What’s a joke? It’s an element of surprise. You can make it brutal, a surprise like a shock, or something silly, and you can make it smart; with an insight, you get an idea, and something pops up in your mind. But, no matter how elevated it is, a joke has an element of surprise, by definition.
Now, do people like this kind of surprise? It’s not that clear!
My father likes to use a few jokes and constantly repeat them.
He also likes, at times, to nag people – to push them, to be a bit annoying, to insist.
The first time you see a joke – it might be funny.
The second time – it becomes a bit annoying.
If you have a relationship with someone and they don’t mind if they annoy you, the jokes can be even more annoying.
As a first conclusion of this text – if you repeat jokes a lot and tend not to mind if you annoy people, the jokes might become annoying.
Making fun of a person generally involves at least three persons – the person making the joke, the person who is being mocked, and the audience (one or more people). But in a one-to-one conversation, there are just two parties. There’s no one to laugh at the joke. The laughing party is missing from the situation. The result? There’s one bully and a victim, no one else.
A repeated joke is like an ad with the surprise element (the first time), but it annoys you. If you see the same ad five times, it might annoy you further.
There is a magazine called Dilema in Romania. They try to be funny. Instead of writing „Talk Show”, they say „Tâlc Show”. Instead of writing „Cu ochii-n 4”, they write „Cu ochii-n 3,14”. Instead of „Pe de altă parte”, they say „Pe de altă carte”. „Adio și n-am cuvinte” becomes „Audio și n-am cuvinte”. „Libertatea de expresie” => „Libertatea de impresie”. You get the picture.
The thing is, if you come to the website one time, it might be funny; it will make you think. If, on the other hand, like I do, read the magazine about once a week for years, the joke becomes annoying.
What’s a positive example? Google – They use doodles, which is a funny way to show their logo. But:
- It’s only once per month or so for a specific version of a search engine (so, on Google.ro, they have one or two per month; on Google.com, one or two per month, something like that).
- They work hard to make things nice, putting their heart and soul into it.
- Very importantly, they change things every time. Even for national holidays, they try to make something different each time, so there’s always an element of surprise.
If you change your logo or do something atypical a few times, it’s fine. However, if you do the same thing year after year, it cannot be enjoyable. For example, the Christmas logo has the same new graphic each year. Or on April 1st, they make the same kind of jokes.
You can see my logic in action with the Simpsons intro—they change it considerably each time; you know there’s an effort, and you always want to see what they came up with this time.
If a TV series has the same old intro each time, you’ll get bored and want to skip it.
In conclusion, If you want to annoy people, repeat your jokes and be the same with your „surprises” each time. If you want to delight your audience, make new jokes each time and vary things as much as you can.
If you have a website, don’t write „About Us” in funny ways „Who are we?”, „What do we do?”, „What’s our story?”, „Find out details on us”. Write as simply and as clearly as you can „About Us.” Don’t be creative when people want efficiency – get to the point, and don’t make people wonder, „What does the website mean by «What’s our story»?”. Always write „Contact” or „Contact Us”, instead of „Get in touch”, „Let’s be friends”, „Drop us a message”, or other creative things.
Don’t be creative with the menus.
I agree. This is harder to do than to say. I also often repeat jokes. But I’m working on it and quite aware of this.
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