Haha! That's not funny.
Perhaps you missed it, but the big news this week was that we finally got a mugshot for Donald Trump. One result of this was that the mugshot was shared on social media by millions of people. The mugshot on its own, in my opinion, is not funny at all. It’s long overdue, and at its core, it’s just another photo of a narcissist, in this case, someone who happens to be the icon that represents the worst of what this country has to offer. Seeing it made me feel some satisfaction, sure, but even that was fairly minimal. I definitely did not find his stupid “mean face” funny. With that being said, I can see why people would try to cope with that trauma by making memes out of his mugshot.
Of course, using humor to cope is not a new phenomenon, and it’s certainly not limited to the internet. Humans do this everywhere in a wide variety of situations, ranging from mildly uncomfortable to severely problematic. I remember laughing during a big blow up fight with my first girlfriend. “Do you think this is funny?”, I was asked. “No, I don’t”, I answered honestly through my teeth, grinning. I had no explanation of why I was laughing, but it was happening. Decades later, I look back upon that moment and understand that it was a kind of instinctual response, an attempt from within to try and limit my exposure to pain (oh, to be 16 again 😆).
When we take something horrible like Trump’s mugshot and make memes out of it- is it the same type of trauma response, or is this just an easy opportunity to get a handful of internet points by making strangers laugh? In a way, is that some kind of modern version of a trauma response? It’s no secret that we, denizens of the internet, are often subjected to a mass of traumatic news and information. It’s both a blessing and a curse. Information spreads in an instant, without regard for what type of information that may be. So, maybe being bombarded with potentially highly upsetting information has caused us to evolve, pushing us to live with it by using a universal language: jokes.
I don’t want to point fingers at anyone doing this and accuse them of being irresponsible, lazy, or disrespectful. Not only is this the internet, but it would be hypocritcal of me. I’ve made memes out of terrible moments. Any public lashings I dished out would mean diddly squat. Sometimes though, I wish I could. Are we wasting our creative energy when we spend time making something “good” out of something bad? Does making this the subject of a joke lessen the severity of the situation, numbing us in a way to the pain of it? If people are laughing, that can’t be a bad thing, right?
Ultimately, my reaction to the meme culture is likely dependent on my mood. Maybe if I had just left meeting up with an old friend I hadn’t seen in a long time, full on coffee and nostalgia, I could encounter a few of these memes and let out a chuckle. Undoubtedly, some are clever and hilarious. If I saw some meme about a prosperity gospel tik tok preacher after reading an article about how this preacher was literally destroying the lives of several families, how could I find it to be funny? I am curious if this is just a phase. Will we reach a point where the internet does not respond to this stuff with humor? That seems laughable in itself. People will always joke. Perhaps that’s the way it should be, or perhaps that’s the way it needs to be.
If I can offer one recommendation, it would be to stop and think twice before making light of terrible situations. Trump and the GOP have legitimately ruined the lives of so many of our family members, friends, and fellow countrymen. Maybe that person doesn’t deserve to be in a Simpsons meme. Maybe, when there’s nothing funny about something, we don’t need to turn it into something funny. Those things may be true, but our instinctual need to protect our fellow humans from pain is likely too strong to resist doing it.
🔉 joeynotjoe: 2023.08.26
Not funny songs about funny things, laughing, or not doing that specific thing. Songs for the Trump mugshot meme phenomenon.