Humour

E.B. White said "Analysing humour is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it." So let's dissect this frog.

Humour is a very subjective thing, there are many types of humour and, because of its subjective nature, what you will find funny depends on age, upbringing and personal opinions. Something that is funny to one person, may not be to another.

In general, the point of humour is to subvert your idea of normal. If the punchline of the joke is as the audience expects, they will likely not find it funny, though if it is so far from reality, that it is completely unlikely, people will also possibly not find it amusing. From this we can conclude that humour cannot be too close to normality, but also cannot be too nonsensical. However, because of the subjective nature of humour, it is difficult to say for sure what people will and will not find funny. In summary, a joke must be unexpected, understood, not too normal or too weird and most of all, funny.

I believe that humour and its subjective nature mean it is incredibly difficult to pull off doing something humorous. It gives me a whole new respect for comedians and people who create funny pieces of work. They must really work at their work to make it effective. If I wish to create funny pieces of work, I must practice a lot and not force the humour.