[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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👤︎ u/Permatato
📅︎ May 18 2020
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So this is a pretty long joke...

So there were these two high schoolers, both madly in love. they were like the most well known couple around the school. so a couple months go by after they've began dating and they both see a flier in the hallway. it talks about the up coming school dance which is taking place next week. so naturally, the guy asks the girl to come with him. she says yes and the planing begins. he gets home that night and surfs the entire web for a relatively cheap limo company with still have decent amenities. after ordering that, he heads off to the local tailor and gets a suit made for in his girlfriends favourite colour, blue. then the week passes and he preparing to go and pick her up, so he picks up the flowers he bought her earlier that day and heads out to the now parked limo. he gets in and orders the driver to her house. he gets there and gives her the flowers. they go out for dinner at a very fancy place, him paying for everything. they both finally get to the school hall and head in to see all their friends. they have a wonderful night, dancing, having photos taken, they both really just enjoyed themselves. they even got elected prom king and queen! so the night is coming to an end and they both decide to sit down and have a rest. the girls feeling a bit thirsty so the guy heads over to the refreshments table to get her a drink. it's pretty quite there as in this joke, there isnt a punchline. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

👍︎ 2
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📅︎ Mar 12 2019
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