This is the Funniest Joke in the World According to Science
Science Reveals the Funniest Joke After a Survey of 1.5 Million People
Humour is a very subjective thing, and it is completely possible that one person might find a joke funny while the other does not. Despite this, science has tried to find the answer to what is the funniest joke. Here is how it was done.
A YouTube channel called AsapSCIENCE has conducted a survey of 1.5 million people and asked the participants about the sense of humour they possess. It asked people to rate jokes, mention how much they liked a joke or how humorous they thought a joke was. Based on the responses, the funniest joke was revealed.
Note: This joke seems funnier when you watch the video at the end of the story as compared to when you read it here.
The funniest joke in the wold
Two hunters are exploring the woods when one hunter collapses. His eyes are glazed, and he does not appear to breathe. His partner calls the emergency services and asks that his friend is dead, what can he do. To this, the operator says that let us make sure he is dead. There’s silence, and then a shot is heard. After getting back on the phone, the second guy says, “Ok, now what?”
According to the study, Wiseman said this was the funniest joke in the world. He told The Guardian in an interview: “Many of the jokes submitted received higher ratings from certain groups of people, but this one had real universal appeal.”
“Also, we find jokes funny for lots of different reasons. They sometimes make us feel superior to others, reduce the emotional impact of anxiety-provoking situations or surprise us because of some kind of incongruity. The hunters joke contained all three elements.”
In addition to sharing the funniest joke, the survey also revealed some more interesting bits. It revealed that the most effective jokes are usually 103 letters long. It also shared that the jokes appear funniest to the audience at 6:03 pm local time. The reason for this time is perhaps the fact that we all feel relaxed when the workday ends and the evening starts.
The study that revealed the funniest joke was done in 2001 by Psychologist Dr Richard Wiseman who set up a website called LaughLab. It included more than 40,000 jokes, and over the course of one year, over 1.5 million people from across the globe rated five randomly selected jokes as per a five-point scale. If you think it is not the funniest joke as per your opinion, remember that humour is very subjective, and the study was done almost two decades back.
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