Comedy, Abridged

    You would think that after two-thousand years of existence, someone in the Being race—anyone! there's been a lot of us—would have sorted this whole funny thing out by now. But nope. As a Society, we didn't earnestly attempt to understand humor until about a hundred years ago. I'll write that again: a hundred years. Ten decades. I've got plumbing older than that.

    Up until Scientists came along and dedicated their whole lives to proving everybody wrong about everything, no one really gave a spit about why it is we laugh. According to this one medical textbook that was in use around the turn of the century...(hold on, let me find it...okay, yeah, here it is): 

    "Laughter is a primitive and childish expression used to communicate pleasure and approval. Once a child becomes capable of the more sophisticated means of vocalization (such as speech, drama, the mandolin, etc.), laughter thus becomes obsolete and will only be used by the uncivilized, the mad, the mentally deficient, and, on occasion, by the civilized, intelligent, mature person who may require the conscious use of laughter in order to gracefully flee a social situation with any of the aforementioned three groups."

    And that was the basic opinion that had been upheld for centuries. Even when Scientists showed up, they didn't find the topic interesting enough to waste their time on. Why bother analyzing a subject as mundane as laughter when you could instead study something much more fascinating? Like the molting cycle of clump maggots? Or the effectiveness of cheering on your child at a T-ball game (not as effective as beatings, it turns out)?

    What I'm trying to get at is this: not only do we not know anything about funny, but we've never cared to know anything about it, and that's astounding to me. It's almost like there's this mental force-field around everybody's internal sense of humor. If we ever try to access it directly instead of subconsciously like intended, it's as if a defense mechanism in our brain activates, convincing us that this thing we seek is not worthy of attention, this "humor" that's always there, always on the sidelines, perceiving and influencing and reacting without ever leaving our periphery, this thing that's like a dead skin cell floating around in our eye—even though it's right in front of us, and even though we're always aware of it, as soon as we try to stare at it head on, it slides away, only agreeing to come back after we've given up and promised not to do that again.

    A few notable personalities have tackled The Big Humor Question, but none of them have succeeded in answering it, and those who wish to study humor aren't exactly encouraged to do so. The topic is treated like a child's game. You want to do research on things that are funny? How cute. You go right ahead, sport. Just be back in time for dinner. We adults are going to stay here and solve world hunger and the mysteries of the cosmos and drink Old Fashioneds and smoke cigarettes with long handles. Champ.

    And that stigma has been around since forever, at worst being treated like a taboo, and at best being dismissively answered. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when it was that we first started to take humor seriously, because the further back we go, the trickier it is to separate history from myth. But ask any humor historian (humorians, as they don't like to be called) about the most likely beginning of comedy research, and they will all put their finger on the same spot in the timeline, about six centuries into the past, when the only castes in our nation were Beings like Knights and Dragons, Dwarves and Goblins. 

    So? What event happened back then to shock us into caring about the nature of humor? Into considering the idea that maybe there's more to funny than meets the eye? That maybe laughter isn't so laughable? Easy. 

    That's when the Jesters came to town.

IF YOU'RE LIKE ME and didn't pay much attention in third-grade social studies, I'll sum up who the Jesters were, why they mattered, and what eventually happened to them.

    Back when people held their pants up by rope, and the streets were made of straw and poop, there was this group of people who just kind of...showed up one day. They dressed weird (like they were "garbed in the remains of a psychedelic picnic," is how one Librarian described it to me), they skipped instead of walked, they had grins as wide as their faces, and they laughed almost as much as they breathed, even in their sleep, according to some accounts. No one had ever met Beings like them before, and no one knew what to make of them or how to handle their confusing mannerisms.

    Like with every new caste, the Jesters were required to offer some product or service to the Society they wanted to join. When the very first Jester Elite filled out his caste's 8w30 EZ form, next to SOCIETAL OFFERING, he wrote one word: comedy.

    No one knew what to make of the word, because until then it hadn't existed. Was it a drink? Or a dance they could teach? Or maybe it was that vibrant, noisy fashion they wore? (If so, they could keep it.)

    But it turned out comedy was actually an idea—which was not an unheard of offering, since Priests and Bards also shared primarily in ideas, and both of those castes were very popular at the time. What the Jesters claimed to contribute was a brand new way of thinking about the world—a new art form that could help every person from the lowest caste to the highest, "From Mice to Majesties," as the handout went. 

    What the Jesters offered was the creation, maximization, and propagation of laughter. They believed that there was nothing more important in the universe than humor, nothing more powerful, and that it could even be harnessed and used like a tool, or a weapon, or, in some specific contexts, like a poncho.

    The idea was ridiculous to a lot of people. No one had ever talked that way about laughter before. "The burps of mirth," one famous Wizard called it. "No more worthy of intellectual scrutiny than any of the other accumulated gases discharged by drunkards and wenches." Harsh, but this really was the general consensus back then. 

    The Jesters were laughed at by everyone. Tomatoes were thrown at them, switches were drawn against them, their lunch trays were smacked to the floor—all tried-and-true ways of humiliating outcasts into either giving up or giving in. 

    However, Jesters were...different from most others. They weren't all that fazed by taunts or shaming—if anything, they seemed to grow stronger from them. If someone laughed, they would laugh louder. If someone threw a bottle, they would catch it and break it over their own head. If someone threw an insult, they would catch that too, modify it, improve it, and embarrass the insulter for not getting the best out of their own insult. It was almost like they were immune to any kind of humiliation, and because of this they were practically unstoppable.

