Laughing

Why do we laugh?

Why are humans compelled to yell out spastically when we hear a punch line or see someone fall? You've all seen countess hours of laughing baby footage and undoubtedly have laughed along with those chubby wubby cheeks. 

Looks like evolution is to blame for one of our most odd and definitely human characteristics. The area of the brain that controls laughter is our Subcortex, one of the most ancient regions of our brain. This region is also in charge of making you breathe involuntarily throughout the day and has little ability to control those actions, which may explain why my little brother used to pass out when we held him down and tickled him.

But that still doesn't answer why we laugh. Even deaf people who have never heard another person laugh makes the same noises. Turns out that laughing is actually a form of communication. Just look at how contagious laughter is. You can say almost anything with a laugh, you can show someone you like them, you can laugh at them and humiliate them, you can even use it to punctuate a conversation. I use it to show someone that I'm listening to what they're saying, when I'm really just thinking about what I would really do if I saw Ryan Gosling in public.

Laugh a fundamental part of being human, we laugh because someone makes us, we laugh to be accepted socially, and we laugh because it is ingrained deep in our ancestral instincts.