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Jorge Nazario
Dr. McLaughlin
Multimedia Writing & Rhetoric
24 November 2015
Enhanced Culturally Dependent Humor
I can still remember my favorite comedian as a child. His name was Ramey, and he was
not your typical stand-up comedian who addressed complex themes or gave much thought to his
techniques of humor. He was just an entertainer of children no older than ten years old. I used to
see him every year in a summer camp I went to when I was very young, and he used to do the
silliest jokes and tricks with balloon animals. The jokes were usually in the form of funny stories,
acted out by two balloon animals that were interacting and talking to each other, kind of like
a puppet show. However, Ramey did not limit himself to only presenting silly jokes with balloon
animals, he also did magic tricks. I do have to say that these were always my favorite parts,
probably due to the fact that they made me laugh way more than the balloon animal jokes. For
these magic tricks, he would be way more interactive with us: he would get a coin, hide it under
a cup, shift the cups around in a table, and ask us to let him know under which cup the coin had
ended up. What filled me and all the other kids with so much laughter was that we could not
believe how the coin was never in the cup we picked, even though we were certain that we were
right. We would just laugh of the surprise, when we realized he had tricked us. Consider for a
moment that we were only children and that Ramey shifted the cups as slowly as possible with

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the intention that when we chose the right cup, he made his magic trick and made the coin
disappear. His intention was to surprise us, make us laugh, and have a pleasurable time.
Ever since I was first introduced to Rameys shows, I have loved comedians. So,
essentially what are comedians and what is a comedy? Comedians are nothing more than
performers of aesthetic offerings intended to generate a cheerful mood by means of presenting a
fictional narrative characterized by a movement towards harmony, reconciliation and happiness
(Tzachi 177). Because comedy induces laughter we wish to watch it. So, what is the difference
between comedy and laughter? All comedy progressively establishes a cheerful mood, whereas
laughter is a response that duplicates the very same implicit experiential structure awakened by
the comedy as a whole (Tzachi 182). Tzachi mentions how it is also very easy to confuse a joke
for comedy, and that to understand comedy one has to understand their differences. While jokes
are designed to elicit laughter, comedy is designed to elicit a mood of reconciliation, continuity,
and happiness (Tzachi 177).
Comedys origin dates back to the times of Ancient Greece, where it was first introduced
as a political satire due to the political and social conditions of Athens. Nowadays, comedy and
satire are very distinguishable: while comedys main objective is to harmonize and gladden its
audience, satires main objective is to expose some flaw or excess with or without humor
(Satire 3). One will find, however, that these two terms are very similar in many ways. It is not
rare at all to see a comedian presenting a satire as part of the whole comedy as to provoke social
correction, just as it is not rare at all to see a satirist presenting a joke as to provoke laughter in
his audience.

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Who doesnt love laughing? Everyone loves the feeling of euphoria, happiness, mental
relaxation, and healthiness. This is the reason I love comedy: it incites me to laugh, entertains
me, and distracts my mind from any stresses. Ramey may not have even known it, but his
performances led to my first exposure to humor and comedy. So, since a very young age I have
wondered what there is to comedy that makes feel the way it does.
For my on-going interest in humor and comedy, I have decided to explore the techniques
my favorite Puerto Rican comedians employ to engage their audience in laughter. I will explore
Puerto Rican comedians specifically because, having been born and raised in Puerto Rico, I am
curious on how they are able to take advantage of our shared culture to have a bigger impact on
me (their audience). I will first examine the general humor techniques they employ, and will then
examine their particular regional humor techniques addressed to a Puerto Rican audience. In
examining these techniques and their individual jokes, I aim to conclude that the particular use of
language, knowledge of regional culture, and awareness of target audience can create and
enhance culturally dependent humor.
If one were to analyze five different comedians, all from different countries around the
world, one would discover that most of their techniques to elicit laughter are the same. They will
all, most assuredly, employ the use of one or more of the following techniques mentioned by
Monro: incongruity, folly, veiled insults, non-sense, indecency, want of knowledge, small
misfortunes, anything masquerading something that is not, and importing into one situation what
belongs to another. Sure enough, Chente Ydrach, Luis Raul, and Lejuan James are three Puerto
Rican comedians that use as much of these techniques as any other comedian around the world.

