Some who have sought to explain humor point to the fact that many jokes or funny events contradict one’s sense of how things are supposed to be. The theory of benign violations proposes that something is funny when it seems both wrong or threatening and essentially harmless—as when a comedian says something shocking but clearly unserious. (What counts as benign depends on the perceiver of the joke.) Other theories of what makes things funny focus on the role of tension-relief, suddenly “getting” how incongruous details fit together, and other factors.