

Social Psychologists: 36 Days After a Tragedy, Jokes About It Become Funny - daureg
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116425/science-humor-when-does-it-become-ok-joke-about-tragedy

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BoppreH
For comparison, the Onion 9/11 cover:
[http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/thecutline/onion-911.jpg](http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/thecutline/onion-911.jpg)

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dror
Looks like it was actually published on 9/26
[http://www.theonion.com/articles/american-life-turns-into-
ba...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/american-life-turns-into-bad-jerry-
bruckheimer-mov,220/)
[http://www.theonion.com/issue/3734/](http://www.theonion.com/issue/3734/)

Because they stopped publishing right after 9/11
[http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/remembering-
onion-9-11-i...](http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/remembering-
onion-9-11-issue-everyone-thought-last-162024809.html)

~~~
matchu
Makes sense. I'd be pretty surprised if they managed to write all that on
9/11, for a number of reasons.

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hawkharris
Humor can be painful because there's a grain of truth in every joke.

For example, think about some of the jokes that are considered crass and
offensive in American culture: bits about black people being poor; women being
treated as housewives.

While the stereotypes are false, they relate to deep-rooted societal problems.
Income inequality is still associated with racial inequality. Women are still
underpaid and underrepresented in some industries.

Political correctness is not noble. It's a form of cowardice, a band-aid that
prevents us from using humor as a vehicle for thinking about uncomfortable
problems.

The harder an issue is to joke about, the more it requires jokes.

~~~
ewoodrich
One could also argue that your examples of crass humor normalize these
stereotypes, and therefore perpetuate them.

If I were to constantly make jokes about how black people were all burglars
and rapists, and women should spend all day in the kitchen, at some point I
might blur the line between irony and implicitly endorsing the generalization.

I don't claim that I haven't made the types of jokes you describe, but at the
same time, I don't consider it "cowardly" that some find such jokes
categorically offensive

~~~
rimantas
I also do not consider anyone finding some jokes offencive as cowardly person,
just a stupid one.

~~~
ewoodrich
So just to be clear, literally no joke can be offensive? I guess I'm stupid
then, because I have fairly high tolerance of irony, but I would never such a
sweeping claim.

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danohuiginn
I'd be interested in how it differs internationally. The US must be one of the
countries least comfortable about black humor.

[cultures which have gone through the worst seem to have the blackest jokes.
Israel and Bosnia leap to mind, though much of eastern Europe has something
similar going on]

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justincormack
Usually starts same day in the UK. We like our dark humour.

~~~
samstave
Given the weather; all your humour happens in the dark...

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joelrunyon
> McGraw believes the spread of social media has imposed new limits on what
> comedians can get away with.

> “Comedy is a space that has its own set of rules,” said McGraw. “Then it
> gets posted on the Internet and broadcast to people sitting at their desks—
> people who weren’t intended to hear it and aren’t in the mindset to
> appreciate it.”

I've noticed this lately with people taking comedian set jokes out of context
via a recording or second-hand party blowing them out of proportion. It's a
real shame. If a joke isn't funny - don't laugh at it - that's the worst
response a comic will ever get. But don't blow them up on a twitter, try to
make them apologize for making a joke that wasn't particularly funny.

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protomyth
Funniest joke about a tragedy was told to me and others by a friend's wife
about 20 minutes after the friend died. It was very near the worst day of a
group of people's lives and we really needed to laugh because it was going to
suck for a long while.

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ADFASFGADA
Got to say, the jokes usually fly literally minutes later here in the UK.

People either laugh straight away or never.

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uptown
This took longer than 36 days, but they made the Titanic a kids slide:

[http://24flinching.com/word/gold-seal/crazy-world/sinking-
ti...](http://24flinching.com/word/gold-seal/crazy-world/sinking-titanic-deck-
slide-for-kids/)

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RexRollman
These kind of jokes are a time honored coping mechanism. I can remember that
it wasn't long after the shuttle disaster in 1986 that I first heard the "Head
& Shoulders" joke.

~~~
davidw
"What did Christa Mcauliffe tell her husband before getting on the shuttle?
You feed the kids, I'll feed the fish."

Was the one I remembered. I also remember walking into my 5th grade class and
finding the teacher crying. She'd applied for the spot on the shuttle, and had
made it through several rounds of the selection process.

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sTevo-In-VA
[http://bit.ly/1fMaFnS](http://bit.ly/1fMaFnS)

This was too soon to be funny.

~~~
lmm
IMO it's more that it wasn't funny enough to be funny.

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Zenst
Does this mean one has to return in 36 days to comment on some posts, could
work.

But are we talking somebody not associated/involved or influenced by the
tragedy and just other people as with most things, relativity applies.

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robbrown451
And it has nothing to do with the magnitude of the tragedy?

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anigbrowl
n=1. Talk about missing the forest due to the 36 foot tree in the way.

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dubcanada
Nope... 22.3 years.

~~~
mhurron
Getting AIDS was the best thing that could have happened to me.

