3 The Problem with Fun: Why Do We Have Such a Hard Time Talking about Fun?

Having fun is not a new idea. We find the seemingly simple pleasure of fun in the corners of history and beyond—in between the lines of poems, in the shadows of paintings, in the stage directions of plays. Most tangibly, we find fun in ourselves, as an innate response and a state of being. Fun remains a concept so effortlessly omnipresent that we seldom pause to think about what it means and why it is so pervasive. Unlike beauty, fun has not found a seat at the adult table of culture, however, and is left to wander the halls of the museum, the concert hall, and gallery, eventually returning home to the amusement park, playground, and game shelf.