punching up or punching sideways
not punching down
I feel like the term has been bastardised away from what the literal words mean, being able to sense humor. So in that context, a good sense of humor would be a chill person who knows how to find absurdity in a situation rather than taking things seriously.
A fun person, in other words.
As for the more modern use, I would say someone who can make regular conversations and events entertaining, while avoiding low hanging fruit and what I consider lazy jokes, jokes based on discrimination and stereotypes.
Like, it’s not cool or nice to make sexist and racist jokes, but on a totally different level, it’s lazy joke writing. Wife bad Asian driving black criminal is hack shit that relies on ancient cliches for a punchline, and is generally missing very key parts to approach humor in exchange for getting white dudes in trucks to chuckle and say yeah.
So glad to here someone else say it. Racist and other discriminatory jokes are for uncreative hacks unable to grasp anything close to actual humor. The punchlines are all the same, some stereotype or slur. There are so many better reasons not to make racist jokes, but one reason that I think that should be talked about more is that they are boring, lazy jokes for unfunny unoriginal losers.
A “good” sense of humor is like a good sense of smell. In the same way a good sense of smell allows you to detect scents that others might not notice, a good sense of humor allows you to detect jokes that will make people laugh.
How do you develop a good sense of humor? Same as how you develop everything else: trial and error, practice, and feedback.
I think the answers are going to be highly subjective, but in general, I think any sense of humor is “good” unless it’s “punching down” humor or based on racism, sexism, or other stereotypes
One element to a good sense of humor that most of the other posts failed to mention is the ability to laugh at yourself.
Lots of people with bad senses of humor think they have a good one because they have a favorite comedian who makes them laugh, or think they have a good sense of humor because they’re quick to laugh at someone else when they do something silly or stupid. But when they’re the person being laughed at for doing something dumb, they’ll become furious and storm off, and maybe hold grudges against people who laughed at them.
Someone with a good sense of humor will be able to see what’s funny about what they did and be able to laugh along with everyone else, even if they feel kind of embarrassed.
