Dark Humor Dilemmas

If you’re the kind of person who  doesn’t laugh at the thought of a car spinning out on the banana peel that you just saw in the road, I don’t have room for you in my life.

No, I don’t want bad to befall people. And, I’m sorry if your aunt’s co-worker’s hamster perished in some banana peel related traffic collision. I’ll forever feel guilty for having laughed all those times at banana peels in the road. Such is the burden for those with a dark sense of humor.

How does gallows humor get to become a thing?

 I so strongly believe that sense of humor is an inherited trait. Sorry boys, mommy laughs at some jacked up things, you will too. It was Uncle George is who introduced me to Monty Python. (The same Uncle George whose gift of lottery tickets was “wrapped” in a real life rat trap). Holy Grail. Watched on VHS on my parents’ VCR that was the size of a small coffee table with the classy artificial wood paneling. “Just a flesh wound,” says the black knight as blood dramatically sprays from the bloody stump caused by King Arthur. It was a disturbed humor awakening. Skip forward, I took pride in showing the next gen the same movie. Monty Python isn’t for everyone. I wasn’t sure how’d it go. Their eyes were wide. “The bunny is killing everyone!” “I know..it’s hilarious, right?!” Thankfully, they all heartily agreed.  

There’s probably also some psychological explanation for the draw to dark humor. Not sure if it’s true, but I think that dark humor helps us stay in the light. There’s a lot of horrible stuff in the world. We could be destroyed by nothing more than thinking about all that negativity. I think that dark humor is our way of trying to flex on that nastiness. It’s essentially our way of telling evil “You are NOT the boss of me!”

If you have people with dark humor syndrome in your circle, please be kind to them. We know it’s wrong to laugh at some of things we do. But we sometimes just can not help ourselves. And we also don’t always know that we’re different.

It comes out at times like when I was showing the video that I found hilarious to others. I wish I could accurately describe the look of reproach on some of their faces. I tried to clean it up, “No, see…it’s FUNNY. You can hear the kids shoes slapping on the sidewalk as they run away from the clown.” Still stares of “what is wrong with you?” I tried harder to justify, “Their MOM laughed.”  (It’s so funny.. Also, be advised that trick or treating at means you’ll have earned your candy. Don’t worry. We have a system in place to prevent Klown Katie from scaring small children.)

Hopefully there’s some kind of duality grace zone where people can laugh at some twisted shit, AND be still a good person. I will help you if I see you fall. As soon as I get my laughter under control. I would expect nothing less of you in return.