If you are curious as to why you're being downvoted, it's because this comment adds no substance and states something completely obvious.

In other words, it was unnecessary. That kind of stuff is for reddit.

No, I am not curious. I know exactly why I am being downvoted.

HN'ers sometimes need to lighten up a bit. A little humor among thousands of serious comments (many not useful) is not going to bring down HN and it is incorrect to assume it doesn't add any substance. My comment was not crass, sarcastic, degrading or mean. It was appreciating the commenter's sense of humor in a harmless way.

There was no humorous value in your comment.

People who are familiar with Mitch Hedberg's work don't need any help in recognizing the quote.

For people who haven't heard about Mitch Hedberg, your comment doesn't make any sense without further research.

To me it sounded like you're bragging that you understood the reference.

The comment tells you to go look up Mitch Hedberg, that's much more useful than further explanation since explanation is the death of humor.

off-topic.

This is another example where HN needs tags.

The original humorous comment could have been tagged "humor" and the parent reply could have been tagged "meta", and an HN reader could have their client filter posts based on their preferences: if they want to see humor or meta posts, they could have them -- if they don't they won't and their feed will be leaner and less annoying to them, and there'll be less need to downvote "off-topic" posts.

Then everyone would be happy.

I really like this idea.

[meta], [general-agreement], [non-contributing]

Until people spam the non-contributing tag on posts they don't like in an attempt to silence them, and companies abuse it to try and cover up posts that badmouth them, giving mods a constant headache.

[non-contributing]

If you are curious about why you are totally wrong, his comment was NOT unnecessary, and it DID add substance.

I had never heard of Mitch Hedberg, and therefore did not get the quote, and now I have enjoyed several clips of his comedy routines.

I agree with the pthreads, many people on HN are far too quick to hit the "that stuff is for reddit" button, and could definitely lighten up a bit.