I love edgy comedy. To have your preconceptions challenged, cleverly, playfully, and publicly, by a master of the comedic arts, is a visceral thrill.

It can provide a laugh that goes both wider and deeper, when compared to laughs produced by safer subjects and observations. As well as the joke, there’s the recognition, the shock, the relief that others share these more questionable traits. It’s a heady cocktail for the typical brain.

Although with edgy comedy there’s always a line, after which you can go “too far”. It’s a risky approach, but the best comedians know where the line is and can stroll up to it confidently, maybe dance around on it, although not everyone agrees where this line is. So yes, edgy comedy is a tricky thing to master, and not without risks. But if you can do it, more power to you. It’s a bold, but often rewarding, path to take.

However, I can’t be doing with “edgy” comedy. “Edgy” comedy presents itself as genuine edgy comedy, but it’s not. It’s just deliberately offensive for the sake of it, and getting a laugh is, seemingly, a secondary concern.

You know the sort of stuff I mean. ‘Hilarious’ Nazi salutes and imagery. Constant mentions of racism or sexual-assault or fat-shaming, anything that makes the lives of people (who already have it hard enough) even worse, in the name of ‘banter’.

People regularly describe this ‘edgy’ stuff as offensive, because it is. That’s the point. And those who create it invariably resort to accusing critics of being overly-sensitive “snowflakes”, or that they’re being “censored”, maybe for “speaking the truth”, as if they’re the last line of defence of real comedy, standing strong against the relentless, humourless, conformity-demanding politically correct horde that modern society has become.

Here are some scientific reasons why that’s almost certainly bollocks

It’s easier to be offensive than funny

I started doing stand-up comedy in 2004, but I am in no way an ‘expert’ comedian. You put me on a stage now, I might get a few laughs, but I wouldn’t guarantee it. Making people laugh, on command, is a skill. Some people have a natural knack, but even they have to work hard at it to create stuff that works for a mass audience.

The system for processing of humour in the human brain is eye-wateringly complicated. It’s tied up with the sensory, language, memory and emotion systems (because think of all the things that can make us laugh). Evidence suggests that, at the most fundamental level, it’s concerned with the detecting and resolving of incongruity. We’re presented with something that does not conform to our expectations, to our understanding of how the world works (be it words, images, the sight of someone doing or saying unusual things), and our brain recognises this as incongruous. This creates a sort of tension; it’s an unexpected, unfamiliar thing, and subconscious systems of our brains don’t like this.

Resolving this incongruity, in a safe, enjoyable way, provides relief, expanded understanding, and a burst of pleasure. Hence, we laugh. To provoke this reaction in people is the purpose of comedy.

It can be achieved via many routes, like pointing out that a familiar action or occurrence isn’t logical when you analyse it (i.e. “What’s the deal with…?”), which is amusing because it’s incongruous and familiar at the same time. Or surreal humour, like introducing bizarre concepts and ideas, then revealing their inherent logic or structure (i.e. Vic and Bob’s output). And so on.

But writing jokes that people will react positively to is always tricky, because everyone’s brain is wired differently, and the ideal balance of incongruity to pleasurable resolution varies from person to person, hence not everyone laughs at the same jokes.

However, societal taboos a fairly consistent. We all know what should and shouldn’t be said, regardless of whether we agree with this stance. It’s something we absorb from the society and culture around us. And, rather than come up with some inventive way of ticking the brain’s incongruity centre, it’s a lot easier to do or say things that most consider off-limits. This creates an inherent tension in the listener/observer (i.e. “You can’t say that!”), which can be resolved with the age-old claim “it’s just a joke!”

People are more likely to laugh to resolve the tension created by the deliberately unpleasant material, rather than due to appreciation for the stellar wit on display. Unfortunately, it all looks the same to an “edgy” comic.

Negative “edgy” humour is not healthy

There are multiple types of humour, as you’ll no doubt be aware. And humour (in humans) has multiple roles, from social bonding to mating to communication. And another important property of humour is emotional processing. It’s common to hear people say “it’s good that you can laugh about it” after something bad has happened. That’s the power of a lot of comedy; something scary and upsetting can be neutralised by using it for humour, which is why satire can be a potent tool.

However, some studies suggest that people can tell the difference between positive and negative humour, as in they know when humour is meant to entertain and amuse the recipient, and they know when it’s meant as a mean-spirited attack on someone.

The latter type is obviously very common; all manner of bullying and mockery takes the form of mean-spirited jokes, like insults and criticisms of someone’s features, ones they often can do nothing about. But some studies suggest that negative humour doesn’t allow the helpful emotional processing that jokes and humour often provide.

Being deliberately mean and offensive for its own sake, it may induce a laugh, but it’s a cheaper one, and could leave the recipient feeling worse, not better.

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