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Aug 113 min read

Can Comedy Save the World?

Updated: Sep 25


This week we're exploring the power of laughter in our rapidly changing world. We uncover signals about comedy's impact on health, mental wellbeing, and even climate change awareness. From scientific studies showing laughter's benefits for heart patients, to mental health patients using  humor as a tool, to climate scientists partnering with comics to make complex issues more accessible – we're diving into comedy's unexpected roles. We also touch on the rise of laughter yoga, comedy as group therapy, and even Gen Z's unique brand of absurdist humor. Join us as we examine how humor might transform our lives, health, and society in the years to come.






Selected Links:



  • Stand Up For Mental Health, teaches stand up comedy to people with mental health issues as a way of building confidence and fighting public stigma, https://standupformentalhealth.com/






Episode Transcript:

Lana: Welcome to Signal Shift, by Horizon Shift Lab. We're your hosts, Lana Price, Raakhee Natha, and Sue Chi. Each episode, we explore the latest signals in technology, culture, and society, uncovering insights that will impact our daily lives in the future. Join us as we shift perspectives, explore possibilities, and delve into real changes in our world. Curious to learn more? Go to horizonshiftlab.com.


Hello, and welcome. So we should have a pretty fun topic lined up for today, because today we are discussing the future of comedy and humor. 


This came about because pretty recently, the Pope invited 100 of the top comics around the world to the Vatican. And this sounds like a set-up to a joke, but it isn't, it's real. And so the comics who came included Stephen Colbert, and Conan O'Brien, Chris Rock, Whoopi Goldberg, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, quite a few Italian comedians, and others. 


And so the reason that the Pope invited them was that he said, “In the midst of so much gloomy news, immersed as we are in many social and even personal emergencies, you have the power to spread peace and smiles. You unite people because laughter is contagious.” 


And so the Pope was really lifting up comedy and humor as really a way to contribute to a more empathic and supportive world. And so he has actually said about himself that he prays daily, asking God to grant him a sense of humor, and that he's done so for over 40 years. And so I think wanted to open with this to say how important comedy is to, I guess, be able to face the world as it is today, and certainly will need that in the future. I wanted to start with that and then open it up and see what you all found in terms of signals related to the future of comedy.


Sue: Thanks Lana. Well, this is Sue and I can go first. So do you recall that saying that “laughter is the best medicine?” Well, it's actually true. And what I found this week were an increasing number of signals from the medical fields about how important laughter is. So it's not just the Pope, it's all your doctors as well. And they may in the future prescribe you a good laugh session because of all these different health benefits. 


And so one signal I wanted to highlight was actually a scientific trial, the first of its kind, to actually examine if laughter therapy could improve patients' conditions with heart disease. And so the theory was that if you laugh, will your heart expand and increase oxygen flow to the rest of your body? And so they involved, it's a small sample size, just 26 adults, but the average age was 64 and they all were diagnosed with some kind of coronary artery disease with plaque buildup. And the test was three months where half of them were watching two different hour-long comedy shows. And then, oh my gosh, this poor other group, they had to watch serious documentaries like topics on politics, climate change, and things like that. 


Anyway, at the end of the 12-week study period, the comedy group improved by 10 percent how much their oxygen, their heart was actually pumping around their body. They also found that there was an increase in, or sorry, a decrease in inflammatory markers that really were reduced compared to the other group. 


And so, you know, these findings were presented at the European Society of Cardiology, which is the world's largest heart conference. And since then, we've seen other signals around health systems offering laughter therapy, laughter yoga is a thing. I saw that the university health system at Harvard offered students a session on laughter yoga. 


And actually now there's a thing called World Laughter Day, I didn't know about. It was started in 1998, but it was created by a doctor in India that actually showed that even forcing yourself to laugh still has the same health benefits as naturally induced laughter. So I thought that was interesting. And now, you know, all over the world, you have different chapters of laughter yoga clubs. There's wellness retreats featuring laughter yoga sessions. There's one in Bali that looks really quite nice. 


And you know, I was thinking, well, this is still important because our heart disease is still the leading cause of death, at least in the United States, and ways to just decrease your cortisol level, improve your heart condition is still important. 


Laughter is free. You can do it anywhere. And just the practices, you have to do it for a long time, like 15 minutes of laughter. And so I thought, when is the last time I had a really good laugh with someone? So I thought, oh, I've got a good laugh, but it's mainly been like looking at a screen by myself. And how great would these kind of laughter sessions be if I could do it with somebody, with some friends, create new memories, be kind of silly, you know. 


