|
I think jokes ground us to reality by interrupting the logic of ideas. The effects of people spinning and iterating on ideas without having them reconciled to humor or truth are pretty obvious. A great example is emo/goth kids (I was one) who construct and live-by the rules of a narrative fantasy governed by how well it reinforces an (aesthetic) filter on our reflection of self. We were pretty much the poster children for absent and unfunny fathers. Also, laughter is involuntary. I take humor very seriously because all humor implies the necessary existence of truth, where every joke is a kind of figure/ground relationship against it. Dad jokes are an essential education that uses paradox and collisions in language to demonstrate to kids there is a self and experience moored to truth that is separate from the artifacts of language and narrative. Our self and ego also speak in language, and if there's one thing dads do, it's moderate your ego. The link between humor and aggression in the article is interesting, especially because a father who lacks a certain level of natual masculine aggression is going to be percieved as insufficiently powerful, competent, or trustworthy, or lacking in the credibility to help ground a kids personality and identity to fixtures of truth and reality. An inability to make Dad jokes could be an example of that. Personally, my pet theory is language begins mainly as a tool for mothers to keep their children safe, so the axioms of it are almost all necessarily negative, as it's initially used to warn of danger or disgust and shame, whereas love and affection are expressed physically. However, it means the self that is an artifact of language is also rooted in those things unless some dad shows you the limits of them and of how seriously you should take your narrative self. When we think of a toxic male, it usually means is he is a shameless bro who doesn't respond to expressions of disgust or threats of witholding approval, and he usually learned it from another man, usually his father, who was probably pretty funny as well. If you pay attention, Dad jokes diffuse neuroticism, anxiety, shame, and the remnants of the levers for those necessary warnings we got as toddlers and are arguably necessary to us develop as men and women. |
I don't think dad jokes relate to masculinity that way. I think they are more a display of non-masculinity from someone who is expected to be masculine. In a way they reflect the softening of masculinity that comes with turning your attention away from masculine achievement and towards nurturing. You get less prideful and more goofy; less tuned into adult reality and more tuned into kid reality. Instead of trying to be the most grown up grown-up in the room, you embrace childish thinking so you can meet your kids where they are, and you have so much fun that you decide to keep visiting, say, six-year-old logic even years after your kids have grown out of it. I think that's why people find dad jokes endearing, because they show someone violating the norms of adult (and masculine) dignity for the sake of making their family smile. Unlike other humor, a dad joke doesn't demonstrate intelligence, social dominance, or even much social acuity.