The Joke Hole

The Joke Hole is a mysterious occurrence known to happen in most of the northern hemisphere. While it has the consistency of a single entity, The Joke Hole appears briefly in different locations every day.

Description
The joke hole is a seemingly bottomless hole with a diameter of about 3 feet. Interviewed victims say it smells strongly of orange bell peppers. When a human approaches it, funny jokes can be heard from inside such as divorce jokes and fart sounds. If the human drops money into the hole, a male American-accented voice will say "thank you". If the human falls into the hole, they disappear completely. Only about 2% of victims return from the joke hole. These escapees emerge from the hole completely insane, rambling about spiders and a basement and how they needed to give 300 "bits" to get out.

It has been found that victims of the Joke Hole are sent to the Basement and sometimes the Grocery Store.

Effects on humanity
The Joke Hole draws in nearby humans with jokes emitting from its opening. These victims are compelled to drop money into The Joke Hole, with crowds often gathering for the duration of the Hole's appearance. The Joke Hole can exist for anywhere from a few minutes to multiple hours, with the longest instance being close to 15 hours.

Some theorise that appearances of the Joke Hole are the only reasons crowds ever exist, with all other examples (concerts, protests, etc) being mere coincidence.

Research
In 2022, anonymous researchers attempted to study The Joke Hole. They managed to contain a mini Joke Hole in their lab. Everything was fine for 3 and a half hours, before a mysterious brown liquid burned the entire lab as well as the people in it. About 4,000 rads was detected at the time of the incident. In an interview with a survivor, he stated "it called itself the... the shit king". No other information has been shared. It is theorised this lab is located in the [EXPUNGED] area.

Trivia

 * The minimum amount of bits required to throw into the joke hole increased from 150 to 300 on 8/15/2022 on the stream "Doug and Twitch Chat INVADE THE SOLAR SYSTEM (with A.I.) - TTS is $3," due to inflation.