And so I think in the future, this may become more of a normal thing, especially as the importance around wellness grows, different therapies, different ways of treatment grow. And I just love the idea that by laughing, you can, you know, improve day by day what your condition can be. So that's my signal today.


Lana: Absolutely love it. And just looking at all of us on the screen, we're grinning ear to ear. So I think this is, you know, it seems so intuitive that laughter is good for you. And so how “heart-warming” that there's scientific evidence that supports that. And so that's a really beautiful story. What about you, Raakhee? What did you find?


[6:55]


Raakhee: Yeah, I think I picked up a lot of similar signals, like Sue mentioned, there's so much science supporting the benefits of laughter. 


And I found a really interesting signal. I found an organization, a comedian who has a company called Stand Up for Mental Health. And he uses comedy and he teaches comedy to people who have mental health issues and really teaches them how to use comedy as a tool, both for themselves, but you know, it has an impact on the audience, too. 


So for example, it's very different to hear about schizophrenia from a doctor being interviewed on, you know, a media outlet versus somebody in a comedy show sharing the experiences in a way that's good for them and also teaches you something. So it's called Stand Up for Mental Health and he himself has mental illness, but he taught more than 400-plus people with mental illness how to use comedy as a tool. 


And I think for me, the lesson out of that was that I think the power of comedy, right, and Sue, you spoke to all these amazing physical benefits, but it's also psychological processing. It's a way for the comedians, right, whether you have mental illness or not, anything you're struggling with, they use it for psychological processing, it's healing for them. And maybe they are the ones who really can't sit down and have a conversation with the therapist because that's too hard, but they can tell a joke about it. 


I really walked away with an appreciation for the importance of comedy, even for mental health. And I think Sue, after everything you shared again for physical health, that it's so important. 


But I think we're going to see things like, for example, there's a therapy tool called Woebot, like share your woes with me, Woebot. And it's a therapy tool, but they seem to be really open to using comedy as well. So if somebody is at the right psychological stage that a joke is helpful, what they might just get is an alert that day is like just a funny joke, just something to uplift you for that day. 


It has to be the right time and place and tool for each individual, and they know that, right, based on the interventions. But yeah, it can actually be the right thing for certain people based on your therapy journey. And so they're using tools like that. And so I imagine that we're going to recognize that just like walking, forest bathing, and actually getting sunshine, we have to laugh.


Like you said, Sue, when's the last time you had a good laugh? And I think between chatbots and all these fitness devices, then we might get like that reminder in the future, like, did you laugh today? Or here's something to lighten you up, and it may become a lot more normalized that we focus on bringing laughter into our day as well.


[9:45]


Lana: Both very cool ways of looking at it. And I think my signal will go well with what you both presented. 


And so mine's about signals related to climate change comedy. And so they're, in the UK, they had an initiative last year where they were pairing climate change scientists with comedians to make videos. And so basically to help translate the science to language that's more like everyday language that folks can understand and appreciate and just to make some of the topics more accessible. 


And in the US, there is Adam McKay, who's very well known. He's a writer. He's a director. He's made Succession, Winning Time, Don't Look Up, which was one of the biggest movies on Netflix with Leonardo DiCaprio, and Talladega Nights, like a number of things-- but he has, he started his career as like the head writer on Saturday Night Live, SNL. And so he opened a studio that just makes, focuses on making short videos, short funny clips for, focused on climate change. And part of what they're doing is using it for advocacy to influence policy. 


So in 2019 in New York, they passed one of the most ambitious climate change laws with a goal to reduce, you know, I think, I want to say reduce carbon emissions by like 40% -- greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030. So very ambitious. But now a lot of business groups and lobbyists are trying to dismantle the law, right? And so using these videos almost as a tool in the conversation to help rally the support for people to continue to, to support the law to keep it enforced. 


And so I think what this says to me is a couple of things. Like this collaboration between science—scientists and comedians, and policymakers even—right? To use comedy as a way, just different ways to approach the conversation. To get people engaged, to make subjects that are very difficult ones that we can, you know, even if we can laugh at it. To help dismantle some of that anxiety and overwhelm and paralysis. Anything that we can do to help us, I guess, connect with each other and even have that energy to mobilize on something that's as big as climate change.


So I thought that was interesting, you know, approach of, you know, ways that comedy can make a difference and be a vehicle for connection.


[13:50]


Sue: The piece that's sticking out for me is this idea of comedy as connection. And I'm just sitting with the tension of how I experience comedy today, mostly, which is not—it's just connected to the internet, you know. And so Raakhee, you were talking about the therapy tool, and I saw, I think in New York and Tennessee, there are many comedy stand-up shows offering group therapy. It's like comedy as group therapy—and not to detract from actual therapy you need—but people are going, the shows are sold out, and it's kind of group catharsis around specific ideas. I like this way that you're merging connection with others in relational building through this use of comedy as a tool. So I really like that.


