Humor...

Say you conduct a survey… you go around asking a hundred people whether they have a sense of humor. I bet that at least ninety-eight of them would reply with an emphatic ‘Yes’. And the rest… well, you probably caught them rushing to their office a little behind schedule. It would be awkward if they had actually replied in the affirmative given their anxious states of mind.

The next question you should ask them is… whether they would say that they, themselves were the funniest people in their circle. Once again a huge majority… say around ninety of them would say yes. The ones, who say no, not counting the two office douches, are either modest… or accurate, or utterly incapable of recognizing or appreciating humor in any case.

And now we deal with the huge majority of… funny guys. It’s amazing how in a world where there can only be a finite number of friend circles, (the number would be even lesser if not for social networking) there seem to be more ‘I’m the joker of the group’ blokes than the sum total of groups.

As in all survey models… we assume that the ones who took part represent a perfect chunk of society, and restrict our deductions to them. Hence, for the purposes of the argument… let’s say that doomsday (its twenty-twelve already folks… watch out) has struck… and there is no one else on earth. Therefore, the total number of groups existing in the target population… assuming each group has an average count of five members, is twenty.

Logic dictates… that there can only be twenty ‘funniest in the gang’ dudes (or dudettes) in all. And yes… that number is not the same as ninety.

What we learn from this little social experiment is that… our world is overrun by pompous self idolizing morons. The vast majority of our peers suffer from delusions… either of possessing nonexistent talents, or of assumed superiority over the rest. Thus is the line of thought… ‘I’m the best’, born.

This isn’t a piece criticizing human nature and its disgusting traits… (That one will come a little later). This is merely a collection of my observations regarding how people dupe themselves into thinking that they are no different from their personalities they dream of becoming. To be more specific… this is targeted at that huge group who go around thinking that they are the next Russel Peters.

I love humor… be it in print or in person. You’d have to search a wide area before reaching a man more fond of Terry Pratchett or Jim Carrey. I follow every one of Russel Peter’s videos on YouTube… and I laugh at every pun, innuendo and hilarious incident in all works ranging from Wodehouse to Cervantes.

I would not know if I am funny, that in all fairness can only be gauged by those around me… but I know that I can appreciate humor, wherever it exists. And of late… my hand keeps itching with my desire to slap the upstarts who walk around suffering from the misguided fancy… that they can crack people up.

You may wear a top hat and keep long hair… you can even smoke a droopy cigarette and do lots of weed… but, none of it (trust me on this) will ever turn you into Slash. Likewise… repeating the punch lines you mugged up from Jim Carrey’s movies, will not make you funny. It’ll merely make you an annoying copycat of a bugger. Oh wait! It already has.

Hey… I am all for aspiration (even flagrant daydreaming)… but what really gets to me, are these chumps trying to show up someone else using their (usually nonexistent) wit.

A very apt example of this would be ragging (apparently we have to call it ‘intro’ these days) in colleges. I wouldn’t have blogged about this had I not been a senior already… and free from possible repercussions.

Every freshman in college has had the experience of being cornered by (always a group of) his or her seniors… and asked to answer a bunch of questions that intensely amuse them. The ones asking… usually the ringleaders of the ‘gang’ are out hunting for popularity among his own batch mates, by showcasing his sharp brain (so sharp that it’s a miracle he doesn’t cut himself). The questions themselves are dumb… the humor in them absent from not only the perspective of the victim… but also that of the neutral observer. The people it does amuse… well, it speaks volumes about their own intellects, doesn’t it?

I don’t know what it is about most people… that make them pump up their own egos so much. Sure it’s nice to know that you can make an occasional remark that is capable of causing a few titters… but that hardly makes you a standup comedian. And surprisingly, the failure to realize this seems equally distributed among folks from every generation and profession. Example… corny dad jokes… and lame office humor.

I am a satirical bastard (I would be the first to admit it, unless the clamor of people admitting it for me drowns me out)… and to me, humor is sacred. It is the temple where my thoughts are refined by sarcasm and baptized with irony. So, when I have to endure some brutish hulk, cracking his excuse for a joke… I somehow end up picturing him as a tusked pig… happily rolling around in the muck. (Complete with the grunts that I add to dub his laughter).

You can always spot a wannabe joker by a few characteristic traits. His over suavity in dealing with anyone around him… his tendency to always try and have the last word in a conversation (no matter how badly he gets his ass handed to him)… and his always being the first to start sniggering at what he thinks is a hilarious joke, before anyone else can work out if anything even remotely amusing was just said.

Oh well… since I don’t want to get involved in a tussle with a brawny self proclaimed Wayne Brady… I guess I’ll have to stay content with folding my hands behind me and whistling to drown out the moronic things that get said... in the instances where contact with a douche is unavoidable.

Good luck to you if you’re trying to do the same brother.