If you're looking for a laugh, head to the Windy City.
Chicago topped the list of the nation's funniest cities in a new study released Sunday by the University of Colorado-Boulder. (See the full list below.)
In a release, CU-Boulder called the study "the most comprehensive analysis of humorous cities," with a team of academics using an algorithm created in the school's Humor Research Lab -- also known as HuRL.
“We found humor often has a local flavor,” Peter McGraw, associate professor of marketing and psychology at CU-Boulder’s Leeds School of Business said in a statement. “The jokes that get laughs at comedy clubs in Denver seem unlikely to fly with a cartoon editor at The New Yorker, for example. The kind of torturous game shows that some Japanese find amusing would likely fall flat to a sitcom producer in Los Angeles.”
Researchers took the following factors into account to determine which city was the funniest of them all:
· Number of comedy clubs per square mile in each city· Traveling comedians' ratings of each city's comedy-club audiences· Number of famous comedians born in each city, divided by city population· Number of famous funny tweeters living in each city, divided by city population· Number of comedy radio stations available in each city· Frequency of humor-related web searches originating in each city
“A city’s humor score isn’t just a measure of historic reputation or big-name productions,” said Adrian Ward, senior research associate at the Leeds School. “It’s a way of looking at the day-to-day lives of people in that city. A city’s sense of humor is a living, breathing thing, created by everything from coffee shop conversations to Web videos shared between friends to the laughter that erupts at comedy clubs.” Reported by Huffington Post 3 hours ago.
Chicago topped the list of the nation's funniest cities in a new study released Sunday by the University of Colorado-Boulder. (See the full list below.)
In a release, CU-Boulder called the study "the most comprehensive analysis of humorous cities," with a team of academics using an algorithm created in the school's Humor Research Lab -- also known as HuRL.
“We found humor often has a local flavor,” Peter McGraw, associate professor of marketing and psychology at CU-Boulder’s Leeds School of Business said in a statement. “The jokes that get laughs at comedy clubs in Denver seem unlikely to fly with a cartoon editor at The New Yorker, for example. The kind of torturous game shows that some Japanese find amusing would likely fall flat to a sitcom producer in Los Angeles.”
Researchers took the following factors into account to determine which city was the funniest of them all:
· Number of comedy clubs per square mile in each city· Traveling comedians' ratings of each city's comedy-club audiences· Number of famous comedians born in each city, divided by city population· Number of famous funny tweeters living in each city, divided by city population· Number of comedy radio stations available in each city· Frequency of humor-related web searches originating in each city
“A city’s humor score isn’t just a measure of historic reputation or big-name productions,” said Adrian Ward, senior research associate at the Leeds School. “It’s a way of looking at the day-to-day lives of people in that city. A city’s sense of humor is a living, breathing thing, created by everything from coffee shop conversations to Web videos shared between friends to the laughter that erupts at comedy clubs.” Reported by Huffington Post 3 hours ago.