How can people laugh about the deaths of others?

[oplawlz]

Life sucks and then you die. If you don't have a sense of humor, why bother living at all?

[Nerevar]

Everything is relative, everyone has their own moral compass. Just because you think it's not funny, doesn't mean it's the same for someone else. Just because you think it's wrong, doesn't mean it's wrong for someone else. You're not in the right here or wrong, and neither are they. There is no truth in this question, who is right and who is wrong. So just accept it and move on.

[Doctor Amadeus]

It simply comes down to in part what has been stressed, what one person finds funny, while another does not, which is all the more reason why there should be some common sense about saying anything and everything that comes to your fucking head, EVERYWHERE, and just expecting people to get over it. Honestly if you don't give a shit about someone else's feelings and go out of your way to be an ass, then you really have no room to complain when it is visited upon you even worse.

[ErrantofYore]

Black humor is a coping mechanism for many people. Us British happen to be quite good at it. Jokes about awful events are quite common. It may well be offensive but humor unites people and brings them together. Its a way of dealing with stress and many of the awful things that happened to people. A few samples that made me laugh at the time even if they are awful:

How do they know Diana had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders under the hood!

Whats the difference between a Mercedes and a Skoda? You wouldn't catch a princess dead in a Skoda!

What does DIANA stand for? Died In A Nasty Accident

What does NASA stand for? Need Another Seven Astronauts

Bin Laden Airways. We fly you straight to your office!

Are they in bad taste? For sure. Are they funny? Hell yes! Nothing should be beyond being made fun of. Simple as that.

Blatant ignorance here...... None of these jokes are an example of a coping mechanism for the reason of who they are being told by.

"How do they know Diana had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders under the hood!"

Do you think these are jokes the royal family tells each other to cope? No, they would need the coping mechanism, not the people that created this joke to scoff at tradgedy.

"What does NASA stand for? Need Another Seven Astronauts"

Again no coping mechanism here, as the people at NASA involved with failed flight missions that might resort to some type of coping mechanism are most definitely not the ones bouncing this joke around.

"Bin Laden Airways. We fly you straight to your office!"
Is this funny to the girl who watched her dad jump out of the top of the building? Is this her coping mechanism?

You are missing the point of a joke being in bad taste.

[Dhrizzle]

If you aren't making 9-11 jokes because you are afraid people will judge you, then they're still dictating your behavior and win again.

Take away your anxiety or "fear" of being judged and it's pretty normal (I would say desirable) to consider the reactions of your audience when making a statement (humourous or not.)

Refuse to make jokes about 9-11 amongst friends or to an audience that would appreciate it out of some sense of impropriety - terrorists win.

Loudly make 9-11 jokes to spite the terrorists despite it also upsetting a number of their victims - terrorists win.

Refuse to make jokes about 9-11 because you don't want to cause further distress to people affected by the event - common sense (perhaps even human decency) wins.

[Deleted]

Also, I don't want to force you or judge what makes other people laugh, but it wouldn't hurt if you showed a little COMPASSION to fellow human beings.

I show compassion through my through actual actions and by sticking steadfast to ideals like freedom of speech, freedom from being judged by self-appointed "moral (or racial, or religious) superiors", and really just freedom from oppression by authoritarians who think they know better how I or others should behave.

Whining about someone else's taste in jokes on Twitter or on a forum isn't showing compassion; it's mindless narcissistic and hypocritical self-congratulation that leads to being a judgemental self-appointed arbiter of what's "correct".

[ErrantofYore]

Morbid humor existed before the internet.

It's a coping mechanism.

If you have been through something awful, by yourself or with other people.... you and those other people are free to use morbid humor as a coping mechanism. When an outsider that has not been through what you, or those with you have experienced, and they they choose you use that morbid humor for a good laugh with himself and his buddies, then there becomes a problem. The latter is 99% of the "morbid humor" on the internet.

[Realsykes]

That is true for me, I rarely care about things that don't effect my life. I decided this for myself around the age of 14 or 15 when I saw some someones head cut off on the internet.

- - - Updated - - -



It's not a joke anymore when your intend is to hurt someone, telling the joke specific to someone who was attached to said event is a horrible thing to do.

Some think that's actually a joke, believe it or not.

[ErrantofYore]

I show compassion through my through actual actions and by sticking steadfast to ideals like freedom of speech, freedom from being judged by self-appointed "moral (or racial, or religious) superiors", and really just freedom from oppression by authoritarians who think they know better how I or others should behave.