    As the Jesters spread from village to village, so did their so-called comedy. If a Jester shacked up in a tavern, the place would succumb overnight to relentless howling and feasting. If a Jester was jailed and thrown into a camp of indentured servants, the workers would become too joyful to respond to punishment. There's even this one story I love of a traveling Jesterlass who asked a Farmer if she could sleep in his barn for the night. He allowed it, as long as she left come dawn. The next morning, when he opened his barn, he saw that she had indeed disappeared, but also that all of his Cows had empty utters. Their milk had apparently been drained through their noses. 

    Who knows if any of that's true or not, but what is true is that people back then believed those stories. Especially Royalty.

    These tales scared the spit out of those who ruled. Kings and Queens were hearing rumors of their brothers and sisters falling ill to the contagious hilarity, becoming so enchanted by the Jesters that they would heed them over their own advisers and generals. Which was lunacy. Ab-so-lute lunacy. 

    To Royalty, comedy became equal to madness. Eventually rewards were issued to anyone who could figure out some way—any way!—to stop the Jesters. And sure enough, it wasn't long before a weakness was uncovered, because as it turned out, even though the Jesters were completely invulnerable to all types of embarrassment, they weren't all that invulnerable to the blade of a guillotine. 

    And so, just like that, Royalty slaughtered the entire caste, justifying it with the claim that if the Jesters and their comedy went unchecked, their delirium would continue to spread until it had destroyed civilization itself. A handful of favored Jesters survived the purge, being exiled and quarantined on islands, but their caste was still doomed, only lasting some five decades, just barely making it to their third generation.

    After that, humor study went back to its original state of nonexistence...except this time around, in addition to seeming meaningless, humor was also treated with caution and some disgust, like how you might treat a dead frog on the sidewalk. People would acknowledge it, make sure to step around it, and if anyone was caught playing with it or poking it with a stick, they would be corrected fiercely for fear of spreading disease.

    Right after the Jesters's extinction, if anyone had to laugh in public, they could only do so politely—into a gloved hand, or a paper fan, or a lacy handkerchief—and any entertainer brave enough to write or perform comedy could only do so if the humor was so mild it prevented any expression stronger than a polite titter or a snicker or, at most, a chortle. 

    So, even though comedy was stunted and crushed, it wasn't quite dead either. The Jesters had planted a strong seed, and that's all that was needed for it to grow and strengthen over time until it became the thriving organism that it is today.

    I wonder what the Jesters would think if they could see the state of comedy now. No laughter is off limits. Every major city has underground churches devoted to enjoying comedy. There's whole TV stations dedicated to broadcasting sitcoms and standups and other vessels of humor. In every daily newspaper there is a section lovingly called "The Funnies", since apparently comedy is just as crucial to starting our day as knowing the forecast or the stock market or who we're at war with this time. There's even a caste created in the Jester's image, the Comics, who want nothing more than to share the gift of comedy with the Society that they are part of, the same Society that had exterminated their idols for doing the exact same thing. 

    All great stuff. But I also can't help but wonder what the Jesters would think of our current understanding of humor, or lack thereof. Even though we've finally admitted that it's okay to study it, we still haven't come to any kind of conclusion about the subject. Sure, there are theories, but they all conflict, and not one answers every question we have about humor, or even most questions. And even then, there's no rush to sort out the conflicts, no desire to solve this blatant enigma. Sometimes it seems like we know more about the atmosphere of distant planets than we do about our own laughter. There's been more definitive research on the understanding of our bodies's reaction to cheesecake than to the understanding of this phenomenon we all experience constantly, to this noise we make when our friend sticks straws up her nose, to this relaxing-yet-uneasy feeling we get when we hear the words "knock, knock."

    I wonder if the Jesters would be disappointed that we haven't bothered to figure humor out by now. Or maybe they'd be glad that we haven't figured it out. Maybe they would be scared that some of us are even trying to figure it out at all. Maybe some things just shouldn't be discovered, they might tell us. Who knows.

    Really, when it comes down to it, I think if they could see where we've come and where we're at and where we're going, they would probably stand back, look at the whole thing, put their hands on their hips, and laugh.

AND NOW WE'VE COME to the part where I explain my role in all of this. 

    If you've been paying any attention to the news over the past few years, you might have noticed that humor has been front-and-center in some of the biggest stories of our generation. After a long wait, we are currently, and finally, in the apex of humor appreciation—the tipping point at the top of the slope where the roller coaster starts to catch gravity after the long, slow, ticking haul upwards. 

    And as for me? I'm sitting in the front seat of this ride we're all in. Been sitting in it for awhile. I can see over the peak we're about to crest, and I can see the drastic change that's about to occur, even if the rest of you can't. I'm here to warn you about what's going to happen. I'm here to plead with you to buckle up and pay attention, or else things are going to change so quickly you might not know what hit you.

    Who am I to say all this? I know I probably sound cocky as hell right now, but trust me—it's coming, and I know that better than anyone.

    Because not only was I around for the live verdict of the Sumoman trial...

    Not only did THE Astronate personally tutor me on his E-Theory of comedy...

    Not only did I have lunch with the elusive Dean Ball herself...

    Not only was I granted access to the oldest archive of comedic history in the world...

    Not only am I the youngest person to ever get accepted into the only college on the planet solely devoted to the study of humor...

    Not only have I lived with the distant relatives of the Jesters themselves...

    Not only am I writing a sucking book on the subject...

    Not only that...but more than anything else in my life, I attribute my highest credential in comedy expertise as this one fact right here: 

    I was once adopted by a Clown.