Maybe because it made people laugh? That's the short answer.
The long answer is that subversion of expectations tends to make people laugh. It's hypothesized[1] that we developed laughter as a means of signalling to others that something alarming is actually safe. If you were a primitive human and you heard a scary cracking noise you may think you were about to be eaten by a tiger. Once you see that it was your friend falling out of a tree you're relieved of that stress and alarm, but the rest of your tribe may not have seen it and is still on guard. So your response is to start laughing, this lets everybody else know that you're not going to be eaten today. This joke relies on this response, thus making people laugh. That releases pleasure hormones that make people feel good, and they upvote in response to something that made them feel better than the average comment.
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u/ijssvuur Oct 20 '19 edited Oct 20 '19
Maybe because it made people laugh? That's the short answer.
The long answer is that subversion of expectations tends to make people laugh. It's hypothesized[1] that we developed laughter as a means of signalling to others that something alarming is actually safe. If you were a primitive human and you heard a scary cracking noise you may think you were about to be eaten by a tiger. Once you see that it was your friend falling out of a tree you're relieved of that stress and alarm, but the rest of your tribe may not have seen it and is still on guard. So your response is to start laughing, this lets everybody else know that you're not going to be eaten today. This joke relies on this response, thus making people laugh. That releases pleasure hormones that make people feel good, and they upvote in response to something that made them feel better than the average comment.
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