I remember learning in a stand-up comedy class in college that when we’re confronted with things that don’t fit into our understanding of the world, that contradict what we know, but they’re treated as normal, our brains can cope with the confusion by finding humor in it. For example, situations we would never expect to happen in reality, such as children wearing suits and working in an office or a dog driving a taxi, can be really funny if they’re treated like mundane, everyday occurrences.

This idea is the basis for the popular genre of deadpan comedy. Deadpan, or dry humor, “uses a lack of emotion and facial expressions to highlight the absurdity of [a] joke”. This type of humor seems to be what’s at play in a lot of the “hmmm” posts. An odd or confusing situation, just existing in the world with no explanation.

Deadpan comedy has been around for at least 100 years, being mentioned in a New York Times article in the 1920’s, but like anything else, it has transformed and adapted with the times. While it was originally popularized in Vaudeville stage performances, it then became popular onscreen, and now it’s transitioned to the internet as well. Although a sarcastic tweet for comedic effect is debatable whether it qualifies as deadpan (without the presence of dead facial expression), the comedic concept is the same.

Some classic examples of deadpan comedians are Bill Murray and Leslie Nielsen. The 1980 film Airplane! featured Nielsen and a whole cast of characters performing deadpan deliveries throughout nearly the entire film. More recent examples of dry humor being used in popular sitcoms are Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Sacha Baron Cohen has also popularized the style by using deadpan delivery of his wacky characters to unsuspecting strangers in his films, including Borat and Ali G. Nathan Fielder follows a similar pattern using almost undetectable deadpan towards business owners he features on his show, Nathan For You.

The moderators of the hmmm subreddit describe “hmmm”s as “textless images that make you think about the context, do a double take, invoke a deeper meaning, or just leave you thinking about how or why they exist”. “hmmms should be aesthetic and meaningful" and "avoid anything that is merely r/mildlyinteresting”. Sounds kind of deep, doesn’t it? This subreddit that on the surface seems silly and purely for entertainment is encouraging us to sit in our curiosity, much like we did as children. And maybe experiencing some mild confusion is good for us.

Confusion is not a standard emotion (such as happiness, sadness, anger and fear), but according to Paul Silvia, author and professor of psychology, confusion is included in the “knowledge emotions”. These are “a family of emotional states that foster learning, exploring, and reflecting” and include surprise, interest, confusion and awe. “As a group, the knowledge emotions motivate people to engage with new and puzzling things rather than avoid them,” Silvia explains. “Over time, engaging with new things, ideas, and people broadens someone’s experiences and cultivates expertise. The knowledge emotions thus don’t gear up the body like fear, anger, and happiness do, but they do gear up the mind.”

Silvia explains confusion as “what happens when people are learning something that is both unfamiliar and hard to understand”. And while many assume that confusion leads to frustration and tuning out whatever is causing it, it actually can motivate “impasse-driven learning”. Essentially, our brains are stimulated, and we start paying closer attention to try to work out the issue that we didn’t understand. Studies have also shown that when it comes to students, they gain a deeper understanding of topics that initially perplex them after having to work through confusion.

We all know what confusion feels like, but most of us know what it looks like too. Maybe you furrow or scrunch your eyebrows, tilt your head and purse or bite your lips. Some professors are even using these trademark looks of confusion on their students’ faces to provide them with better learning resources. Researchers have developed artificial intelligence teaching and tutoring systems that “can detect expressions of confusion”. “When the AI system detects confusion, it can ask questions and give hints that help the student work through the problem.”