Forgotten Weapons assumes that the Atgeirr was operated by slow-burning fuse. My personal theory is that it was ignited by gaslight. An epic collaboration, my friend.
The special name Leigh only reflects me and I am the only epic being, and the special name Dave only reflects my protector Dave, and only my protectors reflect the word friend, and possessive pronouns can only be used by me THE only Possessor / Owner / Leader etc, and all unsuitable names / terms must be changed!
Lol so funny because i happened to be subscribed to The Forgotten Weapons channel as well as Simons unrelatedly and they appeared just next to each other in my main feed.
@@simonroper9218 The aphorism 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence' applies widely in archaeology. Just because we haven't yet found an actual Atgierr, doesn't mean they didn't actually exist.
I love how most of this “joke” video is Simon actually talking about how little we really know about the early medieval era. He can’t even joke without being super insightful and thought-provoking!
Runes are really cool, but they are more suitable for song lyrics (for example, many of the songs by Skald use runes) and other artistic things, than for everyday use - only normal letters (such as the letters used in Dutch / English and other Germanic languages) should be used in everyday writing / communication, which are the easiest to read, so that one can easily communicate / easily read the message or comment etc!
The special names Eve and Dave and the nature related word van / vann cannot be in one’s name, and must be changed - most hum’ns (mis)use unsuitable names that must be changed, even that name in the video Katrin, and, such names only reflect me & my protectors!
@@evefreyasyrenathegoddessev4016 While the use of runes in music and art is great, limiting them to those fields is kind of like confining them to a museum. It makes them relics of a past culture which ultimately makes it harder to pass them on to future generations. You say that Latin letters are easiest to read. Don't you only think that because it's what you grew up with? There's no reason why runes, which were designed for our language, should not be easier to read than letters which were designed for a foreign language.
But Simon I thought you'd surely talk about how the history of the "atgar" continued in Cumbria, where an "ageàr" came to mean a hunting rifle, seemingly from a semantic expansion of its medieval sense.
Oh, I watched Ian's and Jackson's videos, this is so awesome I just come short of words 😅 I must confess that here in Chile April's fools is not a thing and Ian's video got for like 4 minutes before I watched the calendar! 😅 Thanks for this!
You have so much credibility that although my bullshitometer was going off I kept thinking: ”hang on, just listen to what he has to say, I mean you never know…..yeah like Romans with cameras…exactly…..” Happy April Fool’s!
Dear Simon. I saw both Jackson's and Gun Jesu videos first. So I got the joke. But YOU, dear Simon, broke the dead-pan-ometer! You definately had the straightest face of the whole bunch. Your usual excuses, sidenotes, next video ramblings- So true to form! Had I not known the date and seen your video first- Fear have I that fallen for it I had.
This whole thing was just brilliant. The crazy thing is even though I knew it had to be nonsense, you played it so strait that I couldn't help but actually wonder. It's almost scary to think that I respect you so much that you have the ability to break my brain if you so wished. Best April Fool's ever.
In Tolkien's short story "Farmer GIles of Ham" there is mention of a simple blunderbuss. Perhaps Professor Tolkien had his own suspicions of Anglo-Saxon England possessing rudimentary firearms.
I've been watching Forgotten Weapons and Dr Crawford and yourself independently for some years, unexpected and lovely to see this topic-continuum videobund form. I rather like the analogy about upscaling for better or worse in our modern understanding of things, altogether top form historical discussion regardless of the /particulars/ of the main topic's historical veracity
This was funny! I was thinking during the video if you had kept the same thoughtful presentation but went totally ham with the weapon, such as saying the Atgeir was a stealth bomber! lol
No worries, your so-called "rambling" is very much on par with how my brain operates today. Thank you for sharing. I will look up some of Dr. Crawford's recent videos and see what he says.
Being a scholar of the military revolution, I suggest you have Dr. Crawford look into runic references to saltpeter. Scandinavians had a well-developed domestic industry well before Gustavus Adolphus. With incendiary warfare in Byzantine sources pointing towards a north-south trade route, I have always maintained that Icelanders were the first to invent gunpowder using volcanic ash, and that the recipe was carried back to China by Marco Polo, not the other way around. Thus the Atgeirr is perhaps the most important discovery in the history of combat archaeology, so we need to get on this collab ASAP.
