Is technology funny? It’s a question worth considering for a moment. The reason I ask is that a joke based on a pun that involves smartphones has scooped the top prize in the coveted (it is, isn’t it?) Dave TV Funniest Joke Of The Fringe 2015.
The joke, told by Darren Walsh, goes as follows: “I just deleted all the German names off my phone. It’s Hans free.”
“Boom boom”, as Basil Brush would say.
Considering how widespread technology has become, especially computers and smartphones, it’s remarkable how few jokes there are about them or that involve them. There have always been jokes that people within the industry tell (the infamous Bill Gates heaven and hell one, for example*) but very few of them have travelled outside the IT sphere.
For good reason, because they are usually too niche to appeal to large numbers of the general populace. For an example of what I’m talking about, you can look through the 221 IT jokes at this site, although the frog one has made it slightly further out of the environs of IT than many of the others.
Is there a reason for the paucity of IT jokes in general circulation? It probably doesn’t help that so much of IT is perceived to be deadly dull, geeky and nerdy by so many people looking at it from the outside. The vocabulary doesn’t do much to raise a chuckle either. Jargon isn’t just the enemy of understanding, it’s frequently the enemy of wit too.
A man walks into a data centre
In IT’s defence, it’s probably worth noting that many jokes are still set in the same locations that they’ve always been, such as the classroom, doctor’s surgery, church, bar or the bedroom. It would be a bit of a stretch to transport them to the data centre, populate them with admins and programmers and expect them to be remotely amusing. Or comprehensible.
Walsh’s joke is a technology joke in that it makes play with a phrase we associate with mobile phones but it’s easy to understand and the pun it makes is instantly recognisable to many people. That’s unlikely to be the same for many so-called IT jokes.
That’s not to say that some of them aren’t funny if you know what they’re talking about but, as with so much else in the IT industry, you have to be in the know to understand what it’s about. And as with so much else in the IT industry, it’s completely incomprehensible to everyone else.
(*Bill Gates ends up in purgatory and God decides he should be allowed to choose whether to go to heaven or hell. So Gates steps into the lift and goes down to hell first where he steps out onto a fabulous sandy beach in blazing sunshine with thousands of beautiful women splashing around in the waves. “This is great,” he thinks, “but I can’t wait to see heaven now.”
He goes up in the lift to heaven but steps out into a place where angels strum on their harps in the clouds and people sing heavenly hymns. While it’s pleasant enough, Gates can’t help feeling a bit disappointed
“So where do you want to go?,” God asks.
“Hell, please,” Gates replies.
So he goes down in the lift but when the doors open, he steps out into a terrible place of much wailing and gnashing of teeth where thousands of tormented souls are trapped, shrieking in the flames and devils run among them jabbing them with pitchforks.
“This is terrible,” Gates says. “How could this be?,” he asks one of the devils, “it’s nothing like you showed me.”
And the devil replies: “Ah yes, but that was the beta version.”)
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