I have a sense of humor. It might be different than yours, but I have one. I also have a low tolerance for noise on HN. I don't come here for "teh funny." I have others places I go for that. I come here for interesting, hacker related items. I can find funny all over the internet. This is the only reliable place I know of to find good hacker news. I'd rather not spoil that.
The erlang articles were mostly very interesting, and seeing a HN meme flare up and go away just as quickly, especially one that is self-deprecating in poking fun at the stereotype of the HN reader doing everything pg says, was very fun. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it.
The only kind of noise that I really hate on HN is the "hacker news sucks" crap. If you think it's too noisy, get better filters, or help out by flagging the articles that violate the TOS, up-voting the articles that are good, and ignoring the rest.
Complaining about HN in an HN comment is frankly just humorless.
I like HN, and I think it's worth explaining how the community works. That includes why (bad) humor is downmodded so often.
I find complaining about HN (especially the "whaa to much noise") on HN highly ironic.
and that's something we never want ;)