Self-referential humor or self-reflexive humor is a type of comedic expression that—either directed toward some other subject, or openly directed toward itself—intentionally alludes to the very person who is expressing the humor in a comedic fashion, or to some specific aspect of that same comedic expression. Self-referential humor expressed discreetly and surrealistically is a form of bathos

Bathos

Bathos is an abrupt transition in style from the exalted to the commonplace, producing a ludicrous effect. While often unintended, bathos may be used deliberately to produce a humorous effect. If bathos is overt, it may be described as Burlesque or mock-heroic...

. In general, self-referential humor often uses hypocrisy

Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy is the state of pretending to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie....

, oxymoron

Oxymoron

An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms...

, or paradox

Paradox

Similar to Circular reasoning, A paradox is a seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which seems to defy logic or intuition...

 to create a contradictory or otherwise absurd situation that is humorous to the audience.

Self-referential humor is sometimes combined with breaking the fourth wall

Fourth wall

The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play...

 to explicitly make the reference directly to the audience, or make self-reference to an element of the medium that the characters shouldn't be aware of.

Example

RAS syndrome

RAS syndrome

RAS syndrome , also known as PNS syndrome or RAP phrases , refers to the use of one or more of the words that make up an acronym or initialism in conjunction with the abbreviated form, thus in effect repeating one or more words...

 refers to the redundant use of one or more of the words that make up an acronym or initialism with the abbreviation itself, thus in effect repeating one or more words. However, "RAS" stands for Redundant Acronym Syndrome; therefore, the full phrase yields "Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome" and is self-referencing in a comical manner.

See also

• Self-reference
  Self-reference
  Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding...
  
  
• Indirect self-reference
  Indirect self-reference
  Indirect self-reference describes an object referring to itself indirectly.For example, define the function f such that f = "x". Any function passed as an argument to f is invoked with itself as an argument, and thus in any use of that argument is indirectly referring to itself.This example is...
  
  
• In-joke
  In-joke
  An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or in joke, is a joke whose humour is clear only to people who are in a particular social group, occupation, or other community of common understanding...
  
  
• Intertextuality
  Intertextuality
  Intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. It can include an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. The term “intertextuality” has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined...
  
  
• Meta-humor