Abstract
Humor is weird; Richard Pryor used humor to challenge racist stereotypes, while the neighborhood bully uses derisive laughter to enforce their superiority. Philosophers generally define humor as the emotion of comic amusement. However, humor is not only a source of amusement, but also a communicative tool that we can use to do things we couldn’t do, or do as effectively, with explicit or literal speech. For example, a caregiver may playfully tease a child that, “if you keep making that face it’ll stick that way” because they are frustrated, at the same time the tease functions to reinforce expectations regarding appropriate behavior. I introduce an alternative model of humor as a discursive tool for revealing, reinforcing, and challenging social norms and show how my account captures important cultural dimensions of humor that escape philosophical accounts that identify humor as comic amusement. I then use my model to argue that humor serves as an active component in both perpetuating and challenging oppressive social practices, not merely as a psychological response to them.