Internet Humor

Internet humor can be defined broadly as any type of humorous interaction or performance that is manifest on the Internet. Although the Internet was initially developed as a serious means of transmitting academic and national-security-oriented information, from a very early stage it was clear that one of its main uses would be entertainment. And indeed, since the early 1990s, humor has been a dominant mode of communication in many Internet-based environments. It is prevalent on websites, in e-mails, and on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Internet humor encompasses both interactional/situational/spontaneous humor, in which people react to each other humorously in settings such as forums and bulletin boards, and “pass-along” humor, which includes artifacts such as jokes, funny photos, and videos that are diffused ...