Why does HN hate humor?

HN doesn't "hate humor." It just is picky about its humor.

HN hates lazy comments.

HN hates ugly comments and a lot of humor is both lazy and ugly.

HN intentionally and consciously seeks to keep the signal-to-noise ratio high. Humor tends to harm the signal-to-noise ratio, which further fuels HN pickiness about what kind of humor is acceptable here.

Humor on the internet is inherently challenging because it often relies on voice tone, body language and other cues to signal "This is a joke." On the internet, memes substitute imagery in a way that helps provide visual cues and the formatting here doesn't support communicating in that style, which makes humor even more challenging on HN.

If you are looking for light-hearted snark for some reason, HN is really not the place for that. There are plenty of places to find that and that's just not the purpose of this site.

HN hates lazy comments.

A clever or insightful joke may be upvoted, particularly if it is followed by thoughtful exploration of the topic. But "one liners," like your example, are just lazy and offer no insight or in any way elevate the conversation.

Generally speaking if you want lazy retorts and memes, Reddit or Twitter already caters to that very well. HN is something else, and two things can exist to fill different niches.

Personal opinion only ...

HN doesn't hate humour, there are cases of humour not merely tolerated, but significantly up-voted.

But most of the things people try to pass off as humour are simply just not funny to a large enough proportion that they get down-voted and flagged. Most of the "funny comments" are tired, derivative, old, or predictable riffs on things we've seen far too often. Some of us have been around a long time, and when we see things like this we just sigh. It's tedious.

Your comment (2) above, for example, just really isn't funny. It's common, unoriginal, uninformative, unhelpful, and just ... not funny.

HN has institutional memory against the dangers of Eternal September.

Humor is easy because it barely needs to engage with the post or comment it's under to be considered a valid "joke comment".

An insightful or deeply curious comment is harder, because it more strongly needs to engage with the content in order to be a valid "insightful comment" or "insightful question".

Sometimes HN upvotes humor, when the humor offers insight or a clever summation of something.

Refugees from Reddit learn quickly that going for the funny quip or the easy jab is just as likely to get downvoted as upvoted.

The HN bar for clever is relatively high. And HN lacks a sense of humor about Tesla and all else Musk. So either you don't know your audience or you're stirring up bad feeling. Dismissing a context as "silly" is not intellectually interesting and someone is the butt of the joke, which makes it less of a joke. Unless the silly person is you and you are the butt of your own self-deprecation.

Good humor is humorous. There's something for people to get. And when they get it they feel good. They don't feel mocked They don't feel stupid - except in a "I wish I had said that" sense. It might start a conversation. But it won't start an argument. Good humor doesn't tell people "I'm clever." It shows them.

Good humor is good humored. Good luck.

I don't think HN hates humour, but I personally don't like humour that doesn't add anything extra to the conversation. The current pattern I have noticed a lot goes like this:

> Topic: Service X just launched

> Comment: LOL I just read X as Y, and was imagining Z as a far-fetched consequence

Sometimes the commenter doesn't even imagine a Z and just explains a brief moment of confusion instead.

Versus a more concrete example of something I enjoyed recently:

> Topic: I wish there was an unstable AWS region to test the resiliency of my app

> Comment: They have one already, it's called us-east-1.

That wasn't hated (as I saw it) or even necessarily off-topic.

You're right that humour can help bring certain things to light where a more courtly scenario might not. I'd posit that the opposite is also true where a space with more formality can also be helpful. Each sort of space has its strengths, and it helps to participate in a variety in order to be well-rounded.

One thing I like about Hacker News is that since humour isn't centred as much, crass ideas can't be cloaked in a joke and get a pass. I'll go into some Discord channel and see borderline-insensitive memes be normalized as they're "just joking" or "didn't mean any harm". That thing doesn't happen as much here as those memes would fall flat when presented plainly.

Humor is incredibly subjective. In general, a person's humor is substantially less funny to others than it is to themselves (this is a cognitive bias that professional comedians have to train themselves out of).

In the case of HN, it has rules against noisy comments, further fighting against making bad jokes.

The one time I made a successful joke on HN was when Uber announced UberPool, and I made a comment asking if Uber is going into the swimming business.

I dislike humor on HN (but don't mind it in more light-hearted places, everything has a time and a place) for two reasons.

a. It crowds out other content.

b. It's harder to argue against a point made as a joke. Consider your examples. Let's say there is an issue with argument y. It's much more natural to point out in phrasing 1, than in phrasing 2. You look like someone who doesn't get that it's just a joke and there were some artistic liberties taken. So y is allowed to stand uncontested.

