Page 17 - Issue 41
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ELITE Vol.1, Issue 41, March 2022
rules to help us differentiate between a poor of this funny. To them, this is a real and
joke, and dark satire or humor. According to terrifying situation.
the “benign violation” theory (which was
developed back in 2008 by Peter McGraw, a
behavioral scientist at the University of
Colorado) dark jokes can be amusing
depending on the psychological distance,
Time distance, physical distance, and social
distance. All are factors that affect the hilarity
of a joke; they make the situation seem
benign. To demonstrate the concept of
psychological distance, let’s discuss a couple
of examples. When news of spousal killings u/Delicious-Whole-6391
were trending in Egypt a few months ago, We all must have heard of the Ismailia
social platforms were seemingly flooded with wedding incident that occurred almost a
both actual news of such incidents and jokes couple of weeks ago. People would consider
making light of these tragedies. The closer we joking about this topic as it happened
are socially to incidents like that, the more we abhorrent, but after a week the jokes are
find jokes about the topic distasteful. somehow easier to digest. By the same token,
a bride in the same situation would, quite
frankly, be disgusted at such jokes.
Humor and satire are great, but they have
their boundaries. Bad jokes can perpetuate
and reinforce wrong stereotypes. Jokes about
hating one’s spouse, mocking a different race,
or a disadvantaged group of people can hurt
real people, and not just emotionally. It’s a
running joke in Egypt that women “can’t
drive” (which I find silly seeing that it’s
always the men that drive like it’s the end of
the world), and while this may be funny to
Physical distance also matters. Online, people some, it puts women down and makes them
have been using satire and making memes hesitant to learn a skill that may help them.
about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. People By the same token, morbid humor can turn
who are at a safe distance from this might offensive if it is delivered at the wrong time,
laugh about it, but people living in Ukraine to the wrong group of people, or if it is
and neighboring countries might not find any simply insensitive.
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