this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
691 points (98.7% liked)

memes

16728 readers
2584 users here now

Community rules

1. Be civilNo trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politicsThis is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world

3. No recent repostsCheck for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No botsNo bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/Ads/AI SlopNo advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.

A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment

Sister communities

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] tauren@lemm.ee 64 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I wish people stopped putting punchlines before the setup.

[–] Slovene@feddit.nl 19 points 2 months ago

It's like putting Descartes before the whores.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 months ago

It really does decrease the effect of the bit.

[–] Goltbrook@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago

I think in this case it works well enough.

Most comedy works by subverting expectations. And sometimes you can shift the burden of establishing these expectations to the audience by offering an unclear and vague statement, that later is revealed to be the punchline to the joke.

There is a certain risk involved because how well the joke works on an individual basis is a question of how imaginative or unimaginative the audience is (depending on how the joke is constructed).

A joke that relies on lack of imagination basically turns the audience into their own straight man. While the joke that relies on imagination banks on you being the straight man to the flights of fancy of your audience.