Interpreting a Joke

ARCHIVE ENTRY DATE: #5 October 20, 2011

TOPIC:Interpretive Processes/Speech Acts

TITLE: Interpreting a Joke

SOURCE: Personal Observations, Internet (specifically a facebook interaction), Class reading.

RELATION TO TEXT: Basso "Speaking with Names"

COMMENTARY:

After reading Basso, “Speaking with Names” which is an article about/deciphering a speech act that happened between a group of Apache Indians, I started looking for speech acts during conversations I had with others. While on facebook this morning I came across a friend’s status update post of a joke. The joke goes like this, “Why did the hipster burn his mouth on his coffee?....he drank it before it was cool.” As I read this I couldn’t help but laugh. This joke is considered a sort of speech act because it hold a double meaning that requires and allows you to think in order to understand it. It is makes sense literally because anyone is going to burn their mouth if they drink coffee before it cools down. But what makes the joke funny is because of the sterotype that goes along with hipsters and that is the thought that they do everything before it was trendy or common, that they are above doing it when it becomes a trend because they are “too cool”.  So hipster and cool are the key terms. This joke is appropriate only during certain times. I would be kind of scared if I tried to tell this joke around a group of people who actually consider themselves a hipster because this joke gives them a negative connotation and I don’t think they would take the joke lightly. It can only be told in a lighthearted manner, around people you know. What I found interesting is that I got to witness the affect that the joke had on the internet. Reading responses to the status were different because I can witness what is being said without having to be around it or participate in it. It was cool reading peoples thinking process once they “got” the joke.  One person even wrote that they had to read the joke 4 times in order to understand what the joke part was. It reminded me of when Basso heard Lola’s and her friends conversation and had no idea what they were talking about until he learned the places of their stories to understand Lola’s culture. In order to understand this joke you have to understand the American subculture that it is referring to.