The Technology of Humor

Voo Doo Magazine, published by students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is self-described as "MIT's only intentionally humorous campus publication" and has been distracting would-be Thurbers from their engineering problem sets since 1919. They have just announced a vast expansion of their online archives. The changes in style and subject matter over time are instructive. (Phosphorous T. Cat &mdash a/k/a "Phos" &mdash is the magazine's androgynous mascot and figurehead publisher.)

Dear Phos,

In looking through some old issues of Voo Doo from the 30s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, [available in the Voo Doo Archive] it is pretty easy to discern when drugs arrived at MIT. And things just haven't been the same since then, have they?

It might be that if marijuana and LSD had never come to MIT, Voo Doo might still be chock full of smutty little jokes about guys trying to feel up clever girls who resist getting felt up. Plus the occasional involuntary enema joke. Hoo-hah!

The current melange of utter dispair and killer robots might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's probably not time to start recycling the old physics puns just yet.

sincerely,

-- A Long-time Reader