They say a gentleman should never tell a woman that he's already heard the joke she told. We can add that the gentleman should not say that he has heard the joke anyway, even if the joke was told by a man. We can go on and say that a gentleman should never tell a joke if there is even the slightest chance that anybody in the audience has heard it.
It's a very painful feeling of shame when someone starts telling us a joke and we realize they're with a beard. To be polite and not to hurt the narrator's feelings, we portray the excitement and surprise as if all parts of the joke are completely unknown to us. Before a person gets to the salt of the joke, we begin to concentrate and prepare to react with a laughingstock that the storyteller expects.
Generally, our laughter is hard to call spontaneous, but even if we manage to behave more or less naturally, we often step aside, leaving the crowd to have fun so that we don't have to go through it again. If our reaction seems natural, the storyteller can feel an explosion of enthusiasm and tell another old joke. And based on past experience, the next joke may have a longer beard than the first one.
This does not mean that you should not tell jokes. On the contrary, if the anecdote is not too well-known, but short and good, it will create a lighter mood and improve the image of the person who told it.
The only problem is that good anecdote is widely known and remembered over and over again. And often they get longer and longer - every storyteller adds new details to them.
What works well is a sense of humor and a good sense of humor. Although anecdotes are one of the components of humor, they are not the only type of humor and are often not the most suitable. The expression of the face, sometimes just a raised eyebrow or dissatisfied grimace at the right time may be funnier and more effective than good sharpness. In this section, we are interested in humor - how it works, how to use it, what to direct and what results to expect from it.
I must warn you: the boundary between humor and vulgarity is very thin, and its location depends on the audience and context. The closer we get to this border, the more fun we get, but at the same time, the risk of falling into vulgarity grows. Since we can never be sure that the coordinates of this boundary are true, it is best to keep a safe distance to avoid slippage. It is much better to be less funny but to maintain an atmosphere of respectability than to get to the point where listeners start laughing a lot, and we can miscalculate the situation and find ourselves in an embarrassing position that cannot be corrected.
So, if we have a strong and logical argument to convince people of the value of our cause, humor helps us to get closer to our listeners and encourage them to listen to our message. The use of humor keeps the listeners' attention and naturally makes the information memorable for a longer period of time. The proper use of humor also demonstrates the wisdom, intelligence, and creativity of the speaker.
There is also a certain level of acceptance of the speaker by the audience because if people laugh in funny places, it is because they accept you without resistance. People rarely laugh at the jokes of a person who is considered hostile or uninteresting. Unless, of course, the joke comes from the mouth of someone who is much higher up the hierarchical ladder - someone who, say, has the power to hire and fire, interfere with promotion and raise salaries. Regardless of the dislike that such people generate around them, there is a firm rule: their jokes should be laughed at.
It's easier to make a young audience laugh than an adult. Young people are not too worried about the fact that something may seem funny to them, and then they may realize that their reaction has exceeded the level of jokes. They react more or less the same way: "I know it's not that funny and I laughed more than I deserved the joke, but it's okay because it was fun.
Adults are more demanding and more discreet about humor. Even if something seemed funny to them before they laughed, they waited to see how the rest of the audience would react; so they felt much more relaxed in the young audience. Some adults laugh so reluctantly that they seem to calculate all the consequences of their reactions, weigh the pros and cons, and then decide to laugh at something.
We also have to take into account that young people are carefree and not as committed as mature people. They don't have a family to feed, they haven't had time to pay their debts yet, they don't have to try their best to keep their jobs. In short, they can be much more relaxed.
The location of the people in the room has a significant impact on the perception of humor. When people sit some distance apart, they need more time to react; when they laugh, they do it more discreetly. If people sit next to each other, they are easier to laugh at and more relaxed. So if you have to speak to the group and you can change the location of your listeners, put them next to each other and closer to you.