Jokes, well everybody likes a laugh, except of course people with no sense of humor, and I think there must be some people who have never laughed, except when they forced it as a result of group pressure.
Trying to explain to such folk results in a “uh? Oh yeah, hehe”. It must be frustrating to never understand why people are making a cackling noise. I believe Freud wrote a book about it, I never read it, so I don’t know if it was funny. And again liberal arts PhD candidates regurgitate and research what makes a good joke. The results of which are of course repeated in the media. My usual reaction to “Officially the funniest joke ever” is “uh? Oh yeah, hehe”.
A FAQ is “where do new jokes come from?”. When asked, comedians usually say something like “there are only seven basic jokes and they get retold a bit different”. Others say “in the Universities.” Well, I don’t know. I frequently read new jokes on my fondle slab some raise a smile, and some a titter, and others get to laugh out loud on the Rickter scale. Jokes I’ve heard before aren’t so funny, of course, but there are still a few that I always find amusing not that I can think of one such off the top of my head.
Who was the first person to tell a joke? We will never know, but the first person to tell such and such a joke, and one that is genuinely funny? I’m thinking maybe it happened by accident, and some though to copy it and write it on papyrus.
There’s a joke or two I’ve told that I think I made up myself. Now, if this can be true I don’t know. Like Paul McCartney with “Yesterday”, he kept asking people if it was original or had it been written by Beethoven or such? Leads me to copyright. I needed some pictures for my little app, I have in development. It’s a visual thing so I need some stock photos. Many on the internet bear a copyright notice so I’m more looking for public domain stuff. I asked an AI to make some, and enquired about who had the copyright. It hummed and aahed , so I didn’t get a clear answer. Here’s the real question… if I tell an original joke, and I can prove it, do I have copyright? And can I enforce it? If I publish it in r/jokes and no one can come forward with prior claim should I receive a royalty when people use it online, or even down the pub? There are enough cases in the music industry, that X copied a few bars from Y and now Y want’s her cut. When is a joke to similar? or unique? “an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman…”, if I just change the nationalities is it a new joke?
I’m a thinking maybe there should be a web page “originaljokes.com” say, where people could officially register their joke. And what about the guffaw grab which could ensue of people claiming old jokes as new? Similar to when the the internet started, someone registered mtv.com, and later sold it for big money.
So, as to my original jokes? What are they? Can I tell you?
I’m not sure ICANN. ( smile , groan, titter ).