“I Tried to Make Him Laugh, He Didn’t Get the Joke…” – Comedy and Critical Humour within the Punk Subculture

CoDescriptions and definitions of punk – the subculture, music, fashion, lifestyle and language – inevitably revolve around stereotypes and generalisations, the commonly received conventions of the provocative, political or subversive. The use of humour in punk – lyrically, within musical phrasing, song construction and live performance and in the graphic language of punk sleeves, fanzines and posters – is often overlooked. This paper seeks to outline the ways in which humour – through rhetorical codes and strategies including satire, pun, hyperbole, sarcasm, exaggeration, parody, repetition, self-deprecation, profanity and the embrace of the absurd or ridiculous were and are central to an understanding of punk language and practice.