If You Laugh at These Dark Jokes, You’re Probably a Genius

Laughing doesn't make you a bad person—just a smart one. BY BRANDON SPECKTOR

A man walks into a rooftop bar and takes a seat next to another guy. “What are you
drinking?” he asks the guy.

“Magic beer,” he says.

“Oh, yeah? What’s so magical about it?”

Then he shows him: He swigs some beer, dives off the roof, flies around the building,
then finally returns to his seat with a triumphant smile.

“Amazing!” the man says. “Lemme try some of that!” The man grabs the beer. He
downs it, leaps off the roof —and plummets 15 stories to the ground.

The bartender shakes his head. “You know, you’re a real jerk when you’re drunk,
Superman.”

Let’s ignore for a moment whether or not that poor rube survived his fall (if it makes
you feel better, let’s say Trampoline Man was waiting for him on the ground). The real
question is: Did you find this joke funny? Sick? Maybe a little of both?

According to a new study published in the journal Cognitive Processing, your reaction

could indicate your intelligence. In the paper, a team of psychologists concludes that
people who appreciate dark humor—defined as “humor that treats sinister subjects
like death, disease, deformity, handicap or warfare with bitter amusement and
presents such tragic, distressing or morbid topics in humorous terms”—may have
higher IQs, show lower aggression, and resist negative feelings more effectively than
people who turn up their noses at it.

To test this correlation between sense of humor and intellect, researchers had 156
male and female participants read 12 bleak cartoons from The Black Book by
German cartoonist Uli Stein. (One of them, which paraphrases a classic joke, shows a
mortician reaching deep into a cadaver as a nurse muses, “The autopsy is finished; he
is only looking for his wrist watch.”) Participants indicated whether they understood
each joke and whether they found it funny, then took some basic IQ tests and
answered questionnaires about their mood, aggressive tendencies, and educational
background.

The results were remarkably consistent: Participants who both comprehended and
enjoyed the dark humor jokes showed higher IQs, and reported less aggressive
tendencies, than those who did not. Incidentally, the participants who least liked the
humor showed the highest levels of aggression and the worst moods of the bunch.
The latter point makes sense when you consider the widely-studied health benefits of
laughter and smiling;  if you aren’t able to greet negativity with playful optimism, of
course you will feel worse.
But what about the link to intelligence? According to the researchers, processing dark
humor jokes takes a bit more mental gymnastics than, say, processing a knock-knock
joke—it’s “a complex information-processing task” that requires parsing multiple
layers of meaning, while creating a bit of emotional distance from the content so that
it registers as benign instead of hostile. That emotional maneuvering is what sets dark
humor jokes apart from, say, puns, which literally pit your brain’s right and left
hemispheres against each other as you process a single word’s multiple meanings, but
usually don’t force you out of your emotional comfort zone. Tina Fey sums up the
difference pretty well:
“If you want to make an audience laugh, you dress a man up like an old lady and push
her down the stairs. If you want to make comedy writers laugh, you push an actual old
lady down the stairs.”

The takeaway: Pretty much any joke that relies on wordplay will put your brain to work
—dark humor jokes just require a bit more emotional control to earn a laugh. Give
your brain a spin with these jokes proven to make anyone sound smart, or, if
you do want to test your black humor cognizance, consider the following dark jokes
from the Reader’s Digest comedy crypt to exercise your hardened funny bone:

• “‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I apologize’ mean the same thing. Except at a funeral.”  —Demetri
Martin
• Q: What has four legs and one arm?

A: A happy pit bull.

• “Cats have nine lives. Makes them ideal for experimentation.” —Jimmy Carr
• Q: Why don’t cannibals eat clowns?

A: Because they taste funny.

• “I have a vest. If I had my arms cut off, it would be a jacket.” —Mitch Hedberg
• Q: What did Kermit the frog say at Jim Henson’s funeral?

A: Nothing.

• “If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.” —Steven
Wright
8 Myths About How Coffee Affects Your Health—and the Truth You Need to
Know
You may guzzle coffee every day, but do you know how exactly it affects your health? Experts
weigh in on the role coffee plays in weight loss, disease, and more. BY KELSEY KLOSS

Will I get dehydrated from drinking coffee?

