Adam Grant

And the characters are so... They're so quirky and so lovable despite the rules that they break and the norms they violate.

I just... I think it's like...

Not watching The Office is like not watching Friends or not having seen Star Wars.

It's just a core part of our culture.

It means you're... I just can't watch it.

You're a careful student of culture even when you're not fully up to speed or in the loop.

It means you're paying attention.

Brene, but this is, I mean, this is, it's one of the core pillars of comedy.

I'm sure you've read Peter McGraw's benign violations theory of humor.

Oh, I mean, it's probably become the most influential theory of humor.

And this, I mean, I think giant warning label, analyzing comedy almost always kills it.

But...

Peter does these highly entertaining studies in his lab where basically the easiest way to get someone to laugh other than just kind of simple physical comedy is you create a benign violation.

So something happens that shouldn't, but it's also harmless.

And people find that inherently funny.

Yeah.

I think it's really hard to create clever comedy without violations of norms and rules.

Why?

It's related to the sarcasm discussion we had early on.

Is it?