All Jokes Are Inside Jokes

The other day my parents were showing me clips of Jo Koy, a comedian who specializes in Filipino jokes. What made his jokes so funny are they were hyperspecific to the experience of many Filipino Americans, essentially they were inside jokes.

I remember reading one of Seth’s recent blog posts that all jokes are inside jokes. And this is definitely true. Reading older books like Shakespeare, the jokes don’t make sense at first because they require cultural context. Whether it be an inside joke with your group of friends or shared between a common culture, all jokes are inside jokes.