The late Lenny Bruce once famously stated, “The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can’t fake it.” This is, undoubtedly, a foreign concept to alleged comedian Dane “Il Duce Douche” Cook, who generally provokes disgust rather than laughter. Now, however, victims audiences of Dane’s brand of humour shall be vindicated by a research study at Washington State University, which found that those who tell bad jokes commonly experience an astonishingly hostile audience reaction:

“These were basically attacks intended to result in the social exclusion or humiliation of the speaker, punctuated on occasion with profanity, a nasty glare or even a solid punch to the arm,” said researcher Nancy Bell.

“The predominant verbal reaction to failed humor in our study was oriented exclusively toward attacking the speaker,” Bell said.

Why so serious? According to the study, bad jokes not only insult an audience but also generally violate our notion of social contract (see Leviathan, holla), and this results in the urge to punish the bad comedian. That would explain Dane Cook’s recent gravitation towards making shitty movies. No one can physically attack him when he’s on the big screen.