I'm so not fun, I'm a Virgo, so please let me destroy everything you love and make

an analytical.

Ali Volpi is a senior reporter at Vox, and recently, she set out to destroy comedy.

I'm taking this thing that is somewhat sexy and mysterious, you know, like everybody

wants to date somebody funny or be around funny people.

Ali loves comedy, but she wanted to understand how it works.

Had to be analyzed scientifically, is there anyone who actually studies humor?

We've been able to make a career out of it, it's probably the most surprising thing.

So Ali found Peter McGraw.

He's a behavioral economist at the University of Colorado, where he also runs the Humor

Research Lab.

It's where they get serious about being funny.

So if this makes the podcast, people are going to be listening to me like, this is not

funny at all.

The Humor Lab started with a surprising discovery.

For a decade ago, Peter was studying something called moral violations, which are like victimless,

yet offensive actions.

An example of such victimless, yet offensive action is eating one's dead pet.

The pet is already dead, and there's, you know, no victims here, and that would be considered

a moral violation, like it's sort of, it's weird, but it doesn't hurt anybody.

People violations are things that are supposed to provoke anger or disgust, it was in

yucks.

...