer institutions. It is hard to spend time on a humor column when it is the season to be frolicking outdoors or synthesizing critical sources.
After recent events affecting the campus community, however, it seems that humor is under closer surveillance than a student surrounded with clever books, funny friends and springtime might think.
Although I have plenty of other things to think about, this half of the semester has forced me to consider what humor is good for, and what good humor is. Humor seems natural: shit happens, jokes happen. Do we need to understand what everyone is laughing about?
Somewhere in academics, they have a point: there is a human condition, and sometimes it is funny. Or like my mother always says, you can’t please everyone. In the interest of ideological differences, and because I want to go to Dari Barn soon, I will provide a sample of several types of humor that I as an individual student observe around campus.
1. Puns. Oh, no, I just Kant write my paper, the Intro to Philosophy first year giggles, taking her first baby steps toward college smugness. Plots are for dead people, the older Craft of Fiction student smirks during class.
Maybe this is a little autobiographical, but even science majors can have fun with words. You can’t teach a calculator Mu tricks? School often makes students feel stupid and overwhelmed. If they can mess around with the words they must read and write, and feel clever doing so, they probably will. I’m boycotting coke, the activist said spritely. I can’t keep these jokes running, the columnist wrote lamely.
2. Humor at Other People’s Expense. Although I was raised to laugh with and not at, college is the place where you leave your upbringing behind, learning how to stick it to the Man and strike out on your own. You might look for this maturity in the Gum, or behind the backs of your friends after they compliment you on a new haircut or significant other.
3. Dead baby jokes.
Q: What group has no voice on campus?
A: Dead babies
4. Sarcasm and/or Irony
I want to address this issue and keep writing this column, SIKE!!
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