When Do Jokes Stop Being Funny?

Have you ever wondered why it’s so hard to get people to admit they’re wrong? Why when you’re having an argument with someone, and refute their every point with facts and evidence they will still refuse to admit their beliefs are false? I’ll tell you why: facts don’t change our minds one bit. As humans we like to think our existence is based on reason and logical thinking, but this is simply not true. Neuroscientists have known the power of the anchoring heuristic for decades, and there have been dozens upon dozens of studies that corroborate this idea that we resist facts. The why is complicated and has to do primarily with humans evolving to maintain social cohesion and snuff out any “troublemakers.” The net effect, however, is that once a percept is formed, it is extremely difficult to change. In fact, when evidence is provided that contradicts our beliefs a backlash effect has been documented, where people become even more resistant, or even hostile. This has become especially poignant recently in relation to politics, where people engage in heated arguments about differing political ideologies, tearing apart families at dinner tables on Thanksgiving and Christmas across America. 

Beyond family squabbles, however, this can have far greater and more insidious effects. For example, what happens when a propaganda machine with a huge influence distributes lies as new information or breaking news? Or even worse, what happens when someone with hundreds of thousands of followers’ posts satire material as a joke and people actually believe it? This is exactly what Christopher Blair is doing on his Facebook page. He believes he is catching his intended audience looking like fools, but all he is doing is radicalizing them. The followers of his page integrate this new information he puts out as fact, regardless of how ridiculous it may seem because it aligns with their anchored views, merely feeding their conformation bias as a result. And he believes of his “gotcha” moments where he reveals the falsity of his post, he is making people understand the error of their ways. Let me tell you a secret: he isn’t. Regardless of how many facts he provides about how Chelsea Clinton wasn’t even at the White House that that day, the damage is done. So I ask you, are his jokes, his messing with people many of us like to poke fun at, still funny?