We’ve featured all sorts of humor here on Bored Panda. From photos of animals doing hilarious things and dad jokes (two of my favorite!) to geeky science jokes and even some darker memes that you feel guilty for laughing at. However, right now, we’re in a very good but mellow mood and think it’s time for some easy-going memes and gentle humor to make you smile (and perhaps even chuckle a bit). It’s all about feeling wholesome today, folks!
A place that’s chock full of this sort of gentle and relatable memes that you could easily show your relatives is the ‘Respectful Memes’ page on Twitter. It lauds itself as the “#1 Source of Memes to show your Grandma” and has won the net over with its feel-good, and at times even cute, content. Check out some of the most respectful memes you’ll ever see on the internet and upvote the ones that you enjoyed the most.
I’d also love to hear how your grandparents and other relatives reacted to some of these memes, dear Pandas. So put the ‘Respectful Memes’ page’s tagline to the test and check to see if you really can show these images to your family. I know that I’ll be sharing these with my own folks for sure.
I wanted to learn more about how humor has changed over time and how different people see it, so I reached out to British comedy writer, musical comedian, and author Ariane Sherine. You'll find Bored Panda's interview with her below—it's something that you won't want to miss, Pandas!
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Comedy expert Ariane, who is finishing up her debut solo pop album 'Bitter' that's set for a January 18 release in 2022, told Bored Panda that there isn't necessarily a generational divide in how we understand humor. However, she thinks that there is a gender split.
"Previous generations of women were more likely to be conditioned to be polite and submissive and to find coarse humor distasteful, though of course there are exceptions—the risque female US comedian Mae West springs to mind," she suggested.
According to Ariane, women disliking vulgar humor is "still the case" to some extent. "Ofcom, the UK broadcasting standards authority, found recently that women are much more likely to take offense at sexual swear words than men. I think men have always appreciated vulgar humor though—for example, my dad, who would have been 83 this year, used to roar with laughter at my very sweary and rude songs, as does my 71-year-old friend John, whereas my mother is still appalled by my comedy! So I think it's a gender thing rather than a generational one."
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I was curious to get Ariane's take about a paradox I'd noticed, how humor has become more explicit over recent years while, at the same time, people are also self-censoring more often.
"Yes, I definitely think humor has become more explicit and less subtle. There were always rude jokes but they tended to be all about innuendo and wordplay. Comedian Max Miller, who was born in 1894, famously told a joke about walking along a mountain pass too narrow for two people when he encountered a beautiful lady, saying 'I didn't know whether to block her passage or toss myself off!' That is, of course, an extremely rude joke, but it's couched as an innocent statement. These days, humor is often more blatantly vulgar," the comedy writer noted.
"I'm pretty sure people do self-censor more right now, but I don't think they do with regard to sexual humor. I think they're more careful about jokes about minorities, but I mostly sing sexually explicit songs and I've never felt the need to self-censor," she noted.
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The ‘Respectful Memes’ page has been around since 2016. Since then, it’s carved out a comfortable niche for itself and all those Twitter users who need a break from their hectic lives and want something simple yet wholesome to pick up their mood.
Sometimes, you don’t need ‘hilarious’ or ‘amazing’... sometimes… you just want funny in a simple, straightforward way. I believe this is why the entire ‘Respectful Memes’ project resonates so much with people: it’s approachable, it’s comfortable, and—odds are—everyone will get the joke. These respectful memes are, at their core, not unlike dad jokes in some ways.
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You can’t go wrong with some gentle jokes when the internet’s full of people with varying senses of humor. It’s these wholesome memes that help bring us all together. And the ‘Respectful Memes’ member count fully supports this theory—the project is incredibly popular on a variety of social media sites.
It has the most followers (a whopping 1.2 million) on Twitter, 111k more on Facebook, and another 140k eager fans on Instagram. Meanwhile, the project doesn’t follow anyone neither on Twitter, nor on Instagram.
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British comedy writer Ariane told me during an earlier interview that the element of surprise is absolutely essential to comedy. Most jokes also have “an edge or a hint of cruelty” to them that makes them funny.
“If you're timid and careful, then you're probably not going to want to offend people with comebacks and will be polite rather than witty," she told Bored Panda.
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Meanwhile, comedy expert Ariane also noted that when we’re anonymous online, we tend to take criticism less personally. However, others feel empowered to bully others, too. Like most things, anonymity is a tool that is neither good nor bad, but everything depends on how you use it.
"We feel freer to say things we wouldn't say in real life, but that also means we're more likely to be hurtful. I think the same is true of being on stage for comics—when we're holding the mic we feel free to dispense with niceties," she said.
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