Humor is an essential quality that helps us to bond together and maintain strong relationships. It helps to connect groups of people and make them laugh. Some people prefer different types of humor over others or none whatsoever, but that should not stop you from being humorous around other humans and their subjective tastes. Here are five different types of humor that are commonly used to make some people share a laugh together.
1. Slapstick
Slapstick, or physical, humor is where someone exaggerates physical movements. Typically, slapstick humor involves pranks on other people, gags or the playing of jokes on other people. Many times, physical jokers have props, such as retractable objects, and other items used to help them carry out their humor.
In the instance that physical humor does not have a prop, it relies on body movement that differs from the norm, such as someone slipping and falling from stepping on a banana peel or a heavy object falling on someone. Even though slapstick humor can be violent, it is used as a simple means of laughter for some humans. Many times, slapstick humor is used for comedy purposes such as videos or short films.
Source: Shutterstock2. Dark Humor
Dark humor relays the controversial aspects of the world that one would normally not make humor out of in a light manner. When people use dark humor, they discuss grave topics that some people might consider to be serious or unpleasant, such as hunger, illness or death. Dark humor can sometimes offend people, so be careful of who you use dark humor around. Use it around those who are not sensitive or easily offended by jokes about serious matters.
3. Surreal Humor
Surreal, or absurd, humor focuses primarily on illogical situations or impossible events. A joker can take something fairly normal such as a person’s face and make it into something that it is not. For instance, you may be looking at the back of a person’s head. That person turns around, and their face is the face of an animal instead of a human. Surreal humor revolves around weird or nonsensical circumstances.
Surreal humor can have extreme juxtapositions or contrasts between two elements and create something humorous out of them. Many times, the elements are ordinary things but twisted into a new compound, such as a human behaving and shaped in the likeness of a bird. New creatures can be idealized with surreal humor along with fantasy worlds and bring laughter to those who enjoy odd things.
4. Wordplay Humor or “Dad” Jokes
Wordplay humor is a play on words. It replaces certain phonetic sounds in words to carry out a particular theme. It may involve a pun or an emphasis on a particular syllable in a word, such as the first syllable in “perfect” for a joke about cats.
Wordplay tends to use obscure definitions or words to create specific characters. An example is the word “frankly,” which can be turned into the character Frank Lee. In a sentence, you might think it is just a word, but it is a character being used humorously in a particular situation.
Source: Shutterstock5. Witty Humor
Not all humor revolves around a common understanding of a particular object or event. Sometimes, it relies only on words and word context. Witty humor can be described as dry humor because the person employing it expresses little to no facial expression. It is an intelligent type of humor that requires active brain engagement, unlike slapstick humor.
Witty humor can use several tools to make itself apparent in a humorous situation such as sarcasm, irony, and parody. Sarcasm, the most used tool, is when someone says something, but their intent is the opposite of what they are saying. For instance, you could be answering a question about liking something you actually do not, like vegetables. You would say something along the lines of, “Vegetables are my favorite thing in the world,” which you know is false. When you say that with the proper tone of voice, which is usually with a variable intonation, other people can pick up on it and understand you are being sarcastic. Be careful when using sarcasm because some people may think you are insulting them.
Wrap-Up
Regardless of the type of humor that you utilize in your everyday life, you can bring laughter and clever analogies to the people around you. Whether you use puns or props to relay your humor, you can bring a smile to a person’s face. Humor is a gift that you should use wisely if the circumstances are right.