This is the biggest coffee myth, experts agree. When British researchers studied the body fluid
levels of 50 men, they were the same whether the men drank coffee or water for hydration.
“We tell people to drink eight 8-oz cups of fluid per day, and we always thought you couldn’t
include coffee,” says Halle Saperstein, RD, of Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital in Michigan.
“But now studies show otherwise. It’s OK to count coffee as part of your fluid intake.”
Watching for the signs of dehydration is a much better indicator than cutting out coffee
altogether. This is really what happens to your body when you have coffee every day.
So why the myth? “Caffeine is a natural diuretic, but the amount that you urinate is not as
significant as we once believed,” says Saperstein. Still, since too much caffeinated coffee can
make you jittery, water is probably the best form of hydration. Drink coffee in the morning,
and use plain H20 for fluid intake the rest of the day.

Will coffee help me lose weight?

Caffeine, a stimulant, is often used in weight-loss pills, and a cup of coffee may result in a
short-term rise in your metabolic rate. Still, there’s no proof that coffee can help you lose
weight, says Saperstein. Plus, people tend to drink coffee with calorie-packed creams and
sugars. Saperstein’s suggestion: Use skim milk, drink plain coffee instead of lattes (so you drink
more coffee than milk), and limit the amount of sugar you use or opt for a 0-calorie sweetener.
Here are some more ways to make your coffee habit healthier.

Is coffee connected to cancer?

When cancer patients visit Lindsay Malone, RD, at Cleveland Clinic, they often tell her they’ve
cut out coffee because they assume it’s unhealthy. Coffee, however, is on the list of cancer-
fighting foods published by the American Institute for Cancer Research because of its high
antioxidant content. “Cancer starts with DNA damage,” says Malone. “The antioxidants in
coffee protect your cells and keep them healthy. If you have any DNA damage from, say,
secondhand smoke or environmental pollutants, antioxidants can help repair cell damage.”
Various studies have linked coffee to decreased risk of liver, breast, prostate, and melanoma
skin cancers, among others.

Is coffee bad for my heart?

For most healthy people, caffeine can cause a short, temporary increase in blood pressure, but
isn’t harmful in the long run. In fact, it's even one of the best foods to eat to prevent clogged
arteries. “Avid coffee drinkers can build up a tolerance to the caffeine and may not experience
such effects after a cup,” says Leigh Tracy, RD, LDN, of Mercy Medical Center. People with high
blood pressure, however, should talk to a doctor to see whether they should limit caffeine.
“Those with high blood pressure should pay particular attention to how they feel when they
drink coffee,” says Jennifer Powell Weddig, RDN, a professor of nutrition at Metropolitan State
University of Denver. “They may find that their heart rate gets faster or notice palpitations.”
Even if you don't have high blood pressure, feeling your heart race after your morning cup
could be a sign that you're drinking too much coffee.

Does coffee raise cholesterol levels?

Altering cholesterol is just one of the ways your daily cup of coffee affects your body. Cafestol,
a compound in coffee, is a potential stimulator of increased LDL cholesterol. “The catch is, it’s
found in the oily portion of coffee,” says Weddig. “If you use a paper filter to make your coffee
instead of something like a French Press, you lose that component.” Mesh filters, like those in
a French press, will not eliminate the cafestol. However, if you don’t already have elevated LDL
cholesterol, you likely don’t need to be concerned, says Weddig.

Will coffee cure a hangover?

If you’re groggy after an eventful night—and don't feel adventurous enough to try these
proven hangover cures from around the world—coffee might help. “If you didn’t get high-
quality sleep, which contributes to a hangover, coffee will stimulate the central nervous
system and improve focus,” says Malone. It doesn’t, however, clear out the alcohol in your
system, so skip the end-of-the-night cup of coffee. It won’t help you sober up.

Does coffee cause women's breasts to shrink?

Now, a woman's breasts are supposed to change in certain ways as she ages, but not like this.
A study published in the British Journal of Cancer found that women who drank three or more
cups of coffee daily had breasts that were 17 percent smaller than those who drank less
coffee. Each additional cup increased effects. Researchers say too much caffeine can affect
hormones, which impacts breast size. Still, it’s an “all-things-in-moderation” situation. “They
will get smaller,” lead researcher Helena Jernström of Lund University in Sweden told The
Telegraph. “But the breasts aren’t just going to disappear.”

Does coffee stunt growth?

It’s what your mother told you when you wanted a sip—parents, coffee shouldn't be a regular
habit until your kid is this old—but there’s no truth to the idea that coffee or caffeine stunt
growth, says Malone. “There is some research that caffeine can leach calcium from the bones,
but older adults seem to be more susceptible to that than younger populations,” she says. The
amount is so small, however, that slightly increasing milk intake can make up for the loss in
calcium. The calcium-leaching effect of one cup of coffee can be balanced with two
tablespoons of milk. In the event that it somehow does impact your height, never fear—short
people get health perks that tall people don't.