Thanks to years of laughing at its own jokes, and also at the jokes of others which are similar to its own, the bogan is well aware that it is funny. In a distressing chicken and egg validation manoeuvre, the bogan knows that its humour is similar to that of Two and a Half Men, which is a bogan-treasured sitcom, thus placing the bogan’s jokes at the forefront of world humour. If asked to define its great sense of humour, the bogan will enthusiastically inform you that it is “funny and really sarcastic”.
Sarcasm was first recorded in English in 1579, in an annotation to The Shepheardes Calender by Edmund Spenser. By early 1580, Spenser’s peers had declared that sarcasm was the lowest form of humour yet devised, and that he should be hanged at dawn. 430 years later, the bogan’s grotesque love affair with sarcasm shows no sign of abating.
While it can be said that sarcasm requires no creativity, wit, or insight, that is not to say that being sarcastic does not place considerable demands on the bogan. After all, the bogan knows that in order to really nail sarcasm, it must simultaneously roll its eyes, inject an up-down lilt into its extended vowels, AND verbalise the opposite thing to what is on its mind. If it only manages to generate two out of these three phenomena, nearby bogans may incorrectly form the opinion that they are not witnessing comic genius unfolding.
This humour tightrope is known to create anxiety in the bogan. What if it can’t verbalise the opposite of its thoughts at the same speed at which it can roll its eyes and lilt? With this concern in mind, the bogan will studiously hunker down to hours of Today Tonight and A Current Affair per week, in order to whittle down its opinions on the full spectrum of bogan conversation topics to three unambiguous words or less.
From time to time, the bogan will misappropriate Alanis Morrissette’s misappropriation of irony, and allege that in addition to being funny and sarcastic, it is also funny and ironic. If asked to define irony, the bogan will panic. If its initial explanation of “it’s like rain on your wedding day” is rejected due to its tunelessness and inherent untruth, the bogan will scuttle back to what it knows to work. “Duh, I was being saaaaaarcastiiiiiiic”. The bogan likes sarcasm.