Thus spake the New York Times.
Whatever tenuous hold the joke had left by the 1990’s may have been broken by the Internet, Mr. Nilsen said. The torrent of e-mail jokes in the late 1990’s and joke Web sites made every joke available at once, essentially diluting the effect of what had been an spoken form. While getting up and telling a joke requires courage, forwarding a joke by e-mail takes hardly any effort at all. So everyone did it, until it wasn’t funny anymore.
I am so the last know.
(OTOH, I am also so not interested in what’s in fashion. I don’t empty my closet when fashions change, and I don’t think I’m likely to change my sense of humor either. Cultural throwbacks, unite!)
