According to the founding editor of The Onion, there are 11 categories of comedy:
- Irony– Intended meaning is opposite of literal meaning
- Character– Comedic character acting on personality traits
- Reference– Common experiences that audiences can relate to
- Shock– Surprising jokes typically involving sex, drugs, gross-out humor, swearing
- Parody– Mimic a familiar character, trope or cliché in an unfamiliar way
- Hyperbole– Exaggeration to absurd extremes
- Wordplay– Puns, rhymes, double entendres, etc.
- Analogy– Comparing two disparate things
- Madcap– Crazy, wacky, silly, nonsensical
- Meta Humor– Jokes about jokes, or about the idea of comedy
- Misplaced Focus– Attention is focused on the wrong thing
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