Don't Explain the Joke/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

* I've never understood why explaining the joke is a Bad Thing. How, exactly, does explaining the joke make the joke not funny? Am I the only person in the history of Earth whose had a punchline explained to her, then a light bulb goes off in her head and she laughs because she ''now gets the joke''? My guess is this is just another case of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_men_make_a_tiger Three Men Make A Tiger] (It refers to the idea that if an '''unfounded premise''' or urban legend is mentioned and repeated by many individuals, the premise will be '''erroneously''' accepted as the truth).

** I thought the article itself did a decent job explaining why explaining the joke is bad. Explaining the joke to someone who actually says "I don't get it" is one thing. Explaining a punchline because people didn't laugh at it has hard as you thought they should've is quite another. And by "quite another" I mean "Stop doing that, you tin-eared douche."