prismatic-bell:

athelind:

The Most Tumblr Punchline

I’ve noted before that my favorite punchline on Tumblr is “hang on, gotta look something up/okay that’s funny.”

Let me explain why:

• It is a way to say “I don’t get it” without blaming the joke or the teller.
• It is a tacit admission of ignorance without shame or judgement.
• It assumes responsibility for acquiring the knowledge the respondent doesn’t already have.
• It cues other people who Don’t Get It to do the look-up themselves, allowing them to get that full impact of Getting It without derailing the post with explanations.
• It gives subsequent readers, whether or not THEY got the joke, a little frisson of good feelings when they realize that someone else is now In On The Joke.
• It not only makes the original joke funnier, it gets funnier the more often it’s used.

As someone who’s had it used on a couple of my posts, it always makes me grin to imagine the moment someone goes “aha!” and starts laughing. It’s like giving a joke-by-proxy back to the joke maker, because now we know you read and engaged with it and get to imagine you enjoying it.