Viva La Dad Joke
Ian Pierpoint -
Back in the day one of my friend's dads used to break wind in the cookie jar and then offer his kids a cookie, and I always viewed that as peak dad joke; childish, not mean spirited and slightly humiliating for the dad himself.
It was with this his flatulent inspiration I set out to run a 3 day dad joke experiment on my teenage daughters, Olivia and Rose.
About to return to school and start university respectively I decided to cover their shared bedroom with motivational posters in the name of research.
They were told that they were taking part in a legit research study to explore the impact of teens being exposed to motivational messaging 24/7.
The ‘stimulus’ was placed around their beds for 3 days and they had to log on and post responses to questions everyday.
They seemed confused as I explained this research study to them but, having been told they’d be paid a few bucks for taking part, they ‘happily’ agreed.
And here’s what they told us:
1. Please introduce yourself and pull your most motivated face and take a photo.
(It took the full 3 days for them to do this as they initially refused because they thought it ‘stupid’. )
2. Looking around the room, which of the motivational statements do you most like and why?
I like the Kim Jong Un Live Laugh Love. In fact thats the only one we both like, but have no idea why Kim Jong Un is telling us this. Nice that he is though.
3. Which of them do you not get motivated by and why?
The success iceberg fell on my head last night and woke me up at 4am. Not feeling very motivated by that.
I don’t understand why there is so many Live Laugh Loves in the room; I just think it’s weird.
4. If you were to come up with your own motivational message what would it be?
Don’t work in market research like my dad.
Study hard to avoid a career in market research.
5. Would you rather live, laugh or love?
We both choose live as you can’t laugh if you’re dead. This survey is really dumb.
6. You are heading back to school / university shortly. If we asked you to sell motivational swag to your new friends would you do it? If not, why.
I don’t believe this survey is real. But just in case it is, no we would not sell ‘motivational swag’ to our new friends at school, they’d think we were total losers.
If we did this it would motivate our new friends to not be friends with us, so no.
7. Which of the motivation stuffed vegetables did you like the most and why?
We do actually like the vegetables. The pickle is my favourite.
My dad said I had to take a stuffed pineapple with me everywhere for 3 days. I don’t get it.
8. Can you think of other cute fruit or vegetables that you'd find motivating?
Hard to think of an uncute fruit or vegetable. We do really like the stuffed toys - can we keep them?
9. Final question - after staying in the motivational room for 3 days how do you feel? Do you feel more motivated?
No, I don’t feel motivated at all. I think this is a pathetic ‘joke’ by my father. If this is however real then whoever paid for this study needs to understand that we’re motivated by our friends, family, goals in life, fear of failure NOT live laugh posters nor tomatoes with little messages.
I think this is a stupid joke by my dad.
Yes, yes it was.