Let's not forget the endless stream of commenters on other platforms who troll, are called on it, and then backpedal by claiming that it was a joke and everyone else can't take a joke. I enjoy that HN is a place where that tactic falls flat because most humor is frowned on.

Humor is like seasoning: it enhances the meal; it is not the meal.

When a comment has substance (food/meal), humor can enhance it (seasoning).

Furthermore, not all humor attempts are funny. Even professional comedians "bomb".. We can't force people.

This, or the jokes go unnoticed because of HN's small font size.

I disagree with the premise of your question. I don't think "HN hates humor" is true. But I think it is true that humor is only appreciated here on a very limited basis, and if it's done in a specific way. Most really obvious puns, gags, meme references, etc. are devoid of value and don't go over well here. But sometimes one does find a way to say something that's meaningful and funny at the same time, and I've seen those posts get upvoted.

Several of the comments mention that HN hates lazy comments. That may be, but HN does often hate humor. This is most often dependent upon the thread in question as the subject dictates the audience

1 some people are fully incapable of accepting sarcasm even when something is deliberately expressed using the word sarcasm

2 some people are easily offended and deliberately search for hostility even where none was intended

3 for some people everything is a political holy war. I have noticed that many of these commenters seems to only participate on threads of extreme social commentary lacking any hint of technical or business concern, which could suggest selective participation in subjects lacking expertise. I have also noticed that some of the highest karma HN users skillfully bait such threads

I have also noticed humor is more likely to be positively accepted when it is clever enough to escape notice by people merely skimming and when avoiding subject matter solely limited to social commentary. In these cases the humor in question can even be vaguely insulting or insensitive and still receive a positive response unlike the contrary where you have to tip toe across egg shells.

Humor on HN depends on 3 things:

1. Is it original?

2. Is it clever?

3. Am I in the mood for humor?

In the extremely rare cases where these three points converge, a black swan event occurs, the crystal is healed by Gelfling hand, and your comment gets upvoted.

Humor has its place in the world, but its value is fleeting. Ever heard the same joke repeated? It’s almost never funny the second time. Whereas serious information can be just as valuable or even more valuable on a second readthrough. This is what keeps HN posts relatively evergreen.

I do generally dislike strangers trying to be humorous. Both online and offline.

Extremely hard to do intentional humor without hostility, ridicule, some in-group context or plain silliness.

Unsolicited humor is also hard to respond to. You can ignore the joke which may be seen as rude. You can go along with it which you may not want to. You can respond in a serious manner which is awkward. Especially awkward when you actually disagree with the point the joke is making.

> Sometimes the addition of humor can show just how silly the context is, something that a formal declarative statement cannot.

You can reduce something to an absurdity. Which may even make for an amusing statement, but not a humorous one. If the joke is actually making a point there are certainly numerous rhetorical devices to convey it.

HN is more 'serious' than Reddit or Twitter. It's one of the main reasons I come back.

Allowing memes and jokes might have more comments with more votes but it wouldn't add any value to the site in my opinion.

Just to pile on, and as an excuse to share one of the funniest lines I’ve read on the Internet, let me tell you about an online exchange that would play well here.

A Russian poster was discussing a Russian word that had no English translation...I forget the exact word, so let’s say it was быть. Another poster asked the Russian how to pronounce the word. The Russian’s response? “быть”. A sharp wit is always welcome, especially if it comes from “a good place”.

The way I try to do it is that always add a comment with substance/value and then if it accompanied by slight humor sometimes, it is ok in my opinion. I am human and have sometimes broken this rule myself but I totally understand why HN is so strict about it.

The danger of a purely joke comment is that it can open up a whole thread of more jokes and it ultimately is just noise and reduces the quality of discourse on the actual topic.

Your example isn't funny, it's just a clichéd way of emphasizing a point.

As per this comment from dang, borrowed from scott_s - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18284457

> Most people overrate how funny their jokes are

In my observation, message board attempts at humour are often just sarcasm, which feels like humour to the writer, but to most readers it just comes over as bitterness, which is not funny or enjoyable to read at all.

Jokes that actually land go really well on HN.

I understand you're pretty funny as a dee-jay and, well, comedy is kind of a hobby of mine. Well, actually, it's a little more than just a hobby, Reader's Digest is considering publishing two of my jokes.

Yeah. And perhaps some night we could maybe get together and swap humorous stories, for fun.

See what I just said here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25280095

There is humor here, but this ain't reddit.

Simple humour.

Well crafted jokes fly.

I've seen it.

For the same reason HN hates humor, insightful commentary here will be downvoted.