Laughter isn't about jokes: why everything is funnier with other people
Doing things together · Équipe Viatous · 4 min
You know this scene. Alone with a video that's supposed to be hilarious, you barely crack a smile. The next day, you watch the same clip with two friends on a couch and you're crying with laughter, hitting pause just to breathe. The video didn't change. Neither did you. What changed is that there were people around you.
It's not just a feeling. Researchers who study laughter have reached a conclusion that's almost insulting to comedians: we laugh mostly for other people, and with them. The humor itself often comes second.
You laugh 30 times more when you're not alone
American neuroscientist Robert Provine spent years watching people laugh. Not in a lab, but in real life: on sidewalks, in cafés, on campuses. His conclusion, as reported by BrainFacts, the public site of the Society for Neuroscience : we're 30 times more likely to laugh around others than on our own .
Even more surprising: laughter very rarely follows an actual joke. Most of the time, people laugh after completely ordinary lines like "Are you sure?" or "Wait, isn't that him over there?". So laughter isn't mainly a reaction to humor. It's a social signal, a way of saying "I'm with you."
In other words, you don't need to be funny to have a funny time. You just need company.
Laughing together is a small dose of feel-good
In 2017, a Finnish and British team looked at volunteers' brains after half an hour of laughing with friends. The result, published in the Journal of Neuroscience : social laughter triggers the release of the brain's own opioids, molecules linked to pleasure and relaxation. The study was small (12 volunteers), but it fits with earlier work.
In a series of experiments published in 2012 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B , psychologist Robin Dunbar and his colleagues showed that after laughing together at a comedy, people tolerated pain better than after watching something that didn't make them laugh. The researchers read it as a sign that laughter switches on that feel-good system, and that it helps bond groups together.
Laughter is the invisible glue of human groups. And it works with people you met an hour ago, too.
Why laughter is contagious
Ever laughed just because someone else was laughing, without even knowing why? That's the whole story of the giggle fit in a meeting, the worst and best thing at once. Other people's laughter gives us permission to let go. Alone, we hold back. Together, we don't.
That's also why failures turn into memories. Ruin a recipe on your own and it's annoying. Ruin it with two friends and it becomes the story you'll keep bringing up for months. A group turns small disasters into running jokes.
Five easy ways to laugh more often
Good news: you don't need to put on a show. Just pick activities where the laughter shows up on its own.
Party games. Drawing, charades, guessing games: the worst players are usually the funniest.
Anything where everyone's a beginner. A pottery class, a first try at paddleboarding, an intro to climbing. When nobody knows what they're doing, everybody laughs at themselves.
Karaoke. Nobody sings in tune, and that's exactly the point.
The worst movie you can find, watched together. Pick it on purpose and comment on every scene.
An improv workshop. Lots of cities run beginner improv sessions. The giggles start with the very first exercise.
What do they have in common? None of them is "funny" in itself. They become funny because you do them with other people.
What if there's nobody around?
That's often where it gets stuck. Your friends live far away, they're swamped, or they don't feel like doing what you feel like doing. So you stay alone with your video, barely smiling.
That's exactly why Viatous exists. You write one sentence about what you want to do, for example: "I'd love an online drawing game tonight with people who like to laugh" or "Anyone up for trying an improv class in Lyon on Saturday?" . Viatous understands what you mean and builds a Room : a small group of 2 to 4 compatible people, online or in person.
Roomi, the Viatous robot, welcomes the group, walks everyone through the steps and hosts the activity. No more hunting for the first thing to say. You show up with your first name, the camera is optional and you can leave the Room whenever you want. If you meet in real life, it's in a public place, and the Room stays open before and during the meetup.
And if you click, the Room can become a Circle so you can meet again, only if everyone wants to.
Picture Thursday night: an online drawing game, three people you didn't know an hour earlier, and the whole group in fits over a hopeless giraffe. Laughter doesn't take talent, just a few people. See how Viatous works and write your first sentence tonight.