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The Secret of Comedy: Or, The Necktie Theory of Comedy

Little did I know when I first started performing comedy that the secret to writing jokes was hanging occasionally around my neck.

I have often searched for the secret to comedy, that elusive formulation that explains the fundamental basis of all jokes.  Who knew when I began that search that it would lead me to - of all things - the necktie.

Think about the necktie for a minute.  What’s the point of one?  When I was growing up, I certainly didn’t know: my parents never explained it to me - they just made me wear one.  I was a boy and boys wear ties.  They don’t always wear ties (thankfully), but if the event was really serious or formal, they’d have to if they didn’t want to be embarrassed.  I wasn’t quite sure what the point of a tie was at that point, but I did know that tie = male + formal.

But what about the tie itself - that is, a piece of specifically-shaped silk tied in a specific way - is inherently male or formal?  I knew what a tie meant, but I sure as heck didn’t know why a tie meant it.

I can tell you the why, but I might sound like my parents.  Alright, here goes: a tie means “male” and “formal” because I said so.  Actually, it’s not just me - it’s because we all said so.  If enough people agree - society - on something, it becomes part of our subjective reality.  If we all agree that tie means “male” and “formal,” then that’s what a tie means until we all agree otherwise.

Of course, subjective reality is not objective reality.  The law of gravity, for example, is objectively real; it exists whether we agree it exists or not.  It doesn’t matter how many people think I can fly - if I jump off a building, I will fall screaming towards the ground.  Our subjective reality, then, consists in large part of the values and significance we collectively choose to assign to our objective reality (one example: deciding that certain little green pieces of paper should be “money”).

The reason then that contemplating the meaning of neckties is so confusing is because there is nothing objectively masculine or formal about neckties - being masculine and formal are subjective associations we arbitrarily decided upon at some point in time.  This is not to say that these associations should be taken lightly - they are what culture and civilization are made of.

So what does all this have to do with comedy?

The key here is that people often confuse the subjective for the objective.  When I say someone is “beautiful,” I’m not making an objective statement - that person is not inherently beautiful, as beauty is defined by a set of arbitrary and culturally-determined set of standards.  But it is this confusion - believing that someone is beautiful objectively - that leads to conflict.  For example, imagine a beautiful supermodel from America visiting a remote African tribe.  If she forgets that she is only “beautiful” in the subjective, arbitrarily-defined sense, she will be extremely shocked when she is shunned by the tribe as a horrifically ugly monster.

This is the root of all comedy.  We so often take the subjective reality for granted that we begin to believe that it is objective.  It is the comedian’s job to remind us about how much our perceived reality is subjective.  He or she reminds us that we as people make completely arbitrary rules that shape this subjective reality.  It is when we forget this fact that we forget that it is entirely within our power to change those subjective rules and create a better reality.

For example, racism is the result of a subjective belief - that members of certain races were inferior to members of other races - being held by someone as objectively true.  Changing these kind of negative views requires the recognition that these views are subjective - that is, not based on objective (unchangeable) reality.

Now that we’ve established the “Necktie Theory of Comedy” (that is, that all jokes are based on the confusion of the subjective and objective), we can use this theory as a lens through which to examine humor and find the core or crux of any good joke.  Here’s a quick example:

“My mom said she learned how to swim when someone took her out in the lake and threw her off the boat.  I said, ‘Mom, they weren’t trying to teach you how to swim.’” - Paula Poundstone

The crux of this joke is the conflict between the mother’s subjective view of reality (“They’re trying to help me swim!”) and the objective reality (someone was trying to kill her).

See?  It’s so simple to find a joke’s foundation once you’ve recognized its “necktie.”  In writing new jokes, we should always seek to discover the “necktie” and to emphasize those elements of the joke that make clear how subjectivity and objectivity are being confused.  Once found, the task of clarifying and strengthening the funny parts of a joke becomes that much easier.  Writing humor is a difficult task (the reason succeeding at it is so rewarding!), but the Necktie Theory of Comedy can help as a useful and trusty tool in the comedy writer’s toolbox.