In-joke

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An inside joke (also known as an in joke or in-joke) is a joke whose humor is clear only to those people who are "inside" a social group or occupation. They may be colloquially referred to as "You had to be there" moments. Inside jokes may exist within a small social clique, such as a group of high school friends, or they may extend to an entire profession (e.g., inside jokes in the film industry).

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[edit] Role

An inside joke works to build community, at the expense 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 US, inside jokes are employed by all groups. The point of the joke is not humour, but recognition as a member of the group who was at the scene or informed of the circumstances. One is only a full member of a group if one "gets" the joke, even if the joke is based upon memories of events at which one was not present.[4]

[edit] Types

A good example of an inside joke in recent filmmaking is the fact that despite his rampant anti-semitic opinions, Borat Sagdiyev speaks fluent Hebrew in his film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. This can be regarded as an inside joke, as it requires some knowledge of Hebrew (a language strongly associated with Judaism) to notice this.

[edit] Computer industry

In the computer industry, computer programmers hide "in jokes" within the code of software in the form of "easter eggs", which are hidden content that can be revealed by following a sequence of inputs.

The Jargon File is a dictionary of programmers' slang, many of which are inner jokes or based on inner jokes.

[edit] References

  1. ^ 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. 
  2. ^ Randy Y. Hirokawa and Marshall Scott Poole (1996). Communication and Group Decision Making. Sage Publications Inc, 96. ISBN 076190462X. 
  3. ^ Ben Tousey (2003). Acting Your Dreams: Use Acting Techniques to Interpret Your Dreams. Ben Tousey, 118–119. ISBN 1414005423. 
  4. ^ Murray Milner (2004). Freaks, Geeks, and Cool Kids: American Teenagers, Schools, and the Culture of Consumption. Routledge, 49. ISBN 0415948304.