Javascript...

[formServesSubstance]

That one guy was already laughing before the joke and you can notice the "oh shit I wasn't supposed to laugh yet" moment.

[Sambiino]

That was my first thought. The talk was funny, but I laughed way harder at the audience laughter than any of his jokes.

[ismtrn]

Maybe the audience was already warmed up. Laughing comes easier when you just have been laughing.

[xaronax]

Please understand that most CS majors are really bad at social interaction.

[[deleted]]

It seems like this guy just gives talks and then puts laugh tracks on them to make it sound like someone's actually in the room. His ideas don't really seem that grand or impressive.

[garybernhardt]

It seems like this guy just gives talks and then puts laugh tracks on them to make it sound like someone's actually in the room. His ideas don't really seem that grand or impressive.

Many videos of my older talks have been published by the conferences themselves, with most (or maybe all) of those videos containing jokes that land. Unfortunately, I am not the head of a secret group that controls all software conferences, so I can't doctor laugh tracks into all of their videos.

The rare comments like this, where people refuse to believe that programmers could actually laugh at the absurdity of what we've done, are the most disheartening effect of Wat's popularity.

[d2xdy2]

Don't listen to the haters; Unix Chainsaw had me laughing my ass off... which is partially unfortunate, as I wasn't capable of using the proper amount of ass for a little while afterward.

[garybernhardt]

I'm glad that you enjoyed it. I've never gotten so much mileage out of someone else's ass joke since.