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The soft power aspect of jokes, who laughs at what, and when is fascinating. There is even some research on it:

From https://www.thehrobserver.com/indepth/laughing-at-the-bosss-...

>You mentioned that humour and power is intertwined – what is the social impact of this?

>If a boss is trying to be funny, they are automatically trying to get a response, so the use of humour is never neutral or irrelevant. People have a split second to decide whether or not to fake a laugh, or even how much to laugh – trying to figure out if the boss thinks a particular joke is a little funny or a lot funny. At the same time, they are trying to decide what the consequences of not laughing might be.

original paper https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/amj.2022.0195




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