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Washington, D.C. is the fourth funniest city in America, according to an algorithm created by the Humor Research Lab. No, they’re not laughing at us this time.

Dr. Peter McGraw, a marketing and psychology professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, is the founder of the Humor Research Lab, which is ” is dedicated to the scientific study of humor, its precipitating factors, and its consequences.” Along with journalist Joel Warner, McGraw wrote the book, The Humor Code, which seeks to find out what makes things funny.

Here’s the criteria for the survey:

  • Frequency of visits to Cheezburger comedy websites, such as Lolcats and FAIL Blog
  • 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

    Then, the team conducted an extensive survey with more than 900 residents from the top ten cities determined by the objective measures above. To glean a deeper understanding of humorous daily life in these cities, researchers quizzed residents on the kinds of funny entertainment they enjoyed, asked whether they looked for humor in their friends and lovers, and subjected them to a “Need for Levity” personality test. Participants also described their city’s sense of humor and recounted their favorite joke.

    • The results are below. D.C. earned such a high ranking for being able to produce “one top comedian for every 158,000 residents.” The population of D.C. is just over 632,000. There’s a joke in here somewhere.

    Filed Under: funniest city, humor research lab, map,