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Chente Ydrach alone, in one of his funny videos derides everything about a town in Puerto Rico
(including its history, people, culture, and traditions) employing the use of incongruity, folly,
indecency, and want of knowledge. For example, there is a scene in which he interviews a
woman, and he asks her if her husband was the man speaking up moments before in the main
stage of an activity. She, naively, tells him not to say such things because her husband is nearby
and he could hear her. Chente, in a very frustrated way, goes on to scream Awww! She is
married! People (his camera crew) its over, lets go. This scene is especially funny because
Chente combines indecency, folly, want of knowledge and incongruity all at the same time under
one comic situation. An audience would be especially receptive to this joke because 1) Chente
asks a very indecent and random question 2) She responds without noticing that she is being
ridiculed and because 3) Chente responds back in a very foolish way, insinuating as that he was
hitting on her and she turned him down. The other two Puerto Rican comedians, Luis Raul and
Lejuan James, use these techniques of humor just as well as Chente Ydrach to build on the mood
comedy aims for.
Even though these comedians are recognized comedians because they master the
techniques of humor, they are especially favored by the Puerto Rican audience because of their
particular use of language, knowledge of regional culture, and awareness of target audience.
When it comes to comedy, the use of language is everything. Comedians have to transmit
their stories and jokes through their voices, and it is crucial for them to use language in such a
way that the audience can follow the joke from beginning to the end. Something in particular
about these three Puerto Rican comedians that makes them so popular among their audiences, is
that they use the same Puerto Rican slang language in Spanish the audience always hears.

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Pueta, coo, carajo, jodienda, cabron, and puta are only a few of the many obscene
words they use to transmit each and every joke. But for some reason, at the appropriate time,
these obscene words help make the joke so much funnier. Luis Raul especially uses the word
carajo, coo, and jodio repeatedly throughout most, if not all, of his entire comedy shows.
Jodio is a vulgar word we Puerto Ricans use a lot when we are either in trouble or screwed up.
Luis Raul in one of his stand-up comedy shows makes fun of how Puerto Ricans act in funerals,
and remarks how when we go visit the dead, we always walk into the room stealthily and scared,
peek into the coffin and say: They dont look alike, and Luis Raul comments Cabron
(asshole) of course they dont look alike; he has been jodio (fucked up) like that for the past
year and you didnt visit him once! We can obviously see this joke is funny because it
incorporates the element of surprise and indecency, but to Puerto Ricans it makes it so much
better because it is said in their own vernacular. The reason many Puerto Ricans would especially
laugh at the foul language used is because one of the philosophical theories of why we laugh
explains for our need for release of suppressed mental energy (Tzachi 180). Since many Puerto
Ricans may feel as if their foul language is sometimes repressed by society, when they listen to
these words coming out of Luis Rauls mouth, they liberate repressed mental energy in the form
of laughter. So, we can see how vernacular language can be key to make a joke more amusing
than it would have normally been without it.
Some may propose that culturally dependent jokes with particular slang language, instead
of enhancing the over-all joke, limits your audience to only those who understand the language.
They may propose this on the basis that laughter is caused by certain techniques of humor and
not by speaking foul language. Many older, more conservative, adults in a stand-up comedy
show of Luis Raul, for example, may feel uncomfortable with all the profanity. However, as we

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have seen, Luis Raul manages to use his vernacular slang language, and still captivate his
audience because he integrates so well his profanity with his actual humor techniques. Due to the
fact that Puerto Rican slang language is so common in the day to day talk, I would suggest
comedians to take their chances and integrate profanity. Because I have already seen Luis Rauls
audience reactions, I know that integrating slang language to the joke can help more than hurt the
over-all piece.
The comedians knowledge of the regional culture of the audience they are addressing is
as important as the language they choose. Elise DeCamp, a research graduate from Indiana
University, explored how performance strategies in stand-up comedy are employed to foster
audience receptivity, and found that acknowledgement of the audience (in terms of regional
location, different demographics, and shifting mood/thoughts) is one of the most important
effective humor techniques. When we look at Chente Ydrachs comedy video themes, we get to
see that in most of his jokes, if not all, he derides people and cultures of certain towns across the
island. It is very common for people who live in San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico, to deride
people and cultures from other towns. Many people find these types of jokes funny, especially
the adolescents, because of the Superiority Theory Morreall explains. The Superiority Theory
proposes that in some cases we laugh to expresses feelings of superiority over other people or
over a former state of ourselves (Morreall, Philosophy of Humor). This explains why when
Chente derides the people from these towns, the audience, especially the adolescents from the
capital, laugh so much. They feel as if they are superior to these other who come from less
privileged towns, and cannot help but liberate their feelings through that laughter. The key to
Chentes jokes is in its compliance with the stereotypes his audience already has. Chente already
has an understanding of the regional areas cultures, truths, lies, and misconceptions. Simon

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Weaver, a Research Associate in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of

