Should people laugh at their own jokes?

Depends. My dad told me that it was in poor taste to laugh at your own jokes. I go for the deadpan most times and wait for the down beat. Unless it’s so funny that I can’t help it, but if it’s that funny, guaranteed I didn’t make it up, so it isn’t my joke. Hence, I’m free to laugh.

It may depend. They could have told the joke so many times it is no longer funny enough for them to laugh at it…or not laughing can be part of the funniness of it

Somebody’s got to!

some of my favourite people laugh at their own jokes. a very boorish bahavior imo but endearing all the same

It depends on the type of joke and humor involved. I have some jokes where the point is to make me look stupid by laughing at a really lame joke I tell. And other times I tell a joke that I’m not supposed to laugh at, but it ends up being so funny that no one can keep a straight face.

The point of a joke is to laugh though, laughter is one of the best human actions. I do not understand when people get uptight about telling jokes, there is already enough rules, why the hell would someone place strict rules on telling jokes. Those people need to laugh at some more jokes themselves instead of dictating how to tell a ‘proper’ joke.

I don’t think anything of it, really, if someone doesn’t laugh at his/her own jokes. Some people have a deadpan delivery. Although people who laugh at their own jokes should annoy me, I actually kind of admire them, in a way, because it shows that they have confidence. They don’t care if other people think they are funny or not.

Lol. I always laugh when I’m telling someone a joke. I can’t be serious. I was always known as the joker.

Sometimes humor is born of the moment; laughing at a joke you ‘let happen’ is different than laughing at one you ‘made’.

I was interviewing someone today, and I thought of a funny response which I tried to keep bottled up, but I couldn’t hold the laughter in. Then I had to tell the other two in the room what I was laughing at. I think they thought it was funny, too, but I was busy trying to figure out if I’d made some faux pas by laughing at my own joke before I’d even told it.

If it’s my joke, I can do whatever I want with it. I just can’t expect the punchline to work if my laughter interferes with the delivery. More so for a professional comic, less so for a group of friends.

It depends on the comic. Some of the best rarely cracked a smile. Think Rodney Dangerfield or Don Rickles. And both had extremely different styles. One was completely self deprecating and the other would rip you a new one. Me personally, I crack myself up.
Who are those men with the white coats?

As a child I never learned how to smile or laugh. In the past year I’ve been practicing at showing emotion with my face so that others do not get a false impression from my lack of expression.

So how some people are overly aware of their hands and never know where to put them? It’s like that for me and laughing. Whenever I laugh, it is an intentional act. I just don’t know when to use it or what kind it should be (it usually sounds forced, which is comical itself but sometimes comes across as sardonic).

I am, however, adept at impromptu observational humor. I just don’t know if it seems like I’m too cool for school if I don’t laugh with everyone else.

@SeventhSense – Those guys in white are real nice. If you go with them and do everything they say, you get pudding. Ah, good times. <grin>

I find it near impossible to tell a joke without breaking into laughter, even jokes I have told many, many times to different people of course, they still get to me, no matter how hard I try to be deadpan….mind you, my sense of humour is tickled by the ridiculous and absurd, it’s bloody hard to escape from laughing

I think it depends if your laughter is the contagious kind. I love it when people really crack up at their own jokes. Even if it really sucked. Sometimes I’ll just laugh because I can see that the joke was really funny for them. Sad, yet funny.

I only tell jokes that I think are funny, so of course I am going to laugh.

I do my best not to even smile at my own comments, but sometimes they get the best of me.

It’s normal. The others laugh and this triggers us to laugh as well even if we told a joke 100 times. If someone smiles most of the time you will smile too. It’s an automatic mechanism hard-wired into our human brains.

@Rufus_T_Firefly
Yes they assured me everything will be fine..

i laugh at almost everything i say whether other people laugh at it or not. i don’t tell “jokes” but i do make observations sometimes that no one else finds funny but that i crack up about for 10 or 15 minutes.

I laughed at this one..

Old lady, 85, a virgin, about to die. wanted her tombstone to read :
BORN A VIRGIN, LIVED A VIRGIN, DIED A VIRGIN.
The engraver shortened it to: ” RETURNED UNOPENED ”

Sure….if they are funny!

Most definitely, the person telling the joke first needs to have a certain fenesse to convey humor. I know I cannot do that. Yet, my daughter has that quality that gets people in stitches.