I attended one of the Thursday seminars on How to Tell a Joke: Timeless Strategies for Winning the Room and Getting Ahead. Initially I went into this seminar thinking that it would consist of funny jokes and explanations as to why they were funny; however, to my surprise the seminar was more about joke formatting than the jokes themselves. I did not understand some of the reasoning behind why certain jokes were considered funny, but it did allow me to understand more about the craft of telling a good joke.

I may be biased here but this was easily one of my favorite events of the semester. I found that the speaker Michael Fontaine had a very captivating presence and I was at the edge of my seat the entire time. His presentation was also very interesting and I learned a lot. Something that particularly stood out to me was that humor is universal. Many jokes from the ancient times are still very applicable today. This is because the principles (exaggerations, irony) are the same, meaning the jokes could likely work even thousands of years later. This was really mind-blowing to me. I will certainly now read Mr. Fontaine’s book as I am excited to learn so much more about jokes!

This was such an interesting meeting. The presenter talks about the different ways to present things: article, ted talk, poem, movie, ect. We learned about classical learning, and historic events like that Cicero created a movie world. The presenter made a good point that puns are clever but not funny. A pun can outrage people because it can make people feel dumb. I have even struggled with understanding puns and felt unfulfilled afterward.

The presenter spoke on how you have to master delivery. The hardest part is how you hold your face. It also depends on who you are and your place in society. For example, Pollack cant make a joke and then cross her eyes like a clown. Thomas asked about dad jokes lool. I absolutely love dad-joke humor. In-jokes you have to think about your goal. What is the best possible outcome of telling a joke?  And then consider: Are you in the spotlight voluntary or are you thrust in the spotlight and trying to get out.

I was surprised and interested to learn that there is much we can learn from the humor of the ancient world. Listening to Professor Fontaine’s talk about how the clever lines of speakers in ancient Rome are still applicable taught me a lot about a field I hadn’t ever thought much about. It was fascinating to see that many of the same jokes are still funny today when they made people laugh thousands of years ago. I also appreciated Professor Fontaine’s real-life tips, such as how puns are not the best type of joke to use in a workplace – situational humor is much better. I personally find puns funny, though I know others are even more into them than I, and I know still others can’t stand the sound. I’ll think again now about using situational humor instead to make some moments more universally funny!

I love humor.  I genuinely enjoy making people laugh and I want to get better at it.  Sometimes my jokes fail, other times they cause a lot of laughter.  Attending this lecture was fantastic as I got to learn more about how to make my jokes more relatable for everyone.  Situational humor is much better for forging bonds with everyone and breaking the ice in a tense situation.  While situational humor is fantastic in having everyone relate to the joke, I am not great at situational humor, I am much better at puns.  With the guidance from this lecture, I will work to perfect my situational humor skills while also working more on my puns.

During Fontaine’s talk about how jokes can get you ahead, it enlightened me on how humor can get you ahead in life, or it can make you look annoying, or even get you killed. For example, Fortaine explained how being funny can get you out of a dire situation with the police, or it could help educate others efficiently. Although I think I knew this in the back of my mind, I never really thought about it until now. I thought about a YouTuber named Sam O’Nella, and although he makes educational content, he has gotten hundreds of millions of views by being extremely funny. Additionally, he uses hostility to make his jokes perform better, another technique Fontaine mentioned. So even though I’m guessing most people don’t remember anything from high school history other than the occasional joke, millions of others, and I most likely remember the majority of facts Sam O’Nella stated in his videos. Jokes are powerful, and they must be utilized more in the future to help humanity and to hopefully lighten the mood at the same time. 

Thursday’s seminar, “How to Tell a Joke” with Professor Fontaine made me realize that jokes have been around for much longer than I would have ever expected. Learning about humor in the ancient world was fascinating. I was particularly intrigued to find out that Cicero, the Roman statesman and philosopher, told jokes throughout his life to get ahead. In fact, his jokes are what ultimately got him killed. Professor Fontaine also referred to jokes as “magic” and although I had never thought of them in this way, I completely agree. Jokes have a lot of social power and can be used to ease other people up and make them be more compassionate towards you. Laughter can be a great way to bring people together. I will definitely use the tips Professor Fontaine gave to enhance my joke making abilities as it is a powerful tool to better relationships with others throughout life.

