By Eva Xu
Feature Editor
Lately, I’ve noticed a rise in social media memes and jokes centered around recent tragedies. The ongoing Gaza conflict prompted users to call for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s help with minimal things, finding humor in the idea of an evil foreign leader helping them pass through daily traffic lines.
Sean “Diddy” Combs’ prostitution sentence has induced jokes about his parties, while the partial release of the horrific Epstein Files has incited comment sections full of humorous reaction images.
Admittedly, the internet is not renowned for its seriousness, but TikTok, Instagram and other platforms greatly undermine the gravity of these situations. This creates a common juxtaposition in online content: terrifyingly heavy topics coupled with jokes from schoolchildren, who often don’t know the weight of the phrases they repeat.
Social media is deeply integrated into our daily lives, enabling teenagers to easily encounter viral, insensitive jokes. We are being desensitized to horrors and tragedies to the point where even middle school students laugh about sex trafficking rings.
Truthfully, some of these jokes and memes are funny; that’s why they’re popular. Reacting to tragedy with humor is not new, and many refer to this coping mechanism as dark humor. A literature review from Portland State University concluded that experts in trauma and crisis fields, for example, use dark humor to cope with their professions. Thus, these types of jokes become useful for us to manage uncomfortable topics in the face of unforeseen horrors.
Still, there is a big difference between making jokes about past versus ongoing tragedies. By reducing the pain and suffering of others to internet memes, we throw away your empathy and forfeit our power to help. We’re convincing ourselves and others that we can be socially distant—that these issues are solvable or avoidable with humor.
I often hear that “any press is good press,” and that any mention of the issue raises awareness. However, jokes that reframe horrors into humour actually take attention away from helping victims. These tragedies have caught the attention of many across the world, but never in a way to bring meaningful change. Instead, they have solidified their legacies as laughs on the internet.
We must educate ourselves and consider the context when we see these memes and jokes. Before contributing to the spread of insensitivity and undermining violence, make an effort to understand why people are hurting and how to help. Although it may be hard to completely undo our generation’s desensitization and eliminate harmful jokes, do research, ask those who have been affected and see beyond the comical iterations that lead us to laugh without humanity.