skytek

I've been here (Southern Ontario) for 4 months now and I love the weather, the vast open spaces and huge amount of water...

BUT I am finding the sense of humour here very basic and comparable to a child's humour. When I make jokes or funny statements that my friends and random people would find hilarious back home, the people here either don't think it's funny or more often don't realise I have made a joke and just give me a puzzled expression.

And what's more tiresome is I find myself having to fake laughter all the time so I don't look like a grumpy numptie in a group while everyone around me is having a seizure from laughing at a fart joke someone just made. Fart and poo jokes are something I laughed at when I was 9. Now I'm 31 I find it awkward when everyone around me still uses such a childish and basic kind of humour. Once my partner's brother made a joke about buying a wheelchair on Kijiji and putting alloy wheels on it. The entire family (aged 24-58) laughed uncontrollably for 4 minutes. After about 2 minutes of faking a laugh my face began to hurt and I felt silly. "ahahah you're hilarious!!!" everyone said to the guy. Meanwhile anytime I make a joke I have to then say "no, it was a joke" and then slowly explain the whole thing to them until they say "ohh I get it" or they give up and start taking over me.

Also, sarcasm? The best way to get a confused look from someone is to use humourous sarcasm.

Let's go see a comedy show. Oh will Ferrel is on! He is SO funny! Do you remember that one time he made that joke about the doctor who couldn't stop farting? Oh man that was SO FREAKIN' AWESOME!

I used to be hilarious in the UK. My friends relied on my humour to brighten up any situation. Here I just confuse people and have to explain my (super simple) jokes and feel like I am ruining the mood if I don't pretend to laugh at every fart or poo joke that is told. And so I find myself dumbing myself down and also telling fart and poop jokes and abandoning any form of witty humour.

iaink

You need to find friends that get your sense of humour I suspect. It wont happen overnight, but it is possible. I know many Canadians that "do" sarcasm among other things.

Just part of the transition I guess.

Besides, the british are notorous for our fart humour?

JamesM

You are hilarious my good man.

Adoption takes longer than 4 months.

I have realised I can no longer practice the art of irony but with some subtle changes still hold the occasional audience at the bar in my lobby.

el_richo

I like fart jokes

Former Lancastrian

I tend to use sarcasm and mixing in a bit of stating the bleeding obvious when dealing with certain types of people.
Examples of this
Standing at the bar with an empty glass trying to attract the bar persons attention
Are you waiting for a drink?
No Im waiting for a bus
In a restaurant
Would you like to see a menu
No Id like to see a movie
At a gas station
Do you want it filled with gas?
No fill it with sand it runs better
At a bank/credit union
Is there anything else I can do for you today?
Wanna pay my next visa bill or next mortgage payment.

Some might find this approach rude but because of my accent I usually end up repeating the answer they want to hear.

Atlantic Xpat

"For us Germans it is a simple bodily function, but for you English it is the basis of an entire culture...."

skytek

To expand a bit, I used fart jokes as an example. What I'm getting at is that very basic childish humour is the norm here but crack anything more witty and I get confusion. Another example is youtube clips of people falling on the pavement and hurting themselves or having their trousers pulled down will get huge huge laughs wheras a skit by Alan Partridge gets a similar response to watching a live feed of monks praying.

Also, using the word rape in a funny context such as "I'm going to rape my credit card" or "nice rape pants" or "dude I would so rape that" is very popular here but I find it a bit odd.

iaink

Youve been framed was a staple of UK TV for years


Do they know AP is a comedy character and its not documentary?

Anyway, its not realistic to expect everyone to find the same things funny, you need to find the people that find the same things funny that you do I suspect.


You've been here about 4 months? Whining about this sort of thing sounds like a symptom of mild culture shock to be honest. The timing is about right anyway.

el_richo

Maybe you're just not funny, and your family and friends in the UK used to fake laugh

skytek

Yea you could be right!

skytek

See now this is funny! That's the kind of ironic wit I miss here.

skytek

I've seen posts here in threads asking hat items to bring to Canada and people saying things like "don't forget to bring your sense of humour - you are going to need it here"

Now I understand what they meant.

It's probably culture shock and a year from now I'll be cracking up about people slipping on banana skins.

iaink

Its unlikely that you will change, but you will hopefully meet some people that share you sense of humour by then...

Dave n Ailsa

I think it's a bit like respect, in that, it has to be earned. Once people know you well, they will hopefully understand what you mean, and that what you say is witty humour.

I'm fortunate in that I'm a bit of a "village idiot", in that I will laugh at just about anything.

Alan Partridge is a great example of marmite humour. As was said before, it could be a documentary to some people, and a pretty boring one at that, but I find him hilarious AH HA!!

Have recently started watching The Big Bang Theory, which make me chuckle.

And have also recently watched The inbetweeners, season one and two, and the film. Pretty funny too, but in a totally basic way, although Will reminds me of my young son, lol.

The good news is, once you get that humour respect, you'll have all your old jokes to tell again, that they didn't get the first time round

Steve_

Alan Partridge isn't that funny.

Depends on the context of the humour I find, you've got to seat it in a cultural reference Canadians understand, like making fun of Americans. Clearly they're not going to understand Alan Partridge, because they don't understand British culture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhTZ_tgMUdo

I lived in the US a long time and I've lived here awhile, British people do find humour in things I don't find funny. For example I think Little Britain is total crap.

Britain has a more homogenous culture perhaps than the US or Canada, so it's possible to make fun of things that leave non-British people clueless.

I find that I find certain American TV shows a lot funnier than British people do, basically because I've lived in North America so long I get the cultural references when they start talking about whatever it is.

What was that show on CBC about the American living in Canada? I always thought that was quite funny.