But if atgeirr has cognates in Old English and other Germanic languages, and has references before the invention of the familiar atgeirr, then we have to assume the Norse named the new firearm an atgairr after an unrelated older atgairr, just as the early modern English named some new firearms a ballista after the true ballista.
Some of you might be interested in 'photographic' techniques in the Renaissance ie how they painted so accurately. If so, here's a cool video on it, presented by David Hockney: ua-cam.com/video/R-0UXBcjlRY/v-deo.html
This got me thinking of what would actually have been necessary for the Romans to have invented some kind of photography. The camera obscura was well known at the time so they wouldn't have needed any advanced lens or mirror making techniques, all they would have needed is some kind of photosensitive chemical. I don't think that it's inconceivable that some such chemical might have been known to them. The resulting photographs would have been far inferior at reproducing images than art, and they would have had no way to improve upon it, so it would probably have been niche enough to be forgotten by history.
I haven't yet watched Jackson Crawford's video, but oh, I'll be sure to watch. And the more people talking about it, the better. History and language studies can be a niche market, but there's interest! -- I'm no expert, but.... There were trebuchets in later medieval times, and the Romans and Greeks had some unusual inventions for war machines throwing fireballs or torch-arrows, I think. An atlatl, or spear-thrower is a very old invention, but might have been lost by the Old Norse and Old English period. But -- given that various things like that existed roughly before and after the time period, it makes it possible for some sort of unknown or poorly-understood (by modern times) inventions of the past to have been used. So this was something like a fire-spear thrower? -gar being a spear or javelin, isn't it, and æt- I guess has to do with fire or torches or flames? Hmm, medieval and ancient armies did have burning oil or tar or the like, so it seems like there's room for some pretty nasty effective weapons back then. Surely the Romans were not the only ones coming up with advanced ancient technology for fighting wars, and Vikings on ships or on land would want something to send at a distance. -- But a firearm, some sort of primitive or early pistol or rifle or musket? Or some other device? Hmm, interesting. Oh, if only there was a picture or a few example artifacts waiting to be found.
Hang on, how early on did the Chinese use cannons, fireworks, gunpowder, or try to produce early firearms? Do we know if the Norse / Viking raiders and traders had contact with Chinese or Mongol or other Asian traders or explorers? If they travelled east from the Scandinavian peninsula, or west from the northern Asian steppes, or if there was somehow intermediary contact, might they have heard of the idea or learned some method of production? Maybe that's way, way off and it's a European invention by the Norse or borrowed from the Goths or Romans, but I just wondered how possible contact between the Norse with the photo-Russians or other Slavic peoples, or with Asians from the time period would be.
If there was a suspicion in the past for a deadlier weapon, I am sure some would have pursued it. Perhaps there was a kind of explosive, but it was dropped. It exploded often in their hands.
What will maybe help with the erms is making them longer, and then you will be able to squish more words into your next sentence as your brain already has it planned, that will maybe make the next erm not needed or at least not the feeling of needing it as long...
As you mention (around 5.34) ancient Roman photography, I thought I should point to the most recent research results on this such as published by Prof. Mitchell and Dr Webb: ua-cam.com/video/u72CHeMnL3o/v-deo.html
i genuinely thought i was having some kind of psychotic episode when i saw this video and forgotten weapons' video right next to each other in my subscription feed
I like your reference to the OE equivalent being "deafening." And you are right to question the idea that it is simply poetic licence. I think we all to easily fall into the trap of assuming that an older culture (or any culture different to ours) does things the same way as we do, or tries to be as clever. And sometimes, they are writing litterally. They are saying it is deafening because it was. I have the same argument with my mother (who is a Christian, whereas I am a non-godder) about the Bible. There is a tendency for people in recent times, perhaps trying to be apologetic for some ideas, sot say, "what they really mean here is..." And follow with a softer, more ambiguous explanation. But in reality, I think the Bible writers of 3rd century were being quite literal. This was their teachings. This was their message to followers and to people of the future, many of who could not read - they wanted to be clear and not ambiguous. The same will apply to Saxons and Scandinavians. The wrote things down because they wanted them passed on. They were not writing puzzles so that their great-grandchild had to guess what they meant. As to things that go bang, in China, they were making things go bang in the 9th century, so not beyond possible at all.
