Kilmartin: In this year of our Lord 2023, 420 jokes can be funny if the person acknowledges how hacky they are. Elon seems to think they’re funny on their own, which is embarrassing.

But experts caution that there’s a vast gulf between making people laugh and truly mastering the nuances of human humor. Humor can be subtle, said Christian F. Hempelmann, a computational linguistics ...

Several comics sink into an indulgence they can’t afford. Comedy doesn’t have to be only about jokes, but when it stops being funny, there had better be a good reason.

After Shane Gillis joked about Down syndrome on “Saturday Night Live,” writer s.e. smith says jokes about disability aren’t off-limits, but who tells them matters.

In 2005, the History Channel dipped into the world of comedy documentaries with a two-hour special, History of the Joke, structured around the idea of looking for the world’s best joke.

Is it funny? I don’t think so. Nonetheless, it’s a joke. Or what Jesse David Fox, in his compendious, deeply considered, provoking, and rather dizzying new Comedy Book, calls a “joke-joke.” ...

A joke can fail in one of two ways: It can be too benign, and therefore boring, or it can be too much of a violation, and therefore offensive. To be funny, a joke has to land in that sweet spot ...