Self-referential humor

Self-referential humor or self-reflexive humor is a type of comedic expression that—either directed toward some other subject, or openly directed toward itself—intentionally alludes to the very person who is expressing the humor in a comedic fashion, or to some specific aspect of that same comedic expression. Self-referential humor expressed discreetly and surrealistically is a form of bathos. In general, self-referential humor often uses hypocrisy, oxymoron, or paradox to create a contradictory or otherwise absurd situation that is humorous to the audience.

Self-referential humor is sometimes combined with breaking the fourth wall to explicitly make the reference directly to the audience, or make self-reference to an element of the medium that the characters shouldn't be aware of.

Old Comedy of Classical Athens is held to be the first - in the extant sources - form of self-referential comedy. Aristophanes, whose plays form the only remaining fragments of Old comedy, used fantastical plots, grotesque and inhuman masks and status reversals of characters to slander prominent politicians and court his audience's approval.

Example

RAS syndrome refers to the redundant use of one or more of the words that make up an acronym or initialism with the abbreviation itself, thus in effect repeating one or more words. However, "RAS" stands for Redundant Acronym Syndrome; therefore, the full phrase yields "Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome" and is self-referencing in a comical manner.

See also

• Self-reference
• Indirect self-reference
• In-joke
• Intertextuality
• Meta-humor