If You Frequently Make Lame Jokes, You Might Actually Have A Medical Condition
Maybe you're not so socially inept after all.
Do you frequently make puns, sexual jokes or tell long, rambling, pointless stories at inappropriate times?
If so, you might have a medical condition known as Witzelsucht. To be fair, you probably don't have this unless you have a tumor or have experienced trauma to the right frontal lobe. Bad news is, you're probably just a bad comedian.
Witzelsucht comes from a combination of two German words.
Witzel translates as "to make a joke," and sucht translates as "addiction." Together, these words translate to "an addiction to making jokes." A pretty apt name for a medical condition, don't you think? Even though I don't have brain damage, it pretty much sums up my life.
Witzelsucht is associated exclusively with short-form, nonsensical humor such as puns and non sequiturs.
The condition is sparked by damage to the right frontal lobe and messial-orbital regions, the parts of the brain associated with processing narrative, as well as less direct forms of communication. This means long-form, multi-sentence jokes with punchlines go out the window. Thus, short-form jokes like puns, non sequiturs and slapstick become the primary forms of humor.
Damage to the frontal lobe of the brain is often associated with personality changes in patients. In Witzelsucht case studies, patients have been observed as changing from practically humorless individuals to people with a great appreciation for silliness.
Though Witzelsucht patients' penchant for making (often inappropriate) jokes greatly increases, they show little to no emotional reaction to humor.
So while a man who suffered a blow to the head may be in a hospital bed cracking killer pun after pun, it's unlikely his humor will cause him to laugh, or that he'll even really understand why his jokes are funny. Others' laughter will also likely not register for him. While his jokes—inappropriate or otherwise—may be totally out of character for, he won't register the behavior as anything but normal.
Some people suffering from Witzelsucht also show symptoms of hypersexuality. This means patients may not only make bad jokes, but sexually-charged ones. So maybe Bob Saget should get a lobotomy, no?
In conclusion: it's pretty amazing that Witzelsucht is a real medical condition, but you probably can't blame it for your bad jokes or social ineptitude.
Like me, you're probably just a silly, inappropriate person with a very inexpert sense of humor. That's okay. We'll learn to live with it.
While Witzelsucht does seem like a humorous condition, it's actually very serious and often the result of serious pain and/or trauma. If you think it's a good idea to make a joke at the expense of someone with Witzelsucht, you might actually have Witzelsucht. Otherwise, it might be time to accept the fact you'll never be more than an amateur comedian.