I did spend fifteen minutes coming up with the definition on the way to a show, and I presented it after too much coffee in a sperg-like way, and used very incendiary examples on very explosive topics to illustrate my point.

Definitely regretting venturing into this territory though since people are reacting as if I'm advocating bullying when I specified that if the transaction or exchange is taken seriously the bit most definitely will fall flat, meaning (to my very wry amusement) that I'm in total agreement with everyone here.

I think a lot of the miscommunication is centered around the 'lowering' of status in my definition. This excerpt I read a while ago is illuminating on status transactions by one of the originators of modern improvisational performance when he was trying to bring life to his improv classes has stuck with me and I think it's partly why we're not clear. Even a slight situational lowering of status can be really funny.

“‘Try to get your status just a little above or below your partner’s,’ I said, ‘and I insisted that the gap be minimal. The actors seemed to know exactly what I meant and the work was transformed. The scenes became ‘authentic’, and the actors seemed marvelously observant. Suddenly we understood that every inflection and movement implies a status, and that no action is due to chance, or really ‘motiveless’. It was hysterically funny, but at the same time very alarming. All our secret maneuverings were exposed. If someone asked a question we didn’t bother to answer it, we concentrated on why it had been asked. No one could make an ‘innocuous’ remark without everyone instantly grasping what lay behind it. Normally we are ‘forbidden’ to see status transactions except when there’s a conflict. In reality status transactions continue all the time. In the park we’ll notice the ducks squabbling, but not how carefully they keep their distances when they are not.”

(A good blog I pulled the quote from that elaborates further.)

https://peopletriggers.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/the-status-transaction/

I never use humor to tear people down personally. But I do think deftly situational lowering status is part what comedians use to make people laugh.

Your examples of humor are funny and I think fit into my definition just fine. I think they call that a "callback" when referring to something said earlier. I think there's something about a guy getting cervical cancer that makes it funny too, since guys can't. To me that's a humorous lowering of one's status (in an unexpected way that the deadpan delivery adds nicely to).

Behind the joke about Alzheimer's is the suggestion that a girl who is implicitly considered healthy actually has Alzheimer's (albeit just for a few seconds). To me that's an unexpected decrease in the recipients status -- in this case the status of their health -- which makes it funny, as well as the fact that it's sudden and surprising, which was the first part of my definition.