Tag Archives: Joke

A second ___ has hit the ___ – 9/11 Jokes

Age: 21

Text: “A fourteenth button has hit the north jar.”

Informant’s Context: Informant explains, “It has to follow this structure, ‘a second ___ has hit the ___.’ I think George Bush’s chief of staff came up with this one. The internet loves joking about tragedies now that a long time has passed. So for example, when you sent me a video of someone putting a fourteenth button inside of a jar and there was a second jar in the background, I responded, “a fourteenth button has hit the north jar.” The joke kind of writes itself, which is why it’s funny.”

Analysis: 

9/11 jokes like this one often follow a familiar and formulaic structure and push the boundaries of what is considered socially acceptable, which is typical of folklore humor. Because even figures such as George Bush’s chief of staff have made 9/11 jokes, this type of humor can begin to feel more socially acceptable. If someone in a high government position can joke about it, the average person may feel more comfortable doing the same. Humor can also make tragic events feel less immediate or overwhelming. As more time passes, these events become less shocking, making it easier for people to find humor in them.

Pumpkin Head Joke

Age: 20s

(1) text

Informant: A man walks into a bar with a giant pumpkin for a head. The bartender says, “Hey, you’re walking around with a giant pumpkin for a head. How come you have a giant pumpkin for a head? The man with a giant pumpkin head sits down at the bar and he says, “Well, it’s a long story. But I’ll tell it to you. You’re not going to believe this. But the story starts with, I found a genie in a bottle.” Bartender goes, “Then what happened?” He goes, “Well, I found this genie, and he came out of the bottle and he says, ” you freed me from this bottle, and I’m offering you three wishes.” The bartender is amazed. He’s going, “Well, okay, what happened next?” He goes, well, then, for my first wish, I wish for the most money in the world. I wished for like 100,000 billion dollars. Bartender’s like, oh my God, what happened? He’s like, well, I looked at my bank account. You’re not going to believe what was there. It was $100,000 billion dollars. I was the richest man in the world. The bartender was just floored by this. He goes, “For my second wish, I wish for like the most gorgeous woman in the world to be my wife. Not only someone who was attractive, but someone who could challenge me and I could fall in love with and stay in love. The bartender was like, okay, well, then what happened? He goes, well, then you’re not going to believe who showed up.” The most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen. And she was smart and talented and funny, and she challenged me, and she proposed to me on the spot, and we’ve been married ever since. Bartender goes, ” oh, my God, this is an amazing story. What happened next? What happened to your for your third wish? And he goes, “Well my third wish is where I really blew it.” Bartender goes, well, what happened?” He goes, “Well, I wished for like a giant pumpkin head.” 

(2) context

The informant explains that growing up in New York, this joke was a common occurrence at family gatherings. The first time he was told it was by an uncle at a family dinner. He later accounts hearing it told by Super Dave Osborn and Norm McDonald.

(3) analysis

The joke follows a traditional structure, starting with “A man walks into a bar…” The joke subverts expectations with the added element of a pumpkin on his head. What makes the joke effective and ultimately gets a laugh from the audience is the long, drawn-out explanation that builds anticipation from the audience as they wait to hear the punch line. They expect something wild to have happened for the man to end up in this position. Instead, they are met with the most obvious answer. The punchline then makes the joke an anti-joke of sorts.

That’s What She Said

Background on Informant:

My informant is a friend I went to high school with, who would be considered a millennial. He is in his mid-thirties, works as a longshoreman, and spends a lot of his free time playing video games. He is also a fan of The Office. Since high school, he has regularly used a phrase that can turn an ordinary sentence into a sexual one, commonly known as “that’s what she said.”

Text:

Interviewer: Alright,  so you have been saying that’s what she said since high school. Where did you hear it first, and what does it mean?

Informant: *laughs* It’s just when someone says something normal and you turn it into something sexual, like if someone says this is really hard, you just go, that’s what she said.

Interviewer: Where did you hear it first?

Informant: The Office….. or school, but I know that the Office definitely made it stick.

Interviewer: So you heard it a lot in school too?

Informant: Oh yeah in the early 2000’s everyone was saying it.

Interviewer: Do you still use it a lot?

Informant: Yeah, its almost like an addiction now, if I hear anything even remotely sexual, its like a compulsion at this point.

