Variable sense of humor

I've noticed that your sense of humor is not intrinsic to you; it's largely determined by who you're with at the time.

I first played Cards Against Humanity two nights ago with my high school buddies (Tristan, Leon, Kazi, Bang), and given the fact that our collective maturity level is right around the negative digits, the game turned into a massively inappropriate mess of sexual implications and graphic images. It was awesome to say the least.

Then last night I played the game again, but with family friends; I was the youngest of the group, and except for me, all of them were either graduating from college later this year or already did. Since the cards are all the same (and that I had just played the night before), I naturally remembered what kinds of messed up things we (the high school guys) had come up with earlier.

It was odd: things that I found hilarious with my high school friends just didn't seem that funny anymore. Simply mentioning anything remotely sexual did not automatically win you the black card. Putting down a white card that wasn't quite relevant, even if it was ridiculously funny, was a surefire way to lose.

As the game went on, I found myself gradually adopting their sense of humor, and by the end, I was picking the best white cards based on the criteria they had been using. But it wasn't a conscious decision by any means; my sense of humor just melded into theirs on its own volition.

This shouldn't have come as a surprise, though. Stick around any group of somewhat immature teenage guys and you'll eventually observe the "circlejerk effect." One guy says something mildly funny, some people laugh, then someone says something else, and more people laugh. Said cycle continues until everyone is yelling inside jokes and rolling on the floor bawling, while onlookers silently judge them with bewildered looks on their faces.

Given that, I don't see why the process couldn't go the other way -- the "anti-circlejerk effect," if you will. In other words, the all-too-familiar "no one else finds it funny so I shouldn't either."

Funny how I never realized until now that our sense of humor is really just another offspring of peer pressure. We laugh at things that others find funny because we want to fit in; we don't laugh at things that no one else is laughing at because we don't want to seem out of place.

And just like most things involving peer pressure, eventually you start to internalize it -- you adopt their sense of humor.

Laughter isn't just contagious because its in our nature: it's contagious because we are insecure.