hacker humor

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}.