Communications consultant John Pollack, the author of ‘The Pun Also Rises,’ told The Atlantic that puns are threatening because they reveal the arbitrariness of meaning. They also show how many layers of nuance “can be packed onto a single word.”

So, the folks who dislike puns tend to want a greater level of control in life. “If you have an approach to the world that is rules-based, driven by hierarchy and threatened by irreverence, then you’re not going to like puns,” Pollack said.

Meanwhile, Peter McGraw, the director of the University of Colorado, Boulder-based Humor Research Lab, notes that puns are benign communication violations. They subvert or threaten norms in non-harmful ways. They also require the audience to use their smarts to ‘get’ the joke.

“They can be a demonstration of wit, of cleverness. You’re relying on a person’s ability to parse language, to understand the nuances and complexities of words,” McGraw explains.

Puns are a bit of a double-edged sword, not to mention a paradox. On the one hand, they can be brilliantly sophisticated, deep, and layered, created by the most intelligent philological minds we have here on Earth. On the other hand, they can be simple, crude, and incredibly on-the-nose. So much so that they make people groan and cringe, even as they laugh.

Whatever the case might be, they require someone to know the language and enjoy wordplay intimately. They need a dash of nuance and ambiguity to work; otherwise, puns wouldn’t be puns!

How the audience will react to your puns is going to depend on everyone’s personal taste in humor. You can’t control the outcome. All you can do is post your best content on a regular basis and hope for the best. If you’re consistently providing quality, you should get noticed sooner or later.

At the end of the day, though, what matters the most is that you enjoy the type of content you create instead of focusing just on views, clicks, comments, likes, and reactions.

Us personally? We can’t get enough of puns. Though, to be fair, we sometimes overuse puns in our day-to-day conversations. (Not everything needs to be turned into a joke. It’s okay to be serious from time to time.)

The ‘Unappreciated Puns’ group was first established over 5 years ago, in mid-May of 2019. Over the course of half a decade, the community grew very rapidly. Now, it boasts 826.7k pun-lovers from all around the globe. Bored Panda has reached out to the team of administrators managing the group to learn more about it. We’ll update the article as soon as we hear back from them.

The founders of ‘Unappreciated Puns’ quip that, despite the name they came up with, puns are very much appreciated there. Before you go around posting a whole bunch of content, however, you should take a deep breath and slow down.

Take some time to browse the group. Look at the pics. Read the comments. Get familiar with the vibe of the place before you rush to be an eager part of it.

Once you get familiar with the atmosphere of ‘Unappreciated Puns,’ you will know the type of content that’s the most popular. That way, you’ll know what not to (re)post.

Great minds think alike. And it’s very likely that somebody also saw and already posted that punny pic you found scrolling on social media. Creating or finding fresh puns is way harder than reposting something for the umpteenth time. But it’s so worth it.

The size of the group can’t be understated. The administrator and moderator team sometimes handle over a hundred posts and several thousand comments from community members every day. The team running the whole show asks everyone to focus on puns and puns alone while avoiding controversial topics, including politics.

In other words, the goal is comedy, not internet drama and opinion battles in the comments. That also means that edginess and trolling aren’t welcome.

There’s also too much of a good thing. A lot of people, especially newcomers, might be eager to show off their puntastic sense of humor, sure. But you shouldn’t be spamming the group with your awesome posts. Be patient. Give everyone the chance to share their posts.

“Please do not block the queue up with lots of posts. Please space them out. This can be considered spam by FB. Violation can result in suspension or ban,” the admins and mods warn.

Which of the jokes we’ve featured here did you love the most, dear Pandas? Which ones did your social circle enjoy? What’s your favorite pun of all time?

We can’t wait to hear what you have to say about the topic. So, if you have a spare moment, tell us all about it in the comments!

(And if you can work a pun or two into your comments, you’ll always have our appreciation.)