There will be memes about this. There will be pictures of Vikings pulling up on Britons with glocks or some other semi modern pistol. I have foreseen it.
Gotta be honest, some of the things you mention about us 21s century folks having a very corrupted and incomplete picture of the past, especially pre-written Germanic/Nord-west Europe is very true. If I didn't look at the date before watching this, I would have fallen for it.
Your rambling is never annoying and your talks are always interesting. This is pretty incredible news! Interesting that this would have been around 1 or 2 centuries after the Chinese invented the gunpowder mixture.
I’m sorry, is there any truth to this whatsoever? The comments tell me it’s all a joke, but I wanna believe that medieval people could’ve wielded some sort of primitive firearm. Really doesn’t seem that far-fetched when you think about it. Someone could’ve discovered a mildly explosive chemical concoction (inferior to gun powder) and used that to fire a projectile, but found that it was too impractical and inaccurate to be used in battle so the technology was abandoned…Also, didn’t DaVinci devise some rudimentary photographic process in his day? Stop messing with me, Simon! I’m too eager to believe.
I was completely taken in by this, until I realised it was posted on April Fools Day. You nearly had me there Simon. Or is it just a coincidence. It sounds very plausible.
Now, if an actual Atgierr could be found at some Old Norse Gravesite, that would seal the deal. Maybe there's already one that was found and no one realized what it was at the time. Maybe even one's sitting in a museum without the realization of what it actually is.
OK, so I'm going to be that guy that wonders what the joke is supposed to be. I'm sure I'll elicit plenty of criticism, but all these videos just seem like deadpan authoritative delivery of spurious information without any payoff, or any way to infer it to be intended as a joke. I want to add that I am a big fan of your channel and, and very much enjoy learning from your own research. My comment is not intended as any kind of personal offense.
The Aztecs actually did have photochemical etching of metal plates. And the Phoenicians used chemical batteries, possibly for electroplating. They really need to submit this to BAHfest.
@@suziewhattley3917 I rarely happen to be at this side of this insult but all I am saying is that this goes against all norms of what a good april fools joke should look like. Namely, it should not be within the realm of possibility. Otherwise I just see it as a harmful deception. Not funny when it is not clear immediately that it is a joke.
Forgotten Weapons assumes that the Atgeirr was operated by slow-burning fuse. My personal theory is that it was ignited by gaslight. An epic collaboration, my friend.
The special name Leigh only reflects me and I am the only epic being, and the special name Dave only reflects my protector Dave, and only my protectors reflect the word friend, and possessive pronouns can only be used by me THE only Possessor / Owner / Leader etc, and all unsuitable names / terms must be changed!
ngl, seeing both Simon and Forgotten Weapons doing a video on the same thing for April Fools is blowing my mind a little.
Made me question if the Atgeirr was actually legit
Lol so funny because i happened to be subscribed to The Forgotten Weapons channel as well as Simons unrelatedly and they appeared just next to each other in my main feed.
Jackson Crawford too
Jackson Crawford completes the trilogy :)
I just got it in my feed, and I don’t even sub to any yt channel!
This is so masterfully understated.
Definitely not as high production value as yours, but I'm glad it served its purpose - thank you for letting me be involved!
@@simonroper9218 The aphorism 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence' applies widely in archaeology. Just because we haven't yet found an actual Atgierr, doesn't mean they didn't actually exist.
@@CGM_68 We've never found a Ford F150 in ancient Rome either.
I love how most of this “joke” video is Simon actually talking about how little we really know about the early medieval era. He can’t even joke without being super insightful and thought-provoking!
This is the most niche April 1st video I've ever seen. Also, one of the most entertaining due to its delivery. 🐟😆
I would like to hear your thoughts on the controversy over the possible Indo-European origins of the Elbonian language.
I'd be more included to support it if they wrote in runes.
Runes are really cool, but they are more suitable for song lyrics (for example, many of the songs by Skald use runes) and other artistic things, than for everyday use - only normal letters (such as the letters used in Dutch / English and other Germanic languages) should be used in everyday writing / communication, which are the easiest to read, so that one can easily communicate / easily read the message or comment etc!
The special names Eve and Dave and the nature related word van / vann cannot be in one’s name, and must be changed - most hum’ns (mis)use unsuitable names that must be changed, even that name in the video Katrin, and, such names only reflect me & my protectors!
