Memories of Crack Ups Past

A handful of times each week, someone sends me a link to a web site, a video or some other distraction with instructions to ‘Watch this. It’ll crack you up.” And I say…really? Really?!

Is a video of people doing a full choreographed dance at a random wedding somewhere really going to make me crack up? If you can you crack up from boredom, then yes. Otherwise, meh. Is an image of a cat with the text ‘I can haz…[insert whatever here]’ going to make me laugh until tears run down my face.

We’re being swindled. Those things aren’t funny. But a friend emails it to 20 friends with the message: OMG, you’ll be ROFL. And so people think they have to. But not me. I won’t fall prey to this false humor.

When I was in high school, my friends and I laughed until it hurt at Eddie Murphy’s humor, because we could relate. I think it holds up, but that doesn’t mean I’m living in the past. I just think we need to raise the bar.

I long for the days when someone said, hey, this is really going to crack you up. And then? It did.