TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsThe science of telling jokes: Indonesia's first comedy institute
We visited the Indonesian Modern Humor Institute (IHIK) to answer the question: Is it possible to be funny when we don’t think we are?
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
The Indonesian Modern Humor Institute's (IHIK) first Teaching with Humor training in 2018. Lecturers from various universities gathered to learn the benefits of bringing humor into their classrooms.
(Institut Humor Indonesia Kini/Courtesy of Institut Humor Indonesia Kini)
Y
ou may think of yourself as one clumsy, awkward human being and that telling jokes is not your virtue. Don’t fret, my friend, because research shows that everyone has the potential to be funny. Perhaps not up to the level of legendary stand-up comedian Dave Chappelle or Indonesian comedic icon Komeng but enough to lighten up the atmosphere. At least that’s what the Indonesian Modern Humor Institute (IHIK) believes.
Founded in March 2016 by eccentric trio Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Danny Septriadi and Darminto M. Sudarmo, IHIK has the mission to spread humor. To achieve that, it conducts various kinds of training to incorporate humor in everyday life: teaching, public speaking, presentation, therapy and negotiation, just to name a few. Along with the training, it also provides a wealth of humor-centric literature in their Library of Humor Studies in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta.
According to the trio, many people from diverse, unexpected backgrounds aspire to be funny. People from oil and gas companies, police institutions, universities, private banks, start-ups and the comedy world have signed up for IHIK’s training.
“We need to take humor seriously,” said Novrita Widiyastuti, IHIK’s CEO.
She wants people to realize that humor offers something more than entertainment.
“Humor is proven to benefit your work in [fields such as] communications, business, sociology, advertising, graphic design, anthropology, psychology, philosophy and even neuroscience,” said the 42-year-old.