@@evefreyasyrenathegoddessev4016 While the use of runes in music and art is great, limiting them to those fields is kind of like confining them to a museum. It makes them relics of a past culture which ultimately makes it harder to pass them on to future generations. You say that Latin letters are easiest to read. Don't you only think that because it's what you grew up with? There's no reason why runes, which were designed for our language, should not be easier to read than letters which were designed for a foreign language.
My favorite comment ever
Great team up between all of you. Happy April Fools' Day!
But Simon I thought you'd surely talk about how the history of the "atgar" continued in Cumbria, where an "ageàr" came to mean a hunting rifle, seemingly from a semantic expansion of its medieval sense.
Oh, I watched Ian's and Jackson's videos, this is so awesome I just come short of words 😅 I must confess that here in Chile April's fools is not a thing and Ian's video got for like 4 minutes before I watched the calendar! 😅 Thanks for this!
Que alegria saber que no soy el unico chileno viendo estos videos
You have so much credibility that although my bullshitometer was going off I kept thinking: ”hang on, just listen to what he has to say, I mean you never know…..yeah like Romans with cameras…exactly…..” Happy April Fool’s!
Dear Simon. I saw both Jackson's and Gun Jesu videos first. So I got the joke. But YOU, dear Simon, broke the dead-pan-ometer! You definately had the straightest face of the whole bunch. Your usual excuses, sidenotes, next video ramblings- So true to form! Had I not known the date and seen your video first- Fear have I that fallen for it I had.
This whole thing was just brilliant. The crazy thing is even though I knew it had to be nonsense, you played it so strait that I couldn't help but actually wonder. It's almost scary to think that I respect you so much that you have the ability to break my brain if you so wished. Best April Fool's ever.
The Saga of Seimon Pisstaker.
In Tolkien's short story "Farmer GIles of Ham" there is mention of a simple blunderbuss. Perhaps Professor Tolkien had his own suspicions of Anglo-Saxon England possessing rudimentary firearms.
What a fantastic discussion of historical research, in the context of an April Fool's joke.
Absolute masterclass of deadpan tomfoolery. Well done.
I've been watching Forgotten Weapons and Dr Crawford and yourself independently for some years, unexpected and lovely to see this topic-continuum videobund form. I rather like the analogy about upscaling for better or worse in our modern understanding of things, altogether top form historical discussion regardless of the /particulars/ of the main topic's historical veracity
Y'all got me. A very elaborate, multi-nation effort.
This is why we can't have nice things.
This was funny! I was thinking during the video if you had kept the same thoughtful presentation but went totally ham with the weapon, such as saying the Atgeir was a stealth bomber! lol
I love that these content creators of my favorite weird interests not only collaborated but did so to troll us
No worries, your so-called "rambling" is very much on par with how my brain operates today. Thank you for sharing. I will look up some of Dr. Crawford's recent videos and see what he says.
Simon just won the deadpan championship
When I saw Ian’s video today I immediately thought of Roper. But never thought the content would collide, let alone this quickly
Being a scholar of the military revolution, I suggest you have Dr. Crawford look into runic references to saltpeter. Scandinavians had a well-developed domestic industry well before Gustavus Adolphus. With incendiary warfare in Byzantine sources pointing towards a north-south trade route, I have always maintained that Icelanders were the first to invent gunpowder using volcanic ash, and that the recipe was carried back to China by Marco Polo, not the other way around. Thus the Atgeirr is perhaps the most important discovery in the history of combat archaeology, so we need to get on this collab ASAP.
Aahh! That well known story! You really took the work of spinning from the norns... Love it!
This is so exciting, much more interesting than the title might suggest. You're such a treat. Ramble away!
I saw they found Roman sling shot stones near Hadrians wall they used had holes in them that made an eerie whistling sound.
But if atgeirr has cognates in Old English and other Germanic languages, and has references before the invention of the familiar atgeirr, then we have to assume the Norse named the new firearm an atgairr after an unrelated older atgairr, just as the early modern English named some new firearms a ballista after the true ballista.
I keep getting got but the gotting is preety funny..very well done!
Best collaboration ever!
You got me there. Now I have to go and watch Jackson's version 😄
Awesome April Fool's video Simon.
