After a day at the zoo, I discovered that people, adults and children alike, do not find animals all that funny. No, it was not laughter that filled the air, but rather shouts of excitement and exclamation. The spectators saw the animals as remarkable, not funny. Something to be admired and not laughed at. Of course laughter was present at the zoo, but it is present anywhere you bring together friends and family. The laughter I witnessed stemmed from interactions between people and not from their observations of the animals. For example, an animal is not even visible in the video shown above. The children are simply running across a bridge and laughing at each other's reactions to it. This example also proves the theory that laughter is contagious. After the first kid jumps, it starts a chain reaction of laughing as everyone else jumps as well. It also shows that laughter is the most effective amongst children. All it took was a walk across a bridge and one little jump to send them all head over heels. I find it hard to believe that if the kids were replaced with adults, the result would have been the same.
Sam,
ReplyDeleteI had this exact same experience at the zoo. The only instances of laughter I found stemmed from other people rather than the animals. I also noticed that all of the laughter was by children rather than adults. That is, unless you consider us to be adults because we laughed as one of our classmates hopped the kangaroo fence and ran across the enclosure because somebody dared him to. Hopefully you went with a more mature group on your visit!
Mary