The UK has its own breed of humor and what gets a Brit laughing may leave outsiders scratching their heads.
Heavy on self-deprecation, almost undetectable sarcasm, and constant deadpan delivery, it can feel like a totally different language.
But fear not, we’ve put together a new piece about the social media magazine 'British Memes' to help you understand (and use!) their jokes just as effectively as they do.
So continue scrolling and happy learning!
More info: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
This post may include affiliate links.
I see the problem, you were far too kind about it, those who delight in irritating our cat lords must not live
From Shakespeare’s comedies to Billy Connolly’s command of an audience, Gavin & Stacey’s taste of Welsh whimsy to Derry Girls’ earthy look at life in the 1990s, humor has been central to the history of storytelling across the UK for a very long time.
But if you ask an academic to come up with a description for British humor, they will most likely run into some trouble.
Dr. Ian Wilkie, a lecturer in performance at the University of Salford, said: “Having taught younger American students, they take the British sense of humor to be Monty Python, by which they mean a sort-of slightly erring towards the surreal, very iconoclastic in terms of attacking the big targets, very silly.”
Thank you! I hate those awards, because I missed one day off of school before, and despite being told I'm one of the best students, like in the top five, I got nothing. It unfair and stupid Edit: I got a prize for attendance today 🙃
All those "awards" do is instill the belief that your health comes behind work and you'll be punished for needing a day off.
Load More Replies...
Yeah- award effort and improvement and kindness. Things a child actually can have some level of control over.
This is why I don't like attendance awards. They just make it incentived for you to go to school even when you are sick.
And prepares you to go to work when you're sick so your boss doesn't have to actually work.
Load More Replies...
Perfect attendance is stupid. I missed out on perfect attendance last year because I had COVID.
Attendence Award, training good lil'drones...Sick? Better come in, and get everyone infected, don't want to miss out on that big tick on your "Permanent" Record. Tragedy at home? You have other family members, they will understand. In crisis? Learn what burn-out is before even reaching College, let alone the Work Place.
These stupid awards encourage sick kids to come to school sick and get everyone else sick. Yeah - good job, Sarah. You're a real hero...
I hate those awards. In the 90s, Baltimore and the entire nations' sports reporters went absolutely ga-ga over someone breaking Lou Gehrig's perfect attendance award. Lou Gehrig was the second-best baseball player in history and kept playing baseball until he could barely stand because he was dying from what was later diagnosed as Lou Gerhig's disease. (It was actually a lot more surprising of a diagnosis than it sounds like.) Cal Ripken, Jr. was a great baseball player and seems like a nice guy, but he'd've done even more for his team if he'd've taken a f*****g day off once in a while. So, no, I didn't care a rat's a*s about Cal Ripken. (By the way, watch Pride of the Yankees and you tell me it wasn't the inspiration for the personality of Captain America.)
Thank you! i hate that how i get good grades marked poorly for being sick even if it’s too the hospital and then i miss out on end of the year award for attendance!
And you probably don't get proper recognition for you academic achievement.
Load More Replies...
I will never understand grading attendance with school children, who have absolutely no control over: getting sick, parent having car trouble, school bus running behind, death in the family, doctors appointments, etc. I actually received a detention in fourth grade over it. Utterly ridiculous.
As someone who grew up having to have hospital and therapy appointments several times a month, f**k these 100% attendance gifts. I missed out on a trip to the local theme park as a kid because of this, despite still being one of the top in class!
American schools teaching their kids how to work in American corporate culture - doesn't matter if you're ill, you need to come in anyway. Oh, hang on, this is the British humour thread, so does this mean it happens in the UK too?
Yup, and in Australia. People used to go nuts for that piece of paper... meanwhile my mum was happy to take me out of school whenever I got cramps, yet I still managed to be in the top 5 of my year. It's almost like taking care of yourself doesn't impact performance 🤔
Load More Replies...
They do it for the National Honor society turds! Who else gets those but them! I refered to them as. The Teachers Suckup awards! Said heck with that and went fishing instead! Sure my parents beat n punished me for it. But they did not have a problem eating any of the fish? You are just being a good supportive mother. And the world needs a lot more of that! They are jerks and don't realize it! If they were giving out awards for imperfections those jerks would be in line for one just as much as anyone else!
I feel this. I had severe asthma as a kid and always had a bunch of absences.
We used to give out the perfect attendance certificates at the annual Honors Night, a ceremony which is held in the evening. No perfect attendance winner ever showed up to accept it. (We discontinued the award.)
Absolutely despise the whole concept. I used to work with a kid who bragged that he had perfect attendance from kindergarten through high school. Said if he was sick, he came to school anyway, then went home after attendance. I said, "great, now you've possibly gotten several other kids sick." This is encouraged in the work place too, people are shamed for taking a sick day, or only get a couple a year, so they come in sick. NO! I don't want whatever you have. Do the responsible thing and STAY TF HOME!
Attendance awards just encourage people coming in when they are sick.
