Derek Johnson

@bridgeburner.bsky.social

1283 Followers 3395 Following

Coloradan, former paleontologist, former software engineer, current goof-off Sometimes silly. Sometimes serious. Always pedantic. Science & dogs & photography & nerd shit & music & politics

A photo of an Atari 2600 joystick…with one bright red button.
Photo of a Colorado peak in the Lost Creek Wilderness Area with some aspen trees changing to their fall colors.
A graph of the US population from 1790 to 2000. The line is growing steeper upward over time.
A giraffe silhouette with an orange sunrise in the back. Taken in the Masai Mara, Kenya.
I asked ChatGPT why this post was funny. The reply: Oh yeah, that post is funny in a dry, sarcastic, kind of nihilistic way—classic internet humor. Let’s break down why it works: ⸻ 1. It’s framed like advice, but it’s clearly terrible advice. The sentence mimics the structure of those inspirational or motivational quotes (“If you can’t do X, do Y”). Normally you’d expect something like: “If you can’t be funny, at least appreciate others’ humor.” But instead, it flips the expectation with: “Wreck other people’s jokes so that nobody gets to laugh.” That unexpected left turn is where the comedy hits. ⸻ 2. It satirizes a real, annoying behavior. We’ve all known the person who: • Over-explains a joke. • Jumps in to correct the logic of a punchline. • Derails a moment of levity by being too literal or pedantic. This post is mocking that person by pretending to endorse their behavior. It’s like holding up a mirror and saying, “If you’re going to suck the joy out of the room, might as well commit.” ⸻ 3. It’s darkly relatable. There’s a little undercurrent of self-deprecating humor too. Like, maybe the speaker isn’t funny, and so their only power is sabotage. It turns social failure into a weird, ironic power move—which is hilarious in a kind of “lol I’m broken but make it comedy” Gen X/Millennial kinda way. ⸻ TL;DR It’s funny because it parodies toxic or joy-killing behavior by presenting it as sage wisdom. It’s absurd, petty, and accurate enough to sting—aka perfect internet humor. Want me to give you some examples of someone actually “wrecking” a joke in the wild?
A still of the Heat Miser from "A Year Without Santa Claus". He has a bulbous red nose and flaming hair.
Screen capture of a mountain lion from a security camera in my driveway.
Image from flightaware.com depicting the flight path in the Metro Denver area.
A photograph of a profile of a bull terrier skull. The bridge of the nose is peculiar, and the whole skull seems like it's almost twisted around the midline.
An image of the Little Debbie character dressed as a 1980s-era rapper with big gold chains, blue exercise gear, and white sneakers.
A photo of my hand patting a young elephant on the head.
A screenshot of text. It reads "Michael Biehn said his co-star dove so deeply into his character as Doc Holliday that Val Kilmer ceased to exist. 'People ask me what it's like to work with Val Kilmer. I don't know. Never met him. Never shook his hand. I know Doc Holliday, but I don't know Kilmer.'"
An AI generated image of a woman holding a burrito. Her hands are rendered poorly and look very disturbing.
A screenshot from Mac sound settings with an Output volume slider, and a checkbox labeled "Mute". The checkbox was checked.
A graph representing the relative scores over time of Duke and UNC in tonight's mens' basketball game. The two lines are very similar in color, and hard to tell apart.
A photo of an older white man who is definitely white and is in no way anything but white.