A sociological view on email humor

Now, checking unread humor email folders, I have 3985 waiting for me to read. People should not stop sending them, because I eventually get to them all, especially when I need them the most.

If I were a sociology researcher, I would study trends in email humor. When times are good, wonderful new and very creative material is written and seems to transmit over the world in no time. When financial and security times are rough, there seem to be more ’inspirational/religious/moral story’ emails that circulate, as well as newly revised 50 year old jokes.

An example of the moral story follows:

There once was a woman who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and noticed she had only three hairs on her head. " Well," she said, "I think I'll braid my hair today." So she did and she had a wonderful day.
The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and saw that she had only two hairs on her head.
"H-M-M," she said,
"I think I'll part my hair down the middle today."
So she did and she had a grand day.
The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that she had only one hair on her head.
"Well," she said, "today I'm going to wear my hair in a pony tail."
So she did and she had a fun, fun day.
The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that there wasn't a single hair on her head.
"YEA!" she exclaimed,
"I don't have to fix my hair today!" Attitude is everything.

Comedian, Andy Borowitz, writes: “ In an attempt to break the nagging logjam over immigration, congressional leaders announced today that they were hiring illegal immigrants to write the nation’s new immigration bill.” Currently political humor seems to be the most creative around. Check out funny stuff here: http://www.borowitzreport.com/

The Internet saves humor so that it is available in the sparse humor down times. See humor on computer help requests.
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/6271/user_jok.html I found the Stubborn User particularly funny!

Perhaps others have noticed the same findings as my unofficial research and conclusions about current email humor. Times are really tough for the majority of us.