In news that will surprise no-one who’s attempted HILARIOUS impromptu stand up routine after a wine or six, booze does make us funnier. For the first couple of drinks at least. After that we’re about as amusing as cystitis at a festival.
The truth-universally-acknowledged-in-drinking-circles came from new book *The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny. *It tracks the findings of psychology Professor Peter McGraw and journalist Joel Warner who wanted to find out if drunk people actually came up with better jokes. So they roped in the Creative Team at advertising agency Grey New York (who we’ve lazily replaced with The Cast Of Mad Men in our heads) and sent them out for a night’s drinking. They had to take it in turns to come up with a gag, and then have another drink.
After each joke, they had to judge their hammered-ness (from sober to shit-faced) and their funny-ness (from slightly amusing to hilarious). Their efforts were later rated by an entirely sober panel of judges.
Two to three drinks seemed to be enough to make people funnier - loosening their inhibitions. However, any more than that and the participants started to lose a sense of what was actually funny, and what was plain offensive. ‘As people became more intoxicated, they thought they were funnier, but a sober audience didn’t see it that way,’ Warner told The Atlantic. One of the final jokes (after five drinks) involved a Venn diagram with ‘Cancer’ in one circle and ‘unpoppable pimple’ in another. Anyone else dying to know what the punchline was?
So here’s what we’ll be taking away from that study: 1. Only be drunk around drunk people; 2. Never go to a stand-up comedy night sober; 3. Never do a Venn diagram when you’re pissed. Life lessons from The Debrief, over and out.
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Picture: Rory DCS** **
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.