JokesHow to keep jokes in a group clean and kind
A good joke makes the whole group laugh, including the person it is about. A bad one gets a few laughing emojis and leaves somebody quietly hurt. These seven rules keep the fun on the right side.
Seven rules for jokes in a group
- Laugh at situations, not at people. Traffic, exams, phone batteries and Monday mornings are fair game. A person's looks, weight, skin colour, speech or disability are not.
- No jokes on communities. Jokes that make a religion, caste, region, language or gender look foolish are not harmless. Somebody in the group, or somebody they love, belongs to it.
- Think of the youngest and the oldest member. If you would not tell the joke with a child and a grandparent in the room, do not post it in the family group.
- Tease only upwards or sideways. Joking about yourself is the safest humour there is. Joking about someone weaker or newer in the group is bullying with a smile.
- Do not forward what you cannot check. A "funny" claim about a real person, a medicine or the news can be a lie in a joke's clothes. If it names a real person, leave it.
- One or two a day is plenty. Ten forwards in a row turn a group silent. One well-chosen joke gets replies.
- If it lands badly, say sorry quickly. "Sorry, that was not a good one" ends the matter. Explaining why people should have laughed makes it worse.
How to tell a joke well
- Keep it short. In a chat, a joke should fit on the screen without "Read more".
- Put the surprise at the very end. The last line, even the last word, should carry the twist.
- Use line breaks as pauses. The jokes on this site are split into lines so that the punchline arrives a beat later, as it would if you spoke it.
- Do not add "hahaha" yourself. Let the group decide.
- Aloud, slow down before the last line. A one-second pause does more than any funny voice.
What we mean by "clean"
Every joke on this site follows the rules above: no adult content, no insults, nothing about religion, caste, region or gender, no jokes about illness, drinking or anyone's body, and no real person named. They are written new for this site, so most of your group will not have seen them before.