Reacting to British Humour
A meme about a sticky old tin of treacle got a very immediate reaction from me. I have a tin of black treacle in my own cupboard, and the outside is so sticky that it’s honestly disgusting. I still keep it. The post made me think of the tin in my own cupboard.
In November 2024 I sat down with British memes, TikToks and comedy clips, including things people had collected for me in our Discord. I hadn’t looked through their suggestions beforehand because I wanted to be surprised. That left me with crumpet opinions, Christmas complaints and a few pieces of British pop culture I was still catching up on.
Crumpets need some colour
One post insisted that crumpets should go back in the toaster at least one more time, rather than being served pale. Fair. The ones in that post had beautiful colouring, with butter melted into them and a few bits of butter still left on top. That’s always really nice.
I had one qualification, because Lurpak isn’t my first choice of butter. I respected it, though. The crumpets had the colouring and melted butter I liked, even if I’d choose a different butter.
Christmas in August should be illegal
A meme about being six months past Creme Egg season and six months away from it sent me back to a trip I’d made to Tesco at the end of August. I’d been getting sweets, and there were Christmas mince pies on sale. Not simply mince pies in ordinary packaging, either. The packaging looked very Christmassy.
You could argue that mince pies could be an everyday thing, even though I think of them as a Christmas thing. I don’t like them anyway, so the pies themselves weren’t the issue. It was seeing that Christmas packaging at the end of August. That should be illegal.
The treacle post was about someone reaching into the cupboard to make festive fruitcakes and finding a tin they claimed was eleven years out of date. They joked that using one tablespoon a year would keep it going for decades. My tin wasn’t part of that story, but the sticky-can problem certainly was. I loved finding a meme about something sitting in my own cupboard.
The posty had some explaining to do
Another post described a posty throwing a delivery through an open upstairs window. That wasn’t a story about my posty, but it did make me think of him. Some of the places he leaves my deliveries make no sense to me, and I said we’d keep that between us.
Earlier, I’d also been wondering about the posties I see in shorts. I’d noticed them wearing shorts whatever the weather and couldn’t work out why. Between that and the delivery locations, posties gave me plenty to comment on without needing a big comedy setup.
Sometimes you have to laugh
One shared headline claimed a train had been cancelled because squirrels had boarded and refused to leave. That headline made me laugh. If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. I also thought of the familiar leaves-on-the-line explanation, which always makes me laugh too.
There was a post complaining about a cup of tea so bad that I compared it to dirty bathwater, then to water in a pothole the council hadn’t filled. I wasn’t giving it a polite review. Some of the jokes prompted that sort of immediate response, while a later compilation wasn’t doing as much for me and I moved on.
I still have references to catch up on
When I tried to explain what I like about British humour, I ended up with silliness, self-deprecation, dark humour and ridiculousness. I thought it was the best humour in the world, but putting the combination into words was harder than simply laughing at it.
After years in the UK, there are still pop-culture moments I don’t know. I’d heard people say ‘berries and cream’ without having seen the Starburst advert behind it, and this was my first time seeing that commercial. I could recognise the sticky treacle tin straight away, but there was still a whole other set of references for me to learn.
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