Everybody’s sense of humor is a bit different – anti jokes – what makes one person roll on the floor laughing may not even get a grin out of another. Such is life. Most of us have fond memories of jokes we heard when we were young, jokes that we retold 1,000 times, even some jokes we probably weren’t supposed to hear. Some were funny, some were crude, and some were forgettable.
There are some jokes that you have to have a pretty special sense of humor to appreciate, and these are the ones I’m going to discuss in the following paragraphs. There not the usual garden variety jokes, far from it in fact. These jokes are actually not even funny, and ironically, the less funny they are, the more funny they wind up being. If that last sentence has you confused, don’t fret, it confuses me and I’m the one who wrote it.
Introducing: Anti Jokes
As you might suspect, anti jokes are, in some ways, the opposite of jokes. The mechanism of humor is not the funny punch line, but instead a dry, deadpan statement where the punch line was supposed to be. I other words, the fact that it’s not the slightest bit funny is the funny part. The very anticlimactic nature of the pseudo-punch-line is so unexpected that it actually causes a laugh (for some). Let me give you some examples.
Some Anti Jokes I Made Up
Q-What did the tiger have for lunch?
A-Your parents, you’re an orphan now.
Q-How do you scare a blonde paraplegic in a 7-Eleven?
A-Chase her with a knife.
Q-What did the firefighter say to the mother of four?
A-I’m sorry Ma’am; they all died of smoke inhalation.
Whether you find this type of humor funny or not, I am sure you could imagine that a lot of people don’t. Some people want punch lines with their jokes, and are lost on the irony that some find funny in anti jokes. There’s one anti joke I’m sure we all remember from childhood.
The World’s First Anti Joke (maybe)
Q-Why did the chicken cross the road?
A-To get to the other side.
I know, I never thought that was funny either. There are some anti jokes that will get a laugh out of me, but the type that simply offers a logical answer to the question posing as a joke doesn’t do it for me. I feel like those are meant for 5-year-olds, and that they don’t even find them funny.
The type I can find a touch of humor in, like the first three examples above, set you up to expect a light hearted laugh, then surprise you with a sad or tragic conclusion that’s funny because it catches you off guard. Yes, some find them distasteful, and I can see why, but like I said, the anti joke isn’t for everybody.
Long Live Anti Jokes
Whether you find them funny or not, anti jokes are here to stay. There are entire websites full of them, and new ones are popping up all the time. So what’s even worse than an anti joke? A long, slow, painful death.
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