[Meta] The real purpose of dad jokes

Back in the before times, when sit-down restaurants existed, I used to order boneless cheese sticks and would just throw the word "boneless" in front of any appetizer with 100% corniness. The purpose of this isn't to make a good joke. It's not a good joke. The purpose is to make my dining companions catch some cringe splash damage and want to crawl into a hole and die out of embarrassment for my being horribly corny.

But there is a real, deeper purpose that I've discovered entirely by accident. People, especially young people, are so self-conscious and worried about saying or doing something embarrassing that it taints a lot of social gatherings. They go to a restaurant and are afraid to speak up even when their order is blatantly wrong. They'll tip well even when the food took an hour to arrive and the server has disappeared into the corn stalks behind a baseball field. It takes 2 hours of hanging out together before some friends finally stop nitpicking themselves, uncomfortable in their own bodies and brains, feeling perpetually judged, and begin to relax. These are the kinds of people who go to sleep every night replaying cringey moments from high school. Their last thought of the day is when the Burger King girl said, "Enjoy your meal!" and they said, "Thanks, you too."

It takes 2 hours and/or a lot of booze before they're comfortable enough to take conversational risks and truly reveal themselves. But if I come right out of the gate with a really dumb joke, then we can cut to the chase. There's less danger because someone in the group already shot themselves in the foot, right off the bat. They pulled a pin on the cringe grenade and then jumped on it.

You cringe at my dumb joke and then we're over the hump. Someone has already done something pretty stupid, so go ahead and order the hubcap of nachos and a massive chocolate shake because nobody is going to judge you poorly while they're all judging me.

In terms of price negotiations (haggling), there is a psychological concept called "anchoring". You throw out the first number and all subsequent numbers are compared to that number. This is the same idea. We've already set the humor standard pretty low at "boneless cheese sticks", so you can say the dumbest shit you want and, as long as it's not worse than my cheesy joke, it won't matter.

This is why, when you were a teenager and your dad took you and some friends out, your dad made corny jokes. He knew they were corny jokes. You and your friends un

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๐Ÿ‘ค︎ u/Permatato
๐Ÿ“…︎ May 18 2020
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My wife and I didn't want to have kids, so I had a vasectomy

But when we got home they were still there

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๐Ÿ‘ค︎ u/dohimer
๐Ÿ“…︎ Jun 11 2018
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An accidental pun

Setting: My partner and I are sitting on the couch watching the Leafs v Bruins hockey game

Background: my partner loves puns, LOVES them and makes like 20+ pun jokes a day. Iโ€™m horrible with puns and have made like two in my entire life.

Hereโ€™s what happened: Hockey game: Boston dude is on the ground, leafs dude is on top of him, looks like thereโ€™s going to be a fight

Me: looks like thereโ€™s a fight a-brewinโ€™

Partner: BRUIN! A-BRUIN (chuckles manically)

Me: damn, I just fell backwards right into that

Him: of course you didnโ€™t do it on purpose (still chuckling, high fives me)

I was so impressed with my accidental pun My first thought was - I have to share this on reddit! (Heโ€™s still chuckling, btw)

Edited for formatting (mobile user, yada yada)

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๐Ÿ‘ค︎ u/SuspiciousFun
๐Ÿ“…︎ Apr 14 2019
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I won a unique item at the Celebrity Origami charity auction.

The auction's goal was to raise money for Tourette syndrome research by selling origami figures made by famous celebrities. To highlight the purpose of the auction, the organization in charge asked all participating celebs to write a replacement of a naughty four-letter word most closely associated with the disorder.

For example, George Clooney's origami penguin said Fudge instead of the F-word.

Margot Robbie's paper flower said Beach instead of the B-word.

I bid on the origami made by Dwayne Johnson.

The Rock's paper scissors said Shoot.

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๐Ÿ‘ค︎ u/Roivas14
๐Ÿ“…︎ Jan 15 2019
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100 Paw-sitively Meow-nificent Cat Purr-ns Fur Mew to Use Whenev-fur Mew Need
  • Allow => A-meow
  • Apology => A-paw-logy
  • Appalling => A-paw-ling
  • Attitude => Cat-titude
  • Awesome => Paw-some / Claw-some
  • Awful => Claw-ful / Paw-ful
  • Because => Be-claws
  • Before => Be-fur
  • Bother => Bo-fur
  • Catastrophe => Cat-astrophe
  • Catastrophic => Cat-astrophic
  • Catch => Cat-ch
  • Clever => Claw-ver
  • Confusing => Con-fur-sing
  • Congratulations => Con-cat-ulations
  • Different => Dif-fur-rent
  • Disappearance => Disa-purr-ance
  • Familiar => Fur-miliar
  • Feeling => Feline
  • For => Fur
  • For real => Fur real
  • Forever => Fur-ever
  • Forget => Fur-get
  • Fortunate => Fur-tunate
  • Forward => Fur-ward
  • Friend => Fur-end
  • Furious => Fur-ious
  • Further => Fur-ther
  • Get or Got => Cat
  • Help me out => Help meow-t
  • History => Hiss-tory
  • Hysterical => Hiss-terical
  • Inferior => In-fur-ior
  • Kidding me => Kitten me
  • Konnichiwa => Konnichi-paw
  • Literally => Litter-ally
  • Literature => Litter-a-ture
  • Lost => Claw-st
  • Lying => Lion
  • Magnificent => Meow-nificent
  • Marvellous => Meow-velous
  • Minimum => Mew-nimum
  • Misery => Mew-sery
  • Moment => Mew-ment
  • Mountain => Meow-ntain
  • Move => Mew-v
  • Music => Mew-sic
  • Musician => Meow-sician
  • Never => Nev-fur
  • New => Mew
  • Now => Meow
  • Over => Ov-fur
  • Paper => Pay-purr
  • Pardon me => Paw-don me
  • Pause => Paws
  • Perfect => Purr-fect
  • Perhaps => Purr-haps
  • Permission => Purr-mission
  • Person => Purr-son
  • Personal => Purr-sonal
  • Persuasion => Purr-suasion
  • Places => Purr-laces
  • Please => Paw-lease
  • Portable => Paw-table
  • Positive => Paw-sitive
  • Possibility => Paw-sibility
  • Possibly => Paw-sibly
  • Precious => Purr-ecious
  • Prefer => Paw-fer
  • Preposterous => Pre-paw-sterous
  • Pretty => Purr-ty
  • Priceless => Purr-iceless
  • Prince => Purr-ince
  • Princess => Purr-incess
  • Puns => Purr-ns
  • Purpose => Purr-pose
  • Referring => Re-fur-ing
  • Respond => Res-paw-nd
  • Simple => Sim-paw-le
  • Suffer => Suf-fur
  • Superior => Su-purr-ior
  • Tale => Tail
  • Talent => Tail-ent
  • Tell => Tail
  • Thatโ€™s all => Catโ€™s all
  • Unfortunate => Un-fur-tunate
  • Very => Furry
  • Whenever => Whene-fur
  • Wonderful => Won-fur-ful
  • You => Mew
  • Apologize => A-paw-logize
  • First => Furr-st
  • How are you? => Meow are mew?
  • Morning => Meowrning
  • Phon
... keep reading on reddit โžก

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๐Ÿ‘ค︎ u/eyl327
๐Ÿ“…︎ Feb 01 2017
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