Now that I had my subject to ridicule (Donald Trump), I had to learn how to apply satire to the facts.  However at the start of the year I had no idea how humour worked.  All I knew was that surprise was a factor like saying unexpected things and I could judge the level of humour of an idea by how much I laughed at it myself.  After reading various essays and articles which are linked 3 posts previous to this one under the Donald Trump websites, I learned a little bit about how humour works.


There are currently 3 humour theories.


1) Superiority Theory
2) Relief Theory
3) Incongruity Theory (Dominant Theory)


Superiority Theory
This theory says that we laugh at unfortunate things which happen to others that are not currently happening to us, like someone slipping on a banana peel and falling.  Or all those epic fail compilations on YouTube we've all come to love and adore!  There is a problem with this theory though.  It doesn't always apply.  When we see homeless people or orphaned children, we don't laugh at them.  So while this theory has some merit, it doesn't explain everything we find funny.


Relief Theory
Relief theory says an amusing reaction is the result of built up feelings within us which no longer apply to a situation.  An example would be if a friend is telling us about money they sent to a relative abroad who recently passed away.  We build up empathetic feelings for the person.  If they go on to say they wasted money on them because they can't use it anymore, we see they don't care about the relative and they're heartless.  However we built up feelings of empathy which don't apply anymore so they're released through laughter or amusement.


Incongruity Theory
This is the most accepted theory today.  This theory says that laughter is triggered from interrupting our natural thinking pattern and presenting us with an outcome we never expected.  An example would be a Frankie Boyle joke.  "I got a book on cooking road kill the other day.  I tried one of the recipes and it was delicious!  But I still don't know what to do with his bike...."  The incongruity of this joke is when he mentions road kill, our natural thinking pattern thinks of birds, badgers or fox's etc.  However this thinking process is interrupted by the fact that he mentioned "bike" meaning the thing he killed was a human!  Now he goes from cleaning the road of a carcass and making use of it to being a murderer, a cannibal and a sociopath!  These are not outcomes we would expect from the joke but this surprise of incongruity is why we laugh.