Are You Guilty of Appreciating Dark Humour and LOL’ing at World War 3 Jokes?

Why is humour important in times of crisis?

Not a meme! Courtesy: Ukraine official handle. 

Photo: Altered by The Quint

Soon after Russian leader Vladimir Putin launched a "full-scale invasion" of Ukraine, amidst these times of severe crisis and distress, social media is in splits with World War 3 jokes. The memes left no stones unturned and covered a range of themes, right from how Gen-Z is unprepared for its first ever war situation to how stock markets are dancing to Putin’s tunes.

Here is a compilation of tweets and Instagram posts from comedians and the social media army, who are trying their best to attack Russia through memes.

There are memes everywhere - on the pandemic, deaths, unemployment and now the war in Ukraine. However, the pressing question is - is "Meme-ing" through a crisis insensitive? When there is danger lurking around the corner, are war jokes really funny? While it might look silly or even a little irresponsible to giggle at and share such memes, it just means we're all humans. But is it the right thing to do? Should you feel guilty for laughing at World War 3 jokes? The short answer, "Yes", but the long answer, “Maybe, maybe not!”. In order to know why, let's first understand what dark humour is.

Dark humour or Black comedy is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discuss. It is in fact an art of joking and laughing at tragedy or trauma without trivialising it which lets you break the shackles of your emotional comfort zone.

Though tragedy and comedy might look like polar opposites, I believe that only if someone embraces the humour in a tragic situation, can they pull themselves together to stay sane and navigate through a crisis. While it might sound like I am just referring to someone’s personality and their ability to stay calm under testing situations, there are other dimensions to it too. A study in the journal Cognitive Processing has found that there is a strong correlation between intelligence along with other factors like an individual’s aggression levels and the appreciation of black humour. Research studies at the Medical University of Vienna shows that an appreciation of black comedy is a sign of high IQ and low aggression.

In today’s day and age, Dark comedy in memes are seen as a way to cope with crisis. With brewing tension, even if you look beyond humour, Memes are a reflection of the collective sentiment of our society. While their primary intent is to entertain, they also educate and inspire by acting as the most important socio political commentary. Memes are in a way, aspiring political cartoons holding a larger purpose.

So don’t you think it is okay to crack the funny bone even if you have a fractured collar bone? Maybe that was a poor dark joke! But the point is, if political memes can help capture and spread awareness about a crisis, why not leverage it by using the power of social media and your fingertips.