Whining about someone else's taste in jokes on Twitter or on a forum isn't showing compassion; it's mindless narcissistic and hypocritical self-congratulation that leads to being a judgemental self-appointed arbiter of what's "correct".

Someone with a white sheet over their head could use this argument WORD FOR WORD. It gives you no moral upper-ground.... think again.

[Revi]

No one is saying "Bob smith died, hilarious!" They're either joking about the perception or handling of the situation as a whole or using it as a backdrop to a joke.

People have died from nearly everything you could joke about, I don't think 9/11 deserves special treatment.

[ErrantofYore]

No one is saying "Bob smith died, hilarious!" They're either joking about the perception or handling of the situation as a whole or using it as a backdrop to a joke.

People have died from nearly everything you could joke about, I don't think 9/11 deserves special treatment.

Does the Holocaust? Does the Rwandan genocide? If not can you point out any tragedy that might be worth of a little extra respect from people?

[Deleted]

Someone with a white sheet over their head could use this argument WORD FOR WORD. It gives you no moral upper-ground.... think again.

Not sure if understand

freedom from being judged by self-appointed "moral (or racial, or religious) superiors"

[Saucexorzski]

Cynicism and morbid humor are the greatest tools man has made.

[vetinari]

Because humans aren't angels.

[ErrantofYore]

Not sure if understand

freedom from being judged by self-appointed "moral (or racial, or religious) superiors"

KKK

/10char

[Deleted]

KKK

/10char

Well, I'm a minority, I'm not white -- so if you are, you can't talk to me about racism or mention the KKK, you don't know what life is like for non-whites and your cis privilege means you never will understand it so you should keep your thoughts about racism and the KKK to yourself. Ditto racist jokes. I can make them, you can't!

(<--- is exactly the sort of judgemental idiotic thing I would never say, and that I frequently object to)

I hope that clears things up.

[Deleted]

i will make jokes about that sort of stuff when im among friends who i know were not personally effected by those things, or would find it upsetting.

[Thirteen]

9/11 jokes... drowned syrian boy jokes... etc.

People make fun of how thousands died at 9/11. It doesn't even matter if you think it was a government conspiracy or a real assault, people still died. People that had no connection with the terrorists or the government, people who were doing their best to live their lives. And they died. Some in horrible ways. Yet people make fun of their deaths! Sure, maybe those dead might not care, but I'm sure their families, their friends, the survivors, they do care. And every year even if they try to pass this dreadful moment where someone died they are reminded of it through tasteless jokes.

I don't make fun of it, but I think Americans REALLY need to get over it. Every year I hear how 9/11 was the biggest wrongdoing in the history of mankind, how the fabric of reality was changed by it, how the true face of evil was shown on that date, etc. when in reality it was one of the most minor incidents to ever happen. Hell, even Pearl Harbor was a MUUUUUUCH worse, but no one gives a fuck about that, or how thousands of Native Americans were slaughtered for no reason whatsoever. But fuck all that, 9/11 guise #neverforget. Even the Holocaust is less talked about.

[Revi]

Does the Holocaust? Does the Rwandan genocide? If not can you point out any tragedy that might be worth of a little extra respect from people?

I think innocent people who have died generally deserve the same amount of respect, so no.

And I think all of those topics are fine to joke about.

[Deleted]

I don't make fun of it, but I think Americans REALLY need to get over it. Every year I hear how 9/11 was the biggest wrongdoing in the history of mankind, how the fabric of reality was changed by it, how the true face of evil was shown on that date, etc. when in reality it was one of the most minor incidents to ever happen. Hell, even Pearl Harbor was a MUUUUUUCH worse, but no one gives a fuck about that, or how thousands of Native Americans were slaughtered for no reason whatsoever. But fuck all that, 9/11 guise #neverforget.

I agree with this also.

911 was a huge event only because it gave the United States moral outrage carte blanche to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Afghans, etc, shoot children and civilians from helicopters and turn the middle east upside down - leading directly to ISIS, AQ, and all the crazy stuff we see today including the Syrian refugee crisis.

In terms of actual casualties, it doesn't really rate anywhere - except it was rich people who died. It's a marketing gimmick, a propaganda trick. We laugh at North Korea for their Kim Jong Un ceremonies, but eulogising 911 like this isn't much different.

Bear in mind, some of my colleagues died in 911. I was at work at the time in the London branch of an American investment bank. I watched it all happen live before getting evacuated out of the city.