I got to admit, I came into the seminar for some good laughs and potentially some punchlines that I can reuse. What I didn’t expect was that through a discussion on Ancient Greek humor, the seminar makes me realize that humor is an area of study in the academia, not just some spontaneous amusement that is deemed trivial. In particular, I’ve been fascinated by the question of whether jokes can be shared across vastly distinct time periods and cultures.

In the seminar, the professor showed us some ancient Greek humor from people like Cicero. Many of them, surprisingly, are in fact applicable to the current world. It might seem that jokes are indeed shared across vastly distinct time and cultures. However, as a native speaker of Chinese, I find this statement questionable. I believe that sharing across time periods is totally feasible, provided that all the necessary context is preserved. But sharing across cultures is not always easy. In particular, it is important to look at two major categories of jokes, puns and situational jokes, separately. Situational jokes are easy to transfer from one culture to the other, because their humor is based on a deviation from normal expectations. I can give English situational jokes from time to time, using the exact same logic I would’ve used if I was speaking in Chinese. Puns, however, are much harder to grasp for foreigners, and they are even harder to be produced naturally by foreigners. Puns require a broad vocabulary base and regular use of the language so that one can quickly relate two things together. What’s especially different between puns and situational jokes is that puns cannot be brought directly from one language to the other. There are puns in Chinese too, but they are totally different from English ones given that the words are different. Puns in Chinese are not puns in English even if we translate them.

Given these considerations, I would say that jokes do not necessarily transcend time and culture, because they are specific. But humor in a general sense does. Humor exists in every human civilization, and jokes flourish in every language and culture. Speaking the appropriate joke to the appropriate audience is what really matters.

After attending the Thursday seminar “How to Tell a Joke”, I have gained a lot of insight into how to make jokes better and even the history behind jokes itself. Professor Fontaine was so kind as to be the speaker for this event and he really enlightened me on many ways to make a joke, and when to make it. Because I would consider myself a naturally funny guy, I would say that I am a perfectly fine comedian. However, no comedian has a 100% success rate, as humor is within the eyes of the audience. After listening in to the many things Prof. Fontaine had to say, I would say that learning when not to tell a joke is the most important thing to me because I am not the most mature person to be around. Therefore I learned that every comedian is subject to criticism, and that I aspire to become the king of comedy.

To round out April Fools Day I decided to sit in on this talk about comedy and how to tell jokes, and about the history of jokes as well. I appreciated the format of this event, with the history of jokes being talked about first and then examples, ideas, and questions left for the latter half of the hour. I was intrigued to find that jokes have much stayed the same since Cicero’s time really. Jokes are based on puns, irony, and situational humor a lot of the time as well. And that has stayed the same even now. People want to know how to tell successful jokes and what to do if their joke fails. People like to laugh and make other people laugh and we are always looking for ways to connect with others- jokes being one of the best ways. So to end my post- my joke for the day is this: Mother Nature’s April Fools Day for us all with snow in spring.

Today’s seminar had Professor Fontaine explain the importance of jokes. Jokes are essential to have a good time and to create a good time when things might not seem to be going well. What surprised me is that it is easier to use jokes to destroy an opponent’s base than to stress out over it with an argument. It was also interesting to learn that the delivery of a joke is much more important than the context of the joke since the main goal is to have the audience laugh and not have them think about it for too long. Now I will make sure that I use funny and short jokes to brighten up the mood of my friends whenever I see it appropriate. I really enjoyed watching this Thursday Seminar session, and I look forward to many more.

This April Fool’s day I joined other Rose residents for a presentation by Professor Michael Fontaine. Professor Fontaine recently published a book called “How to tell a Joke” and discussed many of the major aspects of his book during our talk. Professor Fontaine started by introducing Cicero, an ancient Roman, who was the author of a treatise that is widely considered the longest discussion of humor in the ancient world. Professor Fontaine shared a lot of the major parts of Cicero’s treatise and some examples of ancient jokes. What surprised me was that many of the ancient jokes used the same elements we use today such as deprecating humor, irony, puns, playing dumb. As Professor Fontaine explained that humor is based on human relations and as such relationships exist throughout history, today’s jokes will work thousands of years from now. Overall, this presentation was highly engaging and interesting. I believe I learned a lot about humor and the history of the joke and am excited to try out some of these jokes myself!