Why we love funny people

Why do we like people who are funny? What does it mean to be funny? As a fan of comedy, these questions have always perplexed me. Through my research on the topic, I keep coming back to one central idea: To have a sense of humor, is to be human. Let me explain.

Understandably, human beings evolved to be funny. It makes sense; we are the species with the most advanced language and means of communication. Importantly, we are the only animals that can tell stories, and this capacity to communicate symbolically allows us to understand humor in all of its complexities.

But there is a deeper layer to it too. The USSR Academy of Sciences conducted a study in 2007 to see if they could develop an algorithm to give a computer a “sense of humor” in the human sense. The scientist’s hypothesis was that human being’s “sense of humor” developed as a result of the abundance of resources available from the onset of farming and food preservation.

During this time, for the first time in human history, there was enough food to feed everyone. Competing tribes no longer had to fight each other for food and resources, nor constantly hunt wild animals in order to survive. As this was happening, the human brain was changing. Instead of constantly being hunter-gatherer mode, the human brain was allowed the privilege of exploring different states of consciousness. Now, the brain could think in symbolic terms. Human beings could share stories, tell jokes, and communicate previously unexplored abstract concepts.

The scientists were able to program this process into a computer, but were not able to recreate this dissipation of neural network activity that releases when the brain realizes it is not being told information that will help it acquire resources necessary for survival. This neural network dissipation is a release of tension, it puts the body at ease, and is our brain’s way of telling us, “You are not in danger.” What exactly does this release of tension result in you ask? You know it well: Laughter.

A computer program can understand what makes something funny, but it cannot laugh. This fundamental truth is what makes humor so innately human. It is the reason that we like comedians. People we perceive as funny literally produce a chemical reaction in our brains that put us at ease, remind us that life is not as savage and ruthless as it once was, and there is always room for peace. At the same time, comedy is very simple. Many scientists argue about what is the true essence of humor, but most agree that it involves one central principle: The reversal of expectations.

The pre-humor human brain would see a bear in the forest as nothing but a threat, regardless if it was standing on two legs, wearing a tutu, and dancing the Macarena. But the post-humor human brain understands that this is absurd, and can release the tension of encountering a wild bear as laughter, or at the very least a smile. This is the power humor has. It is an evolutionary trait that allows us to become closer together. It allows us to form relationships and bond in a previously impossible way. We laugh because we are human; and we are human because we laugh.