Attendance prizes in general are stupid. Do you want people to go to school or work sick and spread it to everyone? No? Then stop punishing people who take off for being sick.
Just indoctrinating kids to work at jobs every day no matter how sick they get.
I used to have to have a lot of "mental health days" off. because the school couldn't be arsed to stop people bullying me. so it was THEIR fault I needed days where I didn't go, not mine.
I’m not seeing the humour in this. This makes my heart warm and then just makes me sad for all the kids who don’t have a loving mum like her
I hated attendance awards at school. My first year in high school my mother died. I had a half day off for her funeral so didn’t get it.
With so many kinds of families too I wish they would broaden ( not remove) mothers/Father’s Day or dances or events with just “Special adult in your life” which can include moms and dads but then kids can bring or make a gift for any positive adult in their life or if they have no one they can make teacher something fun. My daughter made a Father’s Day card every year so kids wouldn’t ask why she didn’t have a dad and then throw it away when she got home. :(
Totally unfair. There are a lot of very legitimate reasons for missing a day or two of school. Kids shouldn't be punished for attending a funeral, for instance.
I got attendance awards when I was younger, when I was in grade 1 I didn't mind because I was super young; but any year after that I hated it because it just singles out kids to get made fun of for going to school
It's this kind of attitude/award system that is a big reason incompetent lowest-common-denominators get hired/promoted... actual *ability, skill and intelligence* get ignored while simpleton 'just following orders, and not thinking!' gets rewarded.
So messed up these awards. Think it teaches kids you go in even if your dying. How about make the effort but if your sick your sick the company you work for isn't giving you an award when you die off with work related stress
Excellent Mum! I grew up with a chronic illness as well and despite having almost perfect grades through university, attendance always threatened to get me held back or failing a class. They focus on the wrong things. I now work from home for a wonderful company that focuses more on my efficiency than if I'm at my computer all day every day. I hope your little one can to (I recommend getting her into computers ;) )
I would start a group for students and parents with chronic illness (including things like depression and anxiety, because those are legitimate illnesses that should be given the same consideration as physically manifesting illnesses) to support and celebrate these students. Kids and adults don't deserve to be left out just because their bodies need more support
I'm a chronic illness sufferer as well, and I was always getting s**t from teachers. BUT, interestingly enough, they always ended up having me take the test for the spelling bee (sometimes from home!) because none of my classmates made the cut. I truly believe I learned more on my own than I ever did in class.
And just like that, because we are jealous when someone gets an award because of something THEY were able to do, we shall have no awards, no recognition, and no jealousy. Yay!
Thats it burn the princble office and destroy all his pc's make the harddrives unreadble and leave an mesage take care of poeple with an ilnes with live and care not like you you prick
My son was the same, he has cystic fibrosis and was never able to make 100% attendance, no atter what
Laughing my a** off at these people bitching that attendance awards incentivize kids to come in sick. In what universe is this happening? Because in this one, no sick child has ever forced themselves to go to school so that they'll get an Attendance Award lololol Relax and let these kids get their Easter Egg , ffs. ..........."No Mom! I HAVE to go into school today. I HAVE to get my free Easter Egg at the end of the year. I can get treated for measles on the weekend!" lololol
Do you have kids? Some would jump through fire for a star or a sticker
Load More Replies... There's nothing wrong with rewarding certain things. Get over it.
Had a guy who never missed a day in his whole 12 years. No idea who this guy was as he was not in any of the AP and advanced classes, but there he was with us on honors night getting a special achievement plaque. I didn't think it was physically possible to not miss A SINGLE DAY in 12 years! Man, we were blown away. According to those that knew him, dude NEVER got sick. EVER. Incredible.
Your daughter doesn't need school, when she's got you as a mum, you're lovely and amazing!! : ) : )
here's the thing: in seventh grade, I was about to get the perfect attendance record (literally- only had three days left in the school year). and sudenly in the middle of 6th period algebra, I got called over the loudspeaker to go home....because my grandfather had just gone into cardiac arrest at the wheel of his car. So, the attendance award went to the stoner whose parents forced him to never stay home because he had been arrested for truancy, and so he only missed 2 days and I missed 3 while i was mourning my dead grandfather. Woo-hoo for attendance awards.
Oh wow! That's just bad! If that was me I'd probably buy all the excluded kids easter eggs!
This is one of the reasons I was never able to attend public schools: I would have been absent due to illness too much and they would have reported my parents
Slay queen! (Holy s**t that was cringey) I hate that illness accounts towards attendance bcs you can't decide when you get ill, you just do. If it's you whose accountable, then that makes sense.
If it's a school like my daughters, that prizes attendance above anything else, tough s**t I'm afraid.
Load More Replies...
I have never heard of a school with attendance award where I live
Thankfully, more schools are realising how stupid these attendance awards are,but many still use them.
Load More Replies...
However, Wilkie said that, while those traits can become shorthand for ‘the British sense of humor’, he doesn’t think “that cuts the mustard.”