Leicester, mentions how it is the reduction through stereotype that leads to the construction of
ridicule or to the derision of the butt of the joke (Weaver 333). If Chente had not known this
information, not only would he had not had a joke, but he would not have been nearly as funny.
Even more so, if Chentes audience had not known these stereotypes either, they would not have
understood the joke, let alone laughed at it.
Lejuan James is another Puerto Rican comedian who, through his knowledge of the
regional Puerto Rican culture, creates very effective jokes. Since he is from Puerto Rico, and
obviously has a Puerto Rican mother and family, he makes a lot of his jokes imitating how his
mother or family members would act under certain circumstances. These jokes in specific appeal
to me and many other Puerto Ricans by how he exceeds our expectations of how well he can
imitate our own family members. For example, in one of his videos, he imitates almost exactly
how my mom reprimands me when I disrespect her in front of guests. Imitating the role of a
mother, Lejuan calls his son away from the guests after being disrespected and scolds, I hope it
is the last time you respond to me that way in front of your little friends. When I call you, you
run, not walk, then turns around to the guests and smiles as if nothing had happened. Once
again, we can see how his knowledge of the regional traditions, cultures, and families in Puerto
Rico give him the leverage to create such funny jokes among Puerto Ricans. Elise de Camp
affirms this by suggesting that stand-up comedy is a conversation between an individual and a
community, where that individual alternately connects with different cultural knowledge bases
within that community (Elise DeCamp 461).

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Being aware of the audience the comedian is targeting can be as important as the
language and the knowledge of the region. It is very obvious that with these three comedians the
jokes are mostly directed to Puerto Rican audiences, however, there are many types of audiences
in Puerto Rico. Whether it be a white audience or a black audience, young or old, rich or poor, it
is important for the comedians to identify to which audience they will address if they are to
engage their audience in the proper way, says Elise DeCamp. One will not write a joke to a
fifteen year-old the same way on will write a similar joke to an old person; one would have to
take into consideration what that person knows because if that person does not have sufficient
knowledge of what the comedian is deriding, or if the person feels insulted by the joke, the
person will obviously not be amused by the joke at all. For example, it would be very probable
that any Puerto Rican grandmother that sees one of Lejuans jokes, in which he imitates how
they act sometimes, is not amused at all by their description and would, instead be insulted.
Lejuan knows this, and that is the reason he addresses adolescents and young adults, a group of
people he knows will laugh by how accurate his stereotype of Puerto Rican grandmothers is.
Similarly, we have Chente Ydrach who targets an audience base from San Juan, and Luis Raul
who targets an audience base of adults from Puerto Rico and all Latino America.
The purpose of this essay was to argue, from my Puerto Rican perspective, that particular
uses of language, knowledge of regional culture, and awareness of target audience can enhance
jokes tenfold. Slang language of the region, directed to the right audience, at the right moment
can enhance any joke. As we saw with Luis Raul, he dominates his comedy techniques to the
point where he has learned how to combine multiple types of humor with slang language, to
deliver incredible stand-up comedy shows. We also saw with Chente Ydrach and Lejuan James
how knowledge of the culture can be as important as the language, because it helps integrate the

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individual to the joke and the community itself. Finally, awareness of the target audience is key
to enhancing a culturally dependent joke. The three Puerto Rican comedians, by clearly knowing
to which audience they were targeting were not concerned at all by their who they might have
offended or not. They knew that it they would have to sacrifice an audience to gain another, and
that to actually create good humor they would need to give that audience they were targeting
what they wanted. So, Luis Raul, Chente Ydrach, and Lejuan James, all gave their audience good
objective humor experience with the use of classic humor techniques, but gave them a great
subjective humor experience with their use of particular language, their knowledge of region,
and their awareness of the audience. By using these three components, their jokes can be
classified as enhanced culturally dependent humor, in my opinion the most effective type of
humor.

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Works Cited
Bitzer, Lloyd F. "The Rhetorical Situation." Philosophy and Rhetoric 1, 1 (1968): 1-14. Print.
Weaver, Simon. "The Rhetoric Of Disparagement Humor: An Analysis Of Anti-Semitic Joking
Online." Humor: International Journal Of Humor Research 28.2 (2015): 327-347.
Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.
Brown, Ashley. Satire. Ohio: Charles E Merrill, 1968. Print.
Monro, D. H. "Types of Humour." Argument of Laughter. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame, 1963.
40-52. Print.
Zamir, Tzachi. "Why Does Comedy Give Pleasure?." British Journal Of Aesthetics 54.2 (2014):
175-190. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.
Morreall, John, "Philosophy of Humor", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2013
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/humor/>.
DeCamp, Elise. "Humoring The Audience: Performance Strategies And Persuasion In
Midwestern American Stand-Up Comedy." Humor: International Journal Of Humor
Research 28.3 (2015): 449-467. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.