If you look up the Google definition of “dad joke,” you’ll get, “an unoriginal or unfunny joke of a type supposedly told by middle-aged or older men,” but when you look up websites full of dad jokes, you’ll find yourself with scattered chuckles or even a full blown laugh, so what’s the deal?

     Dad jokes’ terrible humor is ironically funny, and it’s because of the social outlook on one-liners and puns.

     For example, if you just put into Google “Dad jokes”, you’ll get titles such as 50 Dad Jokes So Bad They’re Actually Hilarious and 40 Best Dad Jokes which are embarrassingly awful!, and the reason for that is because people find puns as a bad set of jokes, when in reality they are very witty, and you usually dislike them because you didn’t think of such a clever statement or answer.

     Dad jokes are also sometimes considered unfunny because of the simple fact that it’s the wrong time to make the joke. Many people have heard of the dad joke “Hi hungry, I’m dad”, and nobody particularly finds it too funny when it happens to them because the joke was presented while somebody was hungry. The same thing goes for “What time is it?” “Time for you to get a watch”: people usually ask for the time because they are in a hurry, and nobody has time to laugh at such an admittedly dumb response.

     Finally, dad jokes are commonly meant to make the person making the joke laugh, not the person receiving it; the most funny part about dad jokes is when you tell it and the person who was on the receiving end sighs, gives a face of disappointment, takes too long to get the dad joke, or all three. The art of the dad joke is to make the other person look dumb, not laugh, and that makes the dad joke funny, not particularly for them, but for you.

     People really misunderstand dad jokes because of their difference in joke nature, and it’s pretty jovial to see people make dad jokes in the hallway and get ridiculed for such a terrible one-liner. It would be nicer if people made more dad jokes and put more people in a disappointed state of mind.