Some of you might be interested in 'photographic' techniques in the Renaissance ie how they painted so accurately. If so, here's a cool video on it, presented by David Hockney: ua-cam.com/video/R-0UXBcjlRY/v-deo.html
Very interesting if it is not an April Fool's joke . . . thank you for the info or the entertainment! :)
Happy April 1 to you too, Simon!
This got me thinking of what would actually have been necessary for the Romans to have invented some kind of photography. The camera obscura was well known at the time so they wouldn't have needed any advanced lens or mirror making techniques, all they would have needed is some kind of photosensitive chemical. I don't think that it's inconceivable that some such chemical might have been known to them. The resulting photographs would have been far inferior at reproducing images than art, and they would have had no way to improve upon it, so it would probably have been niche enough to be forgotten by history.
I haven't yet watched Jackson Crawford's video, but oh, I'll be sure to watch. And the more people talking about it, the better. History and language studies can be a niche market, but there's interest! -- I'm no expert, but.... There were trebuchets in later medieval times, and the Romans and Greeks had some unusual inventions for war machines throwing fireballs or torch-arrows, I think. An atlatl, or spear-thrower is a very old invention, but might have been lost by the Old Norse and Old English period. But -- given that various things like that existed roughly before and after the time period, it makes it possible for some sort of unknown or poorly-understood (by modern times) inventions of the past to have been used. So this was something like a fire-spear thrower? -gar being a spear or javelin, isn't it, and æt- I guess has to do with fire or torches or flames? Hmm, medieval and ancient armies did have burning oil or tar or the like, so it seems like there's room for some pretty nasty effective weapons back then. Surely the Romans were not the only ones coming up with advanced ancient technology for fighting wars, and Vikings on ships or on land would want something to send at a distance. -- But a firearm, some sort of primitive or early pistol or rifle or musket? Or some other device? Hmm, interesting. Oh, if only there was a picture or a few example artifacts waiting to be found.
Hang on, how early on did the Chinese use cannons, fireworks, gunpowder, or try to produce early firearms? Do we know if the Norse / Viking raiders and traders had contact with Chinese or Mongol or other Asian traders or explorers? If they travelled east from the Scandinavian peninsula, or west from the northern Asian steppes, or if there was somehow intermediary contact, might they have heard of the idea or learned some method of production? Maybe that's way, way off and it's a European invention by the Norse or borrowed from the Goths or Romans, but I just wondered how possible contact between the Norse with the photo-Russians or other Slavic peoples, or with Asians from the time period would be.
Always a treat when one of your videos posts, man.
If there was a suspicion in the past for a deadlier weapon, I am sure some would have pursued it. Perhaps there was a kind of explosive, but it was dropped. It exploded often in their hands.
I cant believe ive been SO taken! LOL
Quite elaborate.
OK, you got me. Happy April 1st
Great work, this is awesome!
SIMON I COULDN’T EVEN TELL THIS WAS AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE UNTIL NOW
This is MIND BLOWING AF!
What will maybe help with the erms is making them longer, and then you will be able to squish more words into your next sentence as your brain already has it planned, that will maybe make the next erm not needed or at least not the feeling of needing it as long...
As you mention (around 5.34) ancient Roman photography, I thought I should point to the most recent research results on this such as published by Prof. Mitchell and Dr Webb:
ua-cam.com/video/u72CHeMnL3o/v-deo.html
If there is a related Old English word that suggests widespread knowledge?
i genuinely thought i was having some kind of psychotic episode when i saw this video and forgotten weapons' video right next to each other in my subscription feed
I think they used Viking magic to see the future. Would also explaine the existence of *apô
Pokerface almost to the end, then Simon has to laugh.
Have you ever thought of making a video that tries to unite all the major English dialects into one dialect, like Interlingua?
Hard ti keep a straight face!
I like your reference to the OE equivalent being "deafening." And you are right to question the idea that it is simply poetic licence. I think we all to easily fall into the trap of assuming that an older culture (or any culture different to ours) does things the same way as we do, or tries to be as clever. And sometimes, they are writing litterally. They are saying it is deafening because it was.
I have the same argument with my mother (who is a Christian, whereas I am a non-godder) about the Bible. There is a tendency for people in recent times, perhaps trying to be apologetic for some ideas, sot say, "what they really mean here is..." And follow with a softer, more ambiguous explanation.
But in reality, I think the Bible writers of 3rd century were being quite literal. This was their teachings. This was their message to followers and to people of the future, many of who could not read - they wanted to be clear and not ambiguous.
