Note: As of today’s column, my schedule has changed to Friday updates instead of Thursday updates. Adjust your eager anticipation times accordingly.

Today I’d like to engage in a serious philosophical discussion of what a humor article is. To quote S?ren Kierkegaard, “Bevidstheden modsætter sig den befriende Guds Virksomhed,” roughly translated as, “A humor article is an article that contains humor; writing one is the highest calling of mankind.” Wow, Danish must be a really concise language. In this quote, we can see Kierkegaard’s trademark rejection of anything other than seemingly obvious definitions, along with his penchant for speaking the truth at all times. Nietzsche, on the other hand, had this to say: “Hier genoss er seines Geistes und seiner Einsamkeit und wurde dessen zehn Jahr nicht müde,” or “My moustache is really big and funny-looking, why don’t you write an article about that.” Typical. All he can think about is the surface of things. As a side note, what I translated as “big” was actually a slightly more nuanced word; Nietzsche did not want to just use the word meaning “big,” “einsengutenschlageroffenkopfmeinschtengelüffersteinkatz,” because it wasn’t long enough. Anyway, I’m not going to stoop to Nietzsche’s level and write about mustaches, as he would want, because we have more important things to discuss, namely: why is this article here?

Throughout history, terrible introductions have started with phrases like “throughout history.” Civilizations have consistently struggled with the question of how to introduce a paper without sounding like a twelve-year-old, and not only with this question, but with an even deeper one: Why do people exist? What are we doing on Earth? Who put us here? How can I stop this saber-toothed tiger from eating me? Perhaps that was more than one question. But that doesn’t change the fact that the same questions apply to humor articles. Why do they exist? What are they doing on the Internet? Who wrote them? How can they stop this saber-toothed tiger from eating them? These are not questions with easy answers. In fact, these are not questions with answers at all. I mean, I sat here for a while (for the purposes of this article, one while equals half an hour (minus twenty-nine minutes) ) and I still had no idea. But that’s OK, because these are pretty stupid questions. More important is what’s in the next paragraph. Why don’tcha take a look down there.

What I really want to know is: does a humor article have to consist of a bunch of jokes tied loosely together by a theme? Or can it only have a few jokes, yet derive humor through parody, spoof, satire, lampoon, caricature, or other means? Market research suggests that people like to laugh as frequently as possible, but what is market research doing in a philosophical discussion? Questions, questions, questions. Do philosophers ever actually figure anything out? Is there ever an answer? C’mon guys, you’ve been working at this for like thousands of years now, you’d think you’d have something to show for it. In what other job are you allowed to produce no results for your entire career and still be considered a genius? By the way, are these jokes doing it for you guys? Would you like funnier ones? That’s too bad, because as a philosopher, I’m not required to do… anything at all, actually. Perhaps you were wondering why I had no article last week; turns out it was because I was busy philosophizing (read: sleeping). Well, also I was getting attacked by clown columnists (again), but that’s another story (literally).

So, to sum up, terrible conclusions often start with phrases like “to sum up.” In addition, terrible transitions often uses phrases like “in addition.” But what I can say for certain is thatI haven’t answered any of the questions that I posed, and yet I still feel like I’ve made some progress (in number of words, anyway). And in the end, isn’t that all for which we can ask? The answer to this question, of course, is no, but since it was rhetorical, there was no need for you to know that.