In-joke
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An in-joke or inside joke is a joke whose humor is clear only to those people who are "inside" a group that would allow them to have some prior knowledge (not known by the whole population) that makes the joke humorous.
A typical group that may be able to understand a specially-constructed in-joke could be:
- a nuclear family or an extended family
- a group of friends
- people of the same vocation or profession
- residents of a particular town or region
- students and/or alumni of a particular school, college or university
- viewers of a particular television series or cult movie
- readers of a particular book or series of books
- users of the same computer or computer software
- members of an Internet forum or virtual community
- practitioners of a particular craft, art, or science
- those who are familiar with a certain language
- producers of a common product, such as a movie, cartoon, or computer game
In-jokes sometimes appear in film and television. Such jokes may be visual (for example, a movie theatre marquee shown in the background of a scene might display the title of one of the film director's other works), or delivered in dialogue. In-jokes can also take the form of homages to other films or television series.
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[edit] Examples
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- Scientist jokes
- Leeroy Jenkins for players of World of Warcraft, or even video gamers in general.
- Typos introduced by the typo fairy: Professional editors and writers
- Story ideas coming from a mail-order business in Schenectady, New York: Science fiction authors (this in-joke was started by Harlan Ellison[citation needed])
- The Wilhelm scream: Movie sound technicians
- Letting out the magic smoke: Electrical engineers
- The Invisible Pink Unicorn: To many atheists, it symbolizes what is seen as the absurdity of believing in a higher being.
- Clarus the Dogcow - Macintosh developers
- Every online community seems to accumulate its own in-jokes. On Slashdot these include hot grits down the pants, Natalie Portman, and "first post!" On MetaFilter they include pancakes, "we have cameras," and "this X, it vibrates?" (started by this thread)
- The term "Guru Meditation" for users of the Amiga computer system. (A reference to an unusual message when the system crashed).
- The interconnected films and characters of Kevin Smith's View Askewniverse.
- Many in-jokes in dialogue by fictional television characters refer to the real lives of the actors in the program. For example, in Happy Days (season 8, episode 172), the character of Marion says she loves the movie The Music Man because one of the juvenile actors resembles her son as a child[1]; the joke depends on viewers being aware that both were played by actor Ron Howard. (See also: breaking the fourth wall.)
- Inside baseball
[edit] References
- ^ Happy Days Season 8 Episode Guide. Sitcomsonline.com (October 29, 2006).
[edit] See also
[edit] External link
- Tal Cohen's list of technical book in-jokes