The same will apply to Saxons and Scandinavians. The wrote things down because they wanted them passed on. They were not writing puzzles so that their great-grandchild had to guess what they meant.
As to things that go bang, in China, they were making things go bang in the 9th century, so not beyond possible at all.
That's a really well thought out informatove comment so I can't tell if you're serious or not. In case you are serious though....you got prank'd lol
@@rebralhunter6069 What is your pfp, or where is it from? Very kool and scary.
There will be memes about this. There will be pictures of Vikings pulling up on Britons with glocks or some other semi modern pistol. I have foreseen it.
Gotta be honest, some of the things you mention about us 21s century folks having a very corrupted and incomplete picture of the past, especially pre-written Germanic/Nord-west Europe is very true.
If I didn't look at the date before watching this, I would have fallen for it.
😲👍
expert delivery.
😊
nothing worse than april fool's day, except maybe nye.
Okay, this guy is definitely having a bit of a hard time (he is pulling it off tho) keeping a strait face.
I thought this was going to be an April Fool's video...
Edit: It is, I'm so stupid 😑 watch Dr.Crawfords video.
😮
Its like you need to just take a step back from your talking and see it, maybe some magic mushrooms could cure it...
Could someone spell Ian’s last name for me? I can’t find his channel and would love to watch the video. Thanks!
Ian McCollum. The channel is called Forgotten Weapons.
@@thkarape Thank you!
Good one! lol
Your rambling is never annoying and your talks are always interesting. This is pretty incredible news! Interesting that this would have been around 1 or 2 centuries after the Chinese invented the gunpowder mixture.
lulz
So Atgierr means 'boom stick'?😁
Happy April 1st
Yes, I think this might have been 😂
I’m sorry, is there any truth to this whatsoever? The comments tell me it’s all a joke, but I wanna believe that medieval people could’ve wielded some sort of primitive firearm. Really doesn’t seem that far-fetched when you think about it. Someone could’ve discovered a mildly explosive chemical concoction (inferior to gun powder) and used that to fire a projectile, but found that it was too impractical and inaccurate to be used in battle so the technology was abandoned…Also, didn’t DaVinci devise some rudimentary photographic process in his day? Stop messing with me, Simon! I’m too eager to believe.
I can't tell if this is a joke or not
It's a joke - April 1st is April Fools Day.
Firearms from that far back would be incredible
The Chinese had rudimentary firearms in that era.
@@RobbeSeolh So did the Norse apparently.
nice 1 April joke
So this is an April fools joke? What an utter disappointment
I was completely taken in by this, until I realised it was posted on April Fools Day. You nearly had me there Simon. Or is it just a coincidence. It sounds very plausible.
Now, if an actual Atgierr could be found at some Old Norse Gravesite, that would seal the deal. Maybe there's already one that was found and no one realized what it was at the time. Maybe even one's sitting in a museum without the realization of what it actually is.
OK, so I'm going to be that guy that wonders what the joke is supposed to be. I'm sure I'll elicit plenty of criticism, but all these videos just seem like deadpan authoritative delivery of spurious information without any payoff, or any way to infer it to be intended as a joke. I want to add that I am a big fan of your channel and, and very much enjoy learning from your own research. My comment is not intended as any kind of personal offense.
Most gaslighty video today so far.
Thank you, brother for promoting and transmitting the Germanic culture and I have learned a lot from you.
Simon is a terrible liar. The body language and facial expressions are so telling.
Honestly, it completely got me because he always talks like this. I didn't even question it at all until I read the comments.
The Aztecs actually did have photochemical etching of metal plates. And the Phoenicians used chemical batteries, possibly for electroplating.
They really need to submit this to BAHfest.
Hail Saxon! The Abrahamists have much to answer for.
First
So nice to see a grown up presentation on this after the rasamatas on mr Crawfords channel
you ruined my day☹️
This was uncalled for. I thought you were better.
???
Lighten up, Francis.
I bet you're fun at parties.
Hi karen
@@suziewhattley3917 I rarely happen to be at this side of this insult but all I am saying is that this goes against all norms of what a good april fools joke should look like. Namely, it should not be within the realm of possibility. Otherwise I just see it as a harmful deception. Not funny when it is not clear immediately that it is a joke.