“What is brown and sticky?”

“A stick!”

Carolina O’Donnell, who goes by her nickname, Coca, enjoys performing jokes all the time. Every single time I speak to her, she tells me a new joke she has heard or discovered. She thinks jokes deemed as lame are particularly entertaining and humorous just because they are very lame. The joke above is one of her favorite lame jokes. It is one of her favorite jokes because, as Coca stated, “It’s so ridiculously lame that you can’t help but laugh. All things considered, there really isn’t enough laughter in this world, so we should take it where we get it, even if the joke is so lame that it makes you cry, too.” She tends to use the joke as an icebreaker upon meeting someone, or in conversation with friends. She says she also sometimes interjects “it into random moments, just to add a bit of spice.” She did not learn this from her surroundings or a friend or family member. In fact, what I find most interesting is that she seeks out these jokes; she actually wants to acquire this kind of knowledge. She went on a lame joke archive website and found it. She concedes, “Lame, I know.” I find it interesting, surprising, and humorous that she looked the joke up on a website because I did not expect that to be her source. Also, no one has ever admitted to going on a lame joke archive website to me before.

I completely agree that the joke is lame, and I completely agree that the fact it is lame is what makes it humorous. When she told me the joke, I could not help but groan and chuckle a little bit. I think that if it makes someone laugh or even just smile, it is a joke worth telling. It is clear that other people think it is a joke worth telling because it appears in many published works. For instance, it appears on page 126 of Kelly Link’s book Stranger Things Happen.

I did not actually know that lame joke archive websites exist, though I cannot say that their existence is a surprise. When she told me her source, I actually got curious and looked up some of these lame joke archives.

I think the fact Coca tells these jokes tells me and everyone else something very important about her. It tells me and everyone else that humor is very important to her; she does not take herself too seriously. She identifies herself as a facetious person and shows this to everyone through her choice to perform these admittedly lame jokes. I find it fascinating that even though it embarrasses her to tell these jokes, even though she herself thinks the action of looking up lame jokes is in fact lame, she still looks them up, admits she looks them up, and tells the jokes.

This joke also just reflects what we consider funny in our culture. In other societies and cultures, they might think the joke is not funny at all. They might think it is lame and simply lame, not lame to the point of being funny. People are able to define or identify certain things about our culture through the types of jokes we perform and find funny.

Annotation: Link, Kelly. Stranger Things Happen. Brooklyn, NY: Small Beer Press, 2001.

“An old bull and a young bull are sitting on a mountain and they see a whole bunch of cows in a pasture. The young bull says to the old bull, ‘Hey, let’s run down and fuck one of them.’ And the old bull says, ‘No, let’s walk down there and fuck all of them.’”

Before Aaron left his home in Las Vegas to go to college, his father gave him this piece of advice about women. Aaron’s father used this piece of advice as a way to impart his values to his son. It is a joke, but he meant it mostly seriously, thus it is not a joke to Aaron’s father. According to Aaron, the lesson his father meant to impart is that girls are nothing to fuss over; essentially girls have no value. Girls are simply there to have sexual intercourse with. His father wanted Aaron to see that having sex with girls is not a conquest; it is just something a man does. Aaron’s dad told Aaron right before he left for college because Aaron’s grandfather told Aaron’s father right before HE left for college. Aaron stressed that he does not actually believe this, and that he is in fact embarrassed his father said something to him like that. He stressed that although his father did not mean it as a joke, to Aaron, this is DEFINITELY a joke. He repeats this joke to others on random occasions when something reminds him of it simply because he finds it amusing. In his eyes, he is performing and passing on a joke to friends. For example, he may perform this item when one of his friends is complaining about troubles about a girl just to lighten the mood with something he considers a joke. He said he will tell his own son in the future and he will explain that it was something he was told, but it is not a philosophy to live by. He says he will use it as an illustration to explain to his son why “grandpa is a little bit troubled/crazy.” Aaron said that when his own son asks him, “Dad, what’s wrong with grandpa?” He will show his son just how “wrong” grandpa is with his father’s philosophy on life.

I completely took this as a joke when Aaron told me. He had to repeat several times that his dad did not intend this to come across as a joke. With that being said, I think it is very wrong to look at girls this way. Women are to be respected; they are not to be viewed as just something to “fuck.” Also, women are not a “whole bunch of cows.” A “whole bunch of cows” implies that women are uniform and similar. This is an incorrect assumption. One cannot lump all women into one category. I do not like that in this joke, women are viewed as powerless; men are the ones wielding decision-making power. While I disagree with Aaron’s father, I do agree with Aaron. I think it is just a joke and is not something for men to live by or aspire to live by. I admit it is amusing and I did laugh when Aaron performed this piece of folklore for me. I just think it is only amusing as long as one remembers it is a joke and only a joke. Admittedly, I might pass this joke on to other people as kind of a way of mocking of chauvinistic thinking.

For people who take this joke seriously, it could mean they identify men as the truly more powerful sex. They could identify men as rightful decision-makers. In fact, they could just see women as objects to be used.

For people who understand this is completely a joke and not a suggestion for a lifestyle, it means they realize within themselves that women are not objects used for men’s pleasure. People who understand this is a joke actually DO respect women. For instance, the fact that Aaron took his father’s words and interpreted them as a joke shows that he respects women and understands that what his father suggests life is like is not reality.