One of the most mind-boggling discoveries I made while becoming a professional humorist is that a large segment of the general public has no sense of humor. I mean that literally, in the same way that some people can’t tell the difference between good wine and bad, and some people are tone deaf. Humor appreciation is like every other human capacity. Some have it, some don’t.
My best estimate is that about a third of the public don’t possess the capacity to even recognize humor when they see it. But they pretend they do, for social reasons, the same way I used to pretend I liked expensive wine. The reality is that I couldn’t distinguish an ordinary wine from a great one. Both gave me the same type of headache. (I no longer drink alcohol. I see it as poison.)
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