I think humour is a very personal thing for everyone. It doesn’t matter if you are autistic or neurotypical, we all experience it differently. What one person finds amusing another person might not even raise a smile at, or could even be offended.
However, logically I think that if your mind works differently, so that you process the world differently, then it makes sense to me that the way you understand humour may also be different. This is seen in many autistic people when they misinterpret jokes or don’t understand them. Jokes and comedy are delivered not just by words, but tone of voice, body language and timing. These are all things that can be misjudged by some autistic people who might have impairments in social interaction. In respect to jokes, not everyone has the skills of a comedian and therefore are unable to deliver them well, which makes it even harder to find the joke amusing. This can be another hindrance to some autistic folk trying to understand humour.
I find that I can misunderstand certain types of comedy whilst I process the joke. I normally get to what is amusing in the end though, it might just take a bit more time. Although generally I enjoy comedy and have no real issues with it. I love stand up comedy and have a huge collection of stand up comedian DVDs and have attended many stand up shows despite the anxiety that attending an event with a crowd can bring.
It is easy to attend the smaller more personal venues then the larger crowded, sell out arenas, that comedians often perform at when they become more popular. At a stand up show I feel often that I automatically go into an autistic “masking” mode laughing at every joke, whether or not I find it funny, because everyone else is laughing and I don’t want to appear odd. I think my genuine laughs are more pronounced at smaller venues or watching a comedian on the TV.
I also find my appreciation of humour is more natural around other autistic people. I attend a monthly autistic support group and we often discuss humour. I think the sort of humour that really appeals to me is word play based. For example, “Two birds are sitting on a perch, one says “Can you smell fish?””. I find most people at the group share the same views on comedy and also love word play. These is what leaves me to theorise that the autistic mind might appreciate humour in a different way to neurotypicals. Granted though this is just a small group in which I have formed my own thoughts on and does not reflect the entire autistic spectrum. It is just a personal observation and it’s up to you to make up your own views if in a similar situation. How do people on the spectrum interpret comedy?
A common discussion that I find hilarious and is often discussed in the group with much merriment, is what I have come to term as “signage” comedy. These are everyday signs that are not intended to be funny but I find highly amusing. The other autistics in my group are of the same opinion and we often collect and share these at our meetings. So what do I mean by “signage” comedy?
Imagine you are in a shopping centre and you see a door with the words “Baby Changing Facility”. The sign is telling you that this is a room where you can go and change a baby’s nappy/diaper and do any other “baby maintenance” (you can tell here I don’t have any kids!). To me though I read the sign as meaning you can take your baby into this room and literally change it, swap it, for another baby. This is funny, even now writing about it makes me smile. Another example is one I found in service station offering the words “HGV Shower” on a door. My immediate thought is “You would never get a HGV lorry through that door!” and I made myself chuckle for a good few minutes. A picture of it is at the start of this blog….
I did do an experiment where I showed a few neurotypical acquaintances a few pictures of these kind of signs to see if they smiled or even laughed. The most I got was a puzzled “What?”. Whereas a few fellow autistic acquaintances understood immediately where I was coming from. Another favourite I was told once, was about a road sign which read “Warning cats eyes removed from this point” Ask yourself is that funny? I can imagine somebody who is trying to take her cat to the vets having to take a long detour because she doesn’t want her favourite cat to be blinded!
I feel that this humour should fall into the category of punnery, although there is no actual “pun” in the wording. I do enjoy word based humour though and there are two great comedians who are masters/geniuses at it. The first is Tim Vine whose puns are legendary. He even has had records for the most jokes told in a set amount of time. The second is a personal favourite of mine, Gary Delaney, who I got the opportunity to see at a small venue in Derby this year, before lock down happened. Again his style of humour is punnery based and he plays on words through observation. His delivery and quick witted jokes made me feel at ease at the venue, which being autistic is always a bit overwhelming. Mainly due to being in a crowd with all the extra sensory issues. I had a much needed great time and I felt safe there, all thanks to his humour and stage performance. He obviously loves what he does, so thanks Gary! You gave me a great memory, in which I can remember your jokes and cheer myself up when I need to.
So to finish I will just say what I began with, humour is a very personal thing and we all experience it differently. Which I guess is the reason why there are many answers to the old joke……“Why did the chicken cross the road?”