Is it really possible to develop a sense of humour by reading a list of bullet points, action plans and self-help advice? I'm not really convinced that this isn't a really brilliant, very subtle joke on a completely higher level.
I can't decide whether this is funnier if posted by someone in earnest, or if posted in total seriousness. I think that's the joke.
This may be a little bit convoluted of an idea but when i was much younger I made a concerted effort to be "funnier". I watched stand up commedians on tv and analyzed why some jokes worked and some didn't. I paid attention to my friends jokes and took mental notes. All in all it worked out, i'm no robbin williams, but I make people around me laugh (in a good way) fairly frequently.
So structured learning of "un-learnable" fields can pay off, though your intent, desire, and actions all have to be aligned. Microsofts attempts to introduce humor to the workplace could legitimately be successful if they really really followed through, sponsoring weekly sitcom watching parties, making jokes in email signatures the internal norm, etc.
What makes this document so sad, is the perception that feelings and enjoyment can be delegated to a memo.
It can never hurt to try out your material on the internet. i'm currently floating at the top of the page with an office one-liner. Sometimes it pays to stick to the classics ^_^
"I watched stand up commedians on tv and analyzed why some jokes worked and some didn't."
That's what they do, after all. As much as people protest that you can't dissect a joke, comedians and humor writers pull on gloves and end up elbow-deep in the things to improve their craft.
>Is it really possible to develop a sense of humour by reading a list of bullet points, action plans and self-help advice?
To some extent, of course. When you know enough about how frogs work, you can make a new frog. I don't think humour is any different to writing or music in this case. In particular,
>There are some basic humor tactics. Use exaggeration, use reversal, be brief. Cut out unnecessary words.
This is good advice. Someone who paid attention to it could improve their ability to tell jokes. It's neither necessary nor sufficient, but it's a start.
There's a short story by Asimov where the cause of humour is explained and then disappears forever. Or at least that's how I remember it (proving hard to Google).
EDIT: I remembered this a little incorrectly. The story is called "Jokester", from the book Earth Is Room Enough. Someone has it in a Word document online (on the first page of hits).
"Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind." http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/E._B._White
Odd: I just came across a similar analogy in Cory Doctorow's "Eastern Standard Tribe":
"The difference between reading a story and studying a story is the difference between living the story and killing the story and looking at its guts."
"Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/E._B._White
It's also reminiscent of Louis Armstrong's
"Man, if you gotta ask you'll never know"
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Louis_Armstrong
Is it really possible to develop a sense of humour by reading a list of bullet points, action plans and self-help advice? I'm not really convinced that this isn't a really brilliant, very subtle joke on a completely higher level.
I can't decide whether this is funnier if posted by someone in earnest, or if posted in total seriousness. I think that's the joke.