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!
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I see the problem, you were far too kind about it, those who delight in irritating our cat lords must not live
Well kids like water most of the time and cats don’t 🤷♀️ 😂 kid got off easy
My problem is always that next time they might do something even worse, I can't always be there, and they can just pretend to know nothing about it.
Agreed. While a noble response...as the saying goes... an eye for an eye...
Load More Replies...My advice advice is to keep your cat indoors. This way a kid won’t f**k around with it.
Why should the cat be kept indoors because of some little cünt. How about teaching the kid to not mistreat animals?
Load More Replies...Don't listen to Bouche. Murder isn't really an acceptable solution, but I do agree with don't mess with my owner.
Load More Replies...Something similar happened in Black Beauty. One kid was whipping his horse because he wouldn’t jump a really high fence, and the horse, usually nice tempered, kicked him off into some thorn bushes. The main character (Black Beauty) was on a walk with one of his caretakers, and the caretaker heard the little boy plead to be helped out. But nope, the caretaker knew he deserved it. So the caretaker went to the parents and was like “your son is in the bushes, but he was hurting his horse so I left him there, if you don’t mind.” And mom: oh my Poor boy! Dad: thank you, he shouldn’t be doing that. Happy ending :)
Something like this has happened to me too. The neighbor's boy tied paper to the cat's tail and set it on fire. I (then 13 years old) gave him a slap in the face for it and then he stood in front of the door hiding behind his bickering mother. My mother called the cat tormentor a psychopath. Since then, this family has always thrown their garbage in our garden. I would have done it again. Torturing cats is not okay.
I couldnt figure why my dog kept coming in wet from the garden and discovered the neighbours throwing water on her. They had a bucket ready full with water on the fence. So I snuck under it. Heard they were the other side eating so i just tipped the bucket their way. Alot of screaming and swearing and me giggling like a naughty child was heard lol
Cruelty to animals is the act of a degenerates! You were merely trying to prevent this little monster from becoming the next serial killer! Pointing out the error if his petty degenerative ways! Of course not realizing at the time. The Apple does NOT FALL FAR FROM THE TREE! So to speak! You should have thrown a bucket of water into cry baby's dad's face for NOT getting on to his children for animal cruelty! But Good show dousing the brat with a pan of water! I hope you nailed him good! 😂
You should try and get your cat to pee on the dads head - from the window - a cat is the most important member of the family- plain and simple....
Oh no, I would DEFINITELY retaliate in a similar fashion! Little fuckwad! Who does he think he is! I would love to know more about the following conversation with his father though!
100% agree with this woman’s response. I would have absolutely done the same.
I'd have a pail of water ready for the dad from the 2nd story window. I've gone after kids for teasing my cats (in MY yard!), but I also informed (warned) their parents how I wouldn't tolerate their children in my yard.
Perhaps the 10yo was sick of finding cat turds in his sandbox.
Dad better be going mental only bc he wasn't let in on the idea. Kids need to learn and the water wouldn't have killed him ffs
Better to go directly to the dad, and get the kid in hot water. (The father seems to have a temper. Make use of it.)
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 🙃
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