Interviewer: Do you still hear other people say it?

Informant: Yeah, but not nearly as much, now when someone else says it, I get excited, *chuckles* like we are long lost family or something.

Interviewer: So when someone else knows your phrase or joke you get excited?

Informant: Yeah, its like we are on the same team or something.

Analysis:

This joke or phrase is verbal folklore that relies on shared cultural knowledge. The Main group for this phrase is millennials, as it became widely popular through the hit television show The Office, although that is not its origin. The show made it more popular and then it was repeated and shared through peer-to-peer or horizontal transmission. He describes the phrase as a compulsion, like an itch he must scratch, this demonstrates how repeated use of folkloric terms can embed themselves into regular speech. The joke relies on timing and capitalizing on the opportunity to turn a simple sentence into a sexual one. He mentioned that when he hears someone else say it, he gets excited, which shows how the phrase causes a sense of connection or cohesion within the folkloric group. Although it isn’t used as much, it still holds meaning within the groups that still use it. This is a really great example of how something that started mass marketed ended up working its way into a small niche group of people who now use it.

Chinese Proverb

Text:

“Dogs can’t change their habit of eating shit.”

Context:

This text was collected from a Chinese international student. The phrase is a well-known Chinese proverb, used across generations and regions, and the informant learned it through everyday family and peer interaction rather than any formal context. The proverb is often used spontaneously in casual conversation to describe someone whose behavior has repeatedly disappointed them. It functions as a sharp, often humorous way of complaining about someone’s character, as the phrase implies that no matter how many chances a person is given, their fundamental nature will still reveal itself. The proverb is vulgar in its imagery, which likely contributes to its rhetorical force and memorability. Moreover, it was shared in English translation, meaning some of the original linguistic texture of the Mandarin phrasing may not fully carry over.

Analysis:

This proverb exemplifies core folkloric features as it is a fixed phrase carrying metaphorical wisdom, transmitted informally across generations without a traceable single author. Its vulgarity is rhetorically strong — the shock of the imagery makes it memorable and forceful, which is also how oral traditions like this one are sustained across time. The proverb reflects folklore’s capacity to encode community beliefs and values: embedded in this saying is a culturally shared assumption that human nature is fundamentally fixed, offering a folk framework for making sense of repeated disappointment. This connects to the course’s discussion of folk speech as vernacular authority. More specifically, deploying a traditional proverb rather than plain speech transforms the speaker’s frustration from an individualized emotion state to a sense of collective, time-tested wisdom, making the claim feel less like personal opinion and more like cultural truth.




A joke about calling Shanghainese young masters

Text:
“We were at San Gabriel yesterday, and my friends joked to the coffee shop ‘Cotti Coffee’ that Shanghainese young masters like me won’t like it.”

Context:

This text was collected from a Chinese international student who is originally from Shanghai. The piece emerged during a casual outing at a San Gabriel shopping area, where the informant’s friends spontaneously used the term “Shanghainese young master” as a joke directed at her. “Cotti Coffee” is a budget-friendly Chinese chain, which also means that it is significantly cheaper than other premium brands like Starbucks, which is also the butt of the joke. The term “Shanghainese young master” originated on Chinese social media platforms, where increased information flow made regional economic differences newly visible and discussable. It is used mockingly to describe Shanghainese people who, having grown up in one of China’s wealthiest cities, carry unconscious class privilege. This privilege is demonstrated in this case around consumption habits and taste. The informant received the joke good-naturedly, suggesting she recognizes herself in the stereotype.

Analysis:

This piece shows the way folk speech born on the internet negotiates class identity within a folk group. The term “Shanghainese young master” exemplifies internet folklore’s characteristic of rapid diffusion and variation: the joke emerges from online discussions of regional inequality and is incorporated into in-person social interaction, demonstrating the collapse of boundaries between digital and oral communication in the post-modern era. Moreover, the jokes operate through Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, or the idea that class position is not just economic but embodied in unconscious tastes and preferences (in this case, coffee consumption). Choosing or refusing a budget coffee chain becomes an involuntary performance of class identity, revealing what the informant has internalized as “normal” without conscious awareness. The joke also shows the way material culture functions as a marker of group identity: the coffee brand is a folk symbol through which insiders negotiate belonging, difference, and hierarchy.