An inside joke (also known as an in joke or in-joke) is a joke whose humour is clear only to those people who are "inside" a group. An inside joke works to build community, at the expenses of outsiders. Part of the power of an inside joke is that its audience knows that there are those who do not understand the joke.[1] Inside jokes are cryptic allusions to shared common ground that act as triggers. Only those who have shared the common ground provide an appropriate response.[2] An inside joke can be a subtext, where someone will suddenly start laughing at something that is unspoken (usually to apologize for doing so, stating that what they were laughing at was an inside joke).[3] In high school culture in the United States, inside jokes are employed by all groups, but are especially characteristic of groups of children that others view to be weird or deviant, most notably nerds and geeks. The point of the joke is not humour, but recognition as a member of the group. One is only a full member of a group if one "gets" the joke, even if the joke is based upon memories of events that one was not present at.[4]
References
- ^ Paul Brooks Duff (2001). Who Rides the Beast?: Prophetic Rivalry and the Rhetoric of Crisis in the Churches of the Apocalypse. Oxford University Press, 81. ISBN 019513835X.
- ^ Randy Y. Hirokawa and Marshall Scott Poole (1996). Communication and Group Decision Making. Sage Publications Inc, 96. ISBN 076190462X.
- ^ Ben Tousey (2003). Acting Your Dreams: Use Acting Techniques to Interpret Your Dreams. Ben Tousey, 118–119. ISBN 1414005423.
- ^ Murray Milner (2004). Freaks, Geeks, and Cool Kids: American Teenagers, Schools, and the Culture of Consumption. Routledge, 49. ISBN 0415948304.
