Dads hard at work making the world a better place. Graphic by Piper Bailey.
SILAS OWENS | OPINION COLUMNIST | szowens@butler.edu
My father — given the nature of his familial position — tells dad jokes sometimes. Often they are highly imprecise puns, further reaches than Michael Jordan dunking a basketball in Space Jam. Some are so truly abominable that I only laugh out of pity. Occasionally, maybe 30% of the time, they are somewhat clever and almost respectable.
I encourage these dad jokes — even the very worst attempts at wit and wordplay — and even strive to emulate them.
But there is a question that needs to be answered before I get into why dad jokes are so frickin’ awesome. What even are dad jokes, and what differentiates them from other humor?
Much of the beauty of dad jokes, funny or otherwise, lies in how wholesome they are. With a simple pun, a person can create joy within themselves and others without the potential for insulting someone. If anything, the small amount of shamelessness required to confidently tell a dad joke simply results in building a connection through vulnerability.
Robert Stapleton, senior lecturer in English and father of two, explained the value of dad jokes from a parent’s perspective.
“When I was in my twenties, I thought dad jokes were stupid … and then I became a parent,” Stapleton said. One of the [most fun] things I get to do in any single day is laugh with my kids. I didn’t realize how important that would be to me. [As] a parent you gotta work clean. Dad jokes are easy prey then.”
The quality of the joke is not the point. The point is deepening connections between people and having harmless fun.
Nate Peck, a senior music performance and music education double major, described how the quality of dad jokes — which he often tells as a non-parent — is irrelevant while discussing how his dad influenced his personal humor.
“[My dad’s humor] is very sporadic; it’ll come out of nowhere,” Peck said. “Most of it doesn’t land at all, which is why it’s funny. It’s because the joke is so bad … So I’ll tell a joke knowing that it’s not going to land at all because that’s why it’s funny.”
The perfect dad joke is family-friendly and subverts expectations; people should have to process it for a second before they react, whether that reaction is a laugh or groan. These two elements make dad jokes refreshing to hear compared to much modern humor, which consists primarily of quotes from TikToks and overdone innuendos.
Sorry, but “hawk tuah” and “that’s what she said” just can’t compete with a creative G-rated pun.
This is not to say that inappropriate jokes can’t be darn tootin’ funny. You just need to make sure being inappropriate or controversial doesn’t become a crutch for your humor.
I recently had the misfortune of watching part of a Joe Rogan comedy special on Netflix that had exactly this issue. Watching a grown man go on about semen and trans people like a poorly supervised eighth grader who just discovered Reddit isn’t funny. This overuse of obscenity and controversy in humor is the antithesis of what a dad joke tries to achieve.
While some humor is directed at specific demographics at the expense of others, dad jokes aim to bring people together across lines of age, background, and beliefs. They can lighten the mood of a room in nearly any semi-casual context.
Stapleton demonstrated this versatility by discussing how he has used dad jokes as a professor in the classroom.
“I had a class once that [was] disgruntled,” Stapleton said. “I told dad jokes they didn’t think were good. I finally [said], ‘Each of these is an offering, an attempt, a bridge, to laugh with you, to have community with you’ … I think the learning is better and richer if we come from a place where [we] engage in silly ritual together, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”
Jackson Cornett, a sophomore creative media and entertainment major, uses dad jokes on campus with his friends to improve their moods and his own.
“I don’t have a standup routine prepared or anything,” Cornett said. “Every so often I’ll see something and [make a dad joke] and about one out of every ten times it hits its mark … As long as I’m laughing that’s all I really care about. [But also] if I can bring up the room with my energy, maybe everyone else’s will come up just a little bit.”
Telling dad jokes is not merely a silly action, but a lifestyle that revolves around bringing joy to yourself and others. But what are some practical strategies for people who want to learn from this lifestyle but don’t know where to start?
The first step is intensive study. Write down jokes that you hear, Google lists of dad jokes, watch Ted Lasso — nobody cares if your dad jokes are borrowed or inspired.
Once you have familiarized yourself with the genre through study and practice, you can become more original and spontaneous. To do this, open your mind to wordplay and do your best to intentionally misunderstand everything. Almost anything can be turned into a pun with enough elbow grease.
A challenge I have for anyone who wants to truly be more like a dad is to tell a joke to a stranger this week. As you go about your days, whether on an elevator or in line at Starbucks, seek humor.
If the moment arises and you seize it, the worst-case scenario is that the stranger you talked to looks at you funny and leaves. More likely, the gesture will put a smile on their face and you’ll want to tell another one.
And next time a dad asks in a posh British accent for you to fetch him a drink after you say you go to Butler University, take a few seconds after you roll your eyes to remember what makes dad jokes like this one great.
