Whenever my Humor Writing 101 class is offered at my college, students swarm the registration page like a pack of ravenous pangolins. You’d think it’s because I occasionally bring donuts (college should be more sprinkletastic!) or that I wear Godzilla-sized hair scrunchies or that my coffee mug boasts Yoda Best Professor.
But after extensive, evidence-based scientific research—I asked the class one afternoon—I discovered how wrong I was. They signed up simply because they yearned for more humor, levity, and fun in their lives. One kid even channeled her inner Socrates, saying, “Humor is the foam in the grande latte of life!” to which another kid who hadn’t spoken one word in nine weeks nodded and said, “Duuuuuuuuuude.”
Well, shucks. I get it. We live in a Trumpapalooza world where politics is a full-contact sport. Plus, we have to deal with impossible-to-open plastic packaging around inexpensive items and fake pockets on women’s clothes and Ticketmaster’s convenience charge + order processing fee + print-your-own ticket charge + resale ticket fee + facility charge just to attend a Bebe Rexha concert where some knucklehead chucks an iPhone into her eye socket at pointblank range because he thought it would be “funny.”
Maybe the truth will set us free, but first it makes us miserable.
Thankfully, we have humor. My students are correct about its healing powers which are nearly as effective as mom’s chicken soup, an ’80s music marathon, or the Zen-like state achieved after successfully assembling IKEA furniture. But here’s another benefit beyond its antidotal qualities.
