hacker humor

1 definition found

hacker humor - Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) :

  hacker humor
  
  
     A distinctive style of shared intellectual humor found among hackers,
     having the following marked characteristics:
  
     1. Fascination with form-vs.-content jokes, paradoxes, and humor
     having to do with confusion of metalevels (see meta). One way to
     make a hacker laugh: hold a red index card in front of him/her with
     "GREEN" written on it, or vice-versa (note, however, that this is
     funny only the first time).
  
     2. Elaborate deadpan parodies of large intellectual constructs, such
     as specifications (see write-only memory), standards documents,
     language descriptions (see INTERCAL), and even entire scientific
     theories (see quantum bogodynamics, computron).
  
     3. Jokes that involve screwily precise reasoning from bizarre,
     ludicrous, or just grossly counter-intuitive premises.
  
     4. Fascination with puns and wordplay.
  
     5. A fondness for apparently mindless humor with subversive currents
     of intelligence in it -- for example, old Warner Brothers and Rocky &
     Bullwinkle cartoons, the Marx brothers, the early B-52s, and Monty
     Python's Flying Circus. Humor that combines this trait with elements
     of high camp and slapstick is especially favored.
  
     6. References to the symbol-object antinomies and associated ideas in
     Zen Buddhism and (less often) Taoism. See has the X nature,
     Discordianism, zen, ha ha only serious, koan.
  
     See also filk, retrocomputing, and the Portrait of J. Random
     Hacker in Appendix B. If you have an itchy feeling that all six of
     these traits are really aspects of one thing that is incredibly
     difficult to talk about exactly, you are (a) correct and (b)
     responding like a hacker. These traits are also recognizable (though
     in a less marked form) throughout science-fiction fandom.