Negative Humor

When it pertains to negative humor, there is a large culture of humor used as a weapon rather than to lift people up. Humor’s purpose is to make people laugh and to put a smile on their face yet it is so often used to put someone else down. People try to make others laugh or put an uncomfortable situation at ease by making jokes, but in the end when negative humor is used someone ends up getting hurt. I was recently on a vacation with friends and one of the girls in the group put on a dress before we were headed to dinner. She walked out into the sitting room and another girl on the trip said “Wow can someone say freshman fifteen.” She proceeded to laugh and the girl wearing the dress chuckled as well but you could tell from the look on her face that she was offended. Jokes that pertain to someone’s weight, especially as a freshman college girls who are particularly sensitive to this topic, are never warranted. The girl making the joke was not trying to be blatantly rude or hurtful but she did not realize the impact she was having on the other girl. This was the most eye opening part of this situation for me. The girl making the joke did not even know the impact she was having on the other girl’s emotions. People are sometimes not even aware of the effect of their negative humor. I also realized that though everyone else in the room did not necessarily make the mean joke, they laughed along just to make the situation less uncomfortable. People are hurting others almost as equally as the person who originally made the joke by laughing along. The girl wearing the dress immediately went and changed without saying a word to anyone and we all knew she felt self-conscious about wearing the dress to dinner after the joke that was made. So often in our culture people do not realize the impact their jokes have on other people. They think that if you laugh or say just kidding after saying something blatantly rude that it makes it all okay. I realized in this situation that jokes about someone’s appearance or how they dress is never kind and is extremely hurtful. This applies to many other types of jokes though about people’s ethnicity, religion, intelligence, etc. Whenever a joke is made about the way someone looks or more importantly their emotions and morals, the person receiving the joke always ends up hurt. It is not worth hurting someone else just to get a laugh from the crowd. The point of humor is to make someone’s day better rather than ruin someone’s day. I think in our culture the idea of positive humor needs to be promoted more, encouraging people to use humor for its real purpose, to bring happiness to others.