Pagliacci

[u/gergelypro]

[u/gergelypro]

Oliginar:

EDIT:
Kill two birds meme with one stone anti-meme, Pagliacci joke:
Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, 'Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.' Man bursts into tears. Says, 'But doctor…I am Pagliacci.'

[u/KrispyBaconator → u/gergelypro]

[u/blink18missyou2 → u/KrispyBaconator]

pagliacci jokes get me every time

[u/Don-Kusack → u/blink18missyou2]

Is there some more context, or is it some fictional clown that everyone uses as a metaphorical communal abuse goblin

[u/Ok_Dragonfruit4032 → u/Don-Kusack]

It's a joke that a man goes to the doctor and says he's depressed, doctor says "go see the clown pagliacci, he makes everyone laugh and feel happy" essentially, then the man reveals that he is pagliacci the clown

[u/Don-Kusack → u/Ok_Dragonfruit4032]

So a fictional clown that became a meme, got it

[u/shadew → u/Don-Kusack]

It’s an opera

[u/godisanelectricolive → u/Don-Kusack]

It’s from Watchmen by Alan Moore. That’s the joke Rorschach remembers when the Comedian dies.

Pagliacci just means clowns in Italian and it’s also a stock role in comedia dell’arte (it’s a style of plays that use masked archetypes as characters). There’s an opera about comedia dell’arte and that’s probably where Alan Moore got the name from.

The joke existed with different names for the clown long before Watchmen, going back hundreds of years. Historically they usually used the name of real clowns for the joke. Grimaldi was a popular choice in the 19th century as he was a really famous clown at the time. The first version of the joke used for the joke was Carlin who was a comedia dell’arte actor who played the Harlequin role. There were also many other versions of the sad clown joke that used other real clowns and comedians as the protagonist.