"Why Do We Use Dark Humor to Deal With Terrifying" Topic

…Situations?

"Life's hard for the humorless—loved ones die, hurricanes and infections ravage the planet, and all they can do is sit around and grieve about it. Some of us, meanwhile, watching our houses burn down and our spouses succumb to hazily-understood pancreatic ailments, can at least leaven the pain with a well-timed joke. As distraction, coping mechanism or aid to acceptance, dark humor has helped millions through crushing personal and/or world-historical ordeals. For this week's Giz Asks we reached out to a number of experts to suss out the reasons behind this dark phenomenon.

To answer this question, you first need to answer the question of what humor is in the first place. The work we've done in the Humor Research Lab suggests that people laugh at things that are "wrong yet okay," "threatening yet safe," or what we call "benign violations." These are all predicated on something that threatens the way we think the world ought to be. Tragedies, calamities, pandemics—these are all great fodder for jokes, because they already satisfy half the requirement: the wrong, the threat, the violation…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Well better than screaming and running away in terror !

We use "dark humor" to deal with the awfulness of situations. I found this true working for many years in ICU. You would see such tragedy that you needed to get rid of it so in the break room some of that humor would come out.Especially since we couldn't scream & run away!
+1 Legion 4

Back in my schooldays, whenever a celebrity died or was involved in a scandal, there would be a sick joke going around the very next day.
I never really thought about it being, a coping mechanism :/

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Yep, survival mode.

Well better than screaming and running away in terror !

Point and match!

I like to watch those paranormal reality shows. There are a bunch of them now. If I saw or heard some of the stuff those guys say they did … I'd not only run away screaming in terror but & my trousers too !!!!

Way back in time I had a class on physical anthropology, the text book suggested that our smiles also have a dark origin; basically your barring your teeth. And the thought of time was your endanger so your bearing your teeth but suddenly relieved that the tiger took Fred instead of you.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

More meat on Fred than on Barney…

Is there any other type of humor? Enjoy

"You Da Bomb, no you Da Bomb". A compliment in America and an argument in the Mid East.

Wolfhag