Humour in SL

One of the most attractive things in a person, is a healthy and original sense of humour. This is true of RL as well as SL, but in SL it ranks very high - possibly at the top - of factors that make me notice a person and become friends with them. All of my closest friends in SL have been people who could make me laugh until it hurt, and all the people I simply never became friends with were the excessively serious or grumpy or frankly simple folk who couldn’t even bring a twitch to the corner of my mouth, let alone tears to my eyes.

Through someone’s humour I see the strongest glimpses of who they are: For example, what someone finds funny can reveal their prejudices, what jokes they tell can reveal their intelligence, and what jokes they understand can reveal their experiences.

It’s often been said that when you spell out something that is meant to be humourous or analyse it too deeply, it loses it’s humour. Well, yes and no. Yes, if someone’s just told a joke and then is asked to explain it it ruins it generally because of lost timing as much as anything, though this situation can be saved by a fast thinker turning the situation itself of asking for an explanation, into something funny. However, having sat a post-graduate philosophy course on humour, I have to disagree that studying it ruins it. Rather, trying to understand the different types of humour and as I said above, realising what humour reveals about us, actually enhances very greatly the experience of it. So I shant be apologizing for analysing it here :p

SL offers up opportunities for humour that you can’t get in RL: Jokes about prims, profiles and the use of capitals just for starters. An excellent example of these sorts of considerations is regularly found in Prad’s blog, the most recent post he’s done is a case in point, see it for yourself: http://www.pradprathivi.com/latest/10-easy-ways-to-annoy-sl-residents .

At the same time SL removes the opportunity for a lot of jokes you can get at in RL – such as play on words that sound the same, the use of intonation, sound effects and accents. There are ways to still try to get those styles of humour into SL but they are not “natural” there, they require adaption.

The experience of SL humour is part of what makes people love the place so much, and yet struggle to convey that joy to others. Many times I’ve tried to explain SL jokes and situations to my husband, and he ends up looking me straight in the eye and saying “that’s not funny” (which is kinda funny in itself – I wouldn’t have married the man if he wasn’t frequently hilarious to me). Understanding and taking part in SL humour is part of what gives that somewhat unique sense of community you find in some places like Crown & Pearl, and I’ll say without hesitation that a good day or a good event in SL is one that comes with laughter. Without it even the best planned and most important SL events, simply wouldn’t be worth it to me.

So next time you’re in SL, and someone laughs or makes you laugh, stop and think about it, just for a little while. Why did you laugh, what does it say about you, what does it say about the person you’re interacting with. You might just be surprised at what you find out.