What Is Fun?

Abstract

Despite the importance of fun in entertainment, there exists remarkably little research into its nature and function. Drawing extensively on empirical evidence from entertainment examples, McKee proposes a simple definition: fun is `pleasure without purpose', where pleasure is understood to be `doing something that you want to do'. In this chapter McKee explains that this apparently banal definition has radical implications for our thinking about how culture works. He shows that this basic definition functions in two ways. There exists a solipsistic version of fun—anything can be fun if you do it for pleasure (algebra can be fun). But there also exists a consensual, mainstream understanding of fun—sex, drugs, and rock `n'roll.