Raakhee: Yeah, I think it's also so funny to note that there's a couple of chatbots who do jokes and that sort of thing, but the running joke is that bots are not nearly as good as humans at jokes, right? So we really feel like we're superior and that's something they can't take from us and I think we want to hear it from other humans, right? So yeah.


Sue: That's really true. I saw the GPT4o, the new demo, and how-- I think is it Sky, the name of the voice-- was kind of joking offhandedly with the people and it really creeped me out, so I think there's some way for it to go.


Lana: Yeah, I did read that, I don't know if we've all read the same thing, but when they did a test of comedians who are trying to use chatGPT to see if it can write jokes and what it could come up with and they declared it like a huge fail.


Raakhee: Yeah, also share, it's so interesting, but the study of humor, like the findings we've had, obviously it's increasing, so in the last decade there's really more Centers dedicated to studying this and people who are specializing in this, even from the neuroscience or the psychology perspective and it's a key part of human intelligence. So how do we understand it? How do we do better? There's even a Humor Research Lab, I think it's at one of the universities in Colorado for short, it's called HuRL, yes they were trying to be funny, yes it's really interesting and I think there's going to be a lot more like study, scientific study into humor as well and hopefully from there even more ways we can apply it.


[16:26]


Lana: Yeah, I don't know if this is something that we want to get into, but one of the threads that I was following was Gen Z's humor, since Gen Z is a generation of the future, but they, it was really interesting, it was about how Gen Z humor is very absurdist. And so it's because they are so, the speed at which they communicate through social media is so fast that they sort of are taking memes and then kind of like extract, they're layering, right, like they'll get a meme and then they'll very quickly layer on another meme and then another one and so it derives to this almost like a running inside joke that just becomes completely absurd, right, when you see it and I'm having trouble connecting that with some of the things that we're talking about. 


But from what I've read, the thing is, is that it's a way for the generation to cope in their own way, right, in their own like digital language, and so they're finding both a way to connect with each other in sort of this language of the memes, and the absurdity is almost like a commentary on how absurd things are, if that makes sense, and it's sort of easier to do it, to quote, “talk about it” in this way, in this form of humor than to acknowledge it directly. 


And so I don't know, like just throwing it out there, like you guys, obviously, I mean, none of us are Gen Z, but how do you, I guess, how are you thinking about that in relation to some of the things that we're talking about, which seems maybe more “conventional,” like just laughing, humor in person, what do you guys think?


Sue: I guess my first thought is that comedy has a breadth of language, right, and so there's not just one language comedy represents, and there's so many different cultural styles of comedy as well. And so I don't necessarily see them as, I don't know, kind of, you know, different forces, for example, I just think it's one of many ways you can use comedy to relieve yourself in different situations. 


Like it was just making me think of political satire and how that is a very needed form of comedy for our state today, and I'm totally fine with it. Does it make me laugh like crazy the way that these scientists are saying we need to laugh for some of these other benefits? Probably not, which is why I think I need this other type of comedy and laughter as well, so hopefully, you know, more types, the merrier.


Raakhee: Yeah, it's, yeah, agreeing with both of you here, and I also just, I don't get Gen Z humor, I have a lot of nieces and nephews who are Gen Z, and I'm constantly like, they'll tell me something and I'll laugh, and then I'll be like, I don't get it, and I'm like, please, can you explain that to me? So it's a constant thing, it's different. I, yeah, I think we'd have to get a Gen Z opinion that I could, like, we can try and dissect that, but it's a tough one. 


But I think to, you know, I think about Don't Look Up, Lana, like you mentioned, Don’t Look Up, and that was, I mean, I really enjoyed that, but it was, I wasn't laughing, people was like, oh boy, it was a really scary feeling, right? So, but we need that kind of humor too, to your point, Sue, so yeah, there's so much to different kinds of humor.


Lana: Well said, yeah, well, I appreciate, I appreciate you all engaging in this really little broad, right, big topic, and the angles that you took on it, and just so much fun we could have with something like this, so really appreciate it, and thank you. 


And want to thank everyone who's listening, and, you know, something you could do for us that we would really appreciate is if you would like to follow us in whatever player that you're using, subscribe, if you want to rate our show. And if there's anything that you want to contribute to our conversation, please come to our website, which is www.horizonshiftlab.com, and every episode has its own page, that's where you can leave a comment and join our conversation, we would really love to see you there. And in the meantime, I hope you find some joy and laughter in your week, and we'll see you next Thursday.


[21:44]

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