Dr. Wilkie highlighted that there are already differences in popular humor in the four home nations. It diversifies even more between the major cities, making it difficult to pinpoint a blanket ‘British’ humor.
I grew up in England and now live in Australia. I can confirm both these comments
One example is the Scottish brash-with-a-twinkle style of Billy Connolly or the more gentle approach of his compatriot Susan Calman. “Scottish people like witty jokes, there is a lot of respect for learning and that it likes quite hard-hitting jokes, ones of mockery,” Wilkie explained.
While he noted there are similarities between Glaswegian humor and that found in other port cities, such as Liverpool, that Scottish style might not necessarily translate into a Welsh sense of humor or a broader English one.
Attending a comedy night, with many different acts, would show how difficult it is to categorize humour along geographical lines.humor
“You may laugh at different aspects of their schtick, but it would then be difficult to say, ‘well, there’s a British sense of humour’ because of the disparate kind of approaches and world views coming across.”
Another element worth considering is how much the humor of other countries has influenced British comedy.
If you’ve sat and enjoyed the exaggerated characters in Fawlty Towers, the characters and scrapes they find themselves in reflect the sketches of the Commedia dell’arte, a form of theatre from 16th Century Italy.
Among other elements, it involved a series of recognizable characters from all aspects of society engaged in witty dialogue.
You can fill your boots now, son. It's what she would have wanted.
Surrealism, long considered a staple of British humor was, as Dr. Wilkie describes it, performed by: “Dadaists from countries that we may choose not to think of as particularly funny, such as Germany."
“They were doing surrealism to the nth degree, quite deliberately as a performative art, in the early part of the 20th Century. I think it’s something we like to appropriate in a way and imagine that we’re the custodians of it, but it’s not culturally specific at all.”
With Monty Python held up as a good example of leftfield humor from the UK, the Carry On… series of films suggests a national affection for a less sophisticated bawdiness loaded with double entendres.
While they did enjoy popularity outside the country (Carry On Nurse ran in Los Angeles for more than two-and-a-half years on its initial release), Dr. Humor Wilkie doesn’t see the humor contained within the 30 titles of the franchise as something that defines a nation.
“Carry On… kind of made fun of itself in its day, it was already slightly self-consciously old-fashioned and seaside postcard, but people could enjoy it because they could say, all bets are off really, we’re going to see something that’s sexist, end of the pier and a bit silly and that was fine,“ Dr. Wilkie explained.
Hate those hypocrites who say work harder: your college education was paid for even when you were failing, your job was nepotism, and your wealth was inherited.
At least ALL of them would come home without getting shot at.
It’s these different styles and presentations of comedy by British performers that. Dr. Wilkie believes make it impossible for an academic to point, with confidence, at various elements and state categorically that they alone make up the nation’s famed sense of humor.
Red telephone boxes look so cool and posh and aesthetic and then you have the one on the right
There's a really nice frozen custard place about 45 min. away from my parents. They'd make the trip once a month or so, and bring the dog. He got a spoonful of everyone's custard. Once they went, and it was cold, rainy, and crowded. They decided to go to the Baskin Robbins across the street. They got their ice cream, and a paper bowl so they could share with the dog. He wouldn't eat it. I guess he decided that if he was going that far, it had to be the custard or nothing.
“No, I wouldn’t say there is a British sense of humor,” he concluded. “I think the best you can hope for is some big, beacon terms (eg. sarcasm, understatement, self-deprecation), that maybe, over a fair amount of time, might hold water."
“Comedy and humor have always been so open to counter-examples that you can never really pin anything down. It’s like trying to nail jelly to a wall.”
However, if you'd like to see more 'British Memes,' fire up our first publication on this fun little project.
Same in the US: rich people find loopholes to get out of paying taxes, so the taxes on the workers get increased.
I actually feel it's a win if you haven't set foot in Dubai. Seems like a soulless place
Everyone was enjoying the Donner Kebabs at the Christmas Party. Then they ran out. So they started on the Blitzen Kebabs.
They have use of full lanes in my city, whether one or a gaggle of them. Tons of cyclists around here. HATE getting behind them but good on you for exercising. Now get out of my way. I have snacks at home.
The first person to win Deal or No Deal, her long term boyfriend left her a couple of weeks before. Not the same scale, but it did give us a nice warm feeling
oh you poor intellectually deprived dears, why would the government waste valuable tracking devices on you?
Well to be fair, if you're on enough *illegal medicine* it can happen again
Note: this post originally had 130 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
Finally a thread where the Americans don't understand half of what is being said. I get fed up of being the one saying "I don't know what this means" or "I don't know who that is".
Is this a joke? Because I am from Argentina and I understood all of them...
Load More Replies...
I'm still laughing at the 'Birmingham' one. These are all so true #BritishLife
Finally a thread where the Americans don't understand half of what is being said. I get fed up of being the one saying "I don't know what this means" or "I don't know who that is".
Is this a joke? Because I am from Argentina and I understood all of them...
Load More Replies... I'm still laughing at the 'Birmingham' one. These are all so true #BritishLife
