I think about this a lot as I age (and I'm a good 20-something years older than the writer). I think I'm an outlier when it comes to humor (much as I am with music -- he links to a piece he wrote about music taste locking in during our 20s (something plenty of folks have written about), and I've long been that exception, listening to new songs and genres and loving the discovery).

A sense of humor, according to the author and the studies he looks into, shifts as we age, and that's not not true for me, at least. When I was six, my favorite joke in the universe was probably the S Car Go one, and that's not one I'm likely to guffaw at these days. But once I was an adult, I've always liked a range of humor from the satires of Kingsley Amis and David Lodge to the movie this piece starts with, Scary Movie 3. And both of these styles continue to work for me.

But I'm sure there are things I thought were funny in my 20s that I don't find funny in my 50s, and I'm not sure I can put my finger on exactly what's changed, and which of the categories studied in this piece they are, but I'm going to see if I can get a grasp on what makes me laugh moving forward (noting that a thing that I found funny in the past may be something I find comforting now, instead of actually hilarious, but those wires can get crossed).