By David Ponce
Well… Jeevus Tap-Dancin Christ and all that. Something on OhGizmo that isn’t an actual (or even imaginary) product! We have us a formula. Yup. Like they have in mathematics and such. It’s a fascinating one though, and you should read on.
A Russian-American researcher claims to have gotten to the bottom of the mystery of laughter and has even concocted a for-real, living, breathing and sweating mathematical “Formula of Laughter”.
So, the question is: why do we laugh? Don’t answer sumthin smart like “because it’s funny!” Think about it. Why do we laugh? What is the social role of laughter? What are we trying to do when we joke?
Well, Igor Krishtafovich is confident that humor always implies aggression. “It is a bloodless verbal fight aiming to raise your status and strengthen your position. Even a friendly banter is a sort of intellectual clash, a kind of training before serious battles. In fact, we try to figure out who’s the boss in the family when we poke fun at our loved ones.”
And the formula? HE = PI x C/T + BM
What does it mean? What’s all this? Well, for an explanation and such, come inside.
So the formula means :
PI – personal involvement
C – complexity of a joke. The higher degree of complexity the better provided that your audience can solve the problem within 1 or 2 seconds.
T – time spent by a person solving a joke. The longer the time, the weaker the effect.
BM – background mood. A joker can have an advantage if an audience enjoys the show. However, a real good joke can “blow up” the most dismal audience.
HE – humor effectiveness.
Now, there’s a fascinating article that you should really read to better understand all this. Really.
It explains things like why women consider “a good sense of humor” an essential quality in a man.
Story VIA Ektopia.
That can’t be a real formula.
“He picked BM?”
Eeew..
Looks like the common denominator is potty humor.
Interesting post. I have just bookmarked this at stumbleupon. Others no doubt will like it like I did.