They’re also promoting healthy behaviors and sharing important facts. Many COVID-themed memes are doing more than just lifting spirits and inspiring a sense of community despite social distancing. “Getting the joke, in some ways, is like having control over our fears, to feel assured we are alive.” We can learn while we LOL “Terrifying situations produce anxiety,” Grinnell College Psychology professor Janet Gibson explained to Gizmodo. There’s a sense of powerlessness in the world right now-no one knows what tomorrow will bring-and poking fun at those feelings can have a legit therapeutic effect. Memes make it okay to address our communal sense of dread. Memes become a sort of therapy, a way for strangers to realize they’re not alone in their despair. They can be a tool to grapple with crippling anxieties, post-traumatic stress, or good ol’ fashioned existential dread. Memes can sometimes be a way to express a feeling that is otherwise difficult to articulate. Let’s take a look at some of the ways that memes are helping us survive the fear and confusion of 2020. At the very least, it provides a release for anxiety, or a way to cope with things that are just too heavy. Humor in a crisis can boost morale, but it can also help inform and educate. We can only imagine what the 19th century would have done with Twitter. The term “gallows humor,” which can be traced all the way back to the European revolutions of 1848, refers to a certain type of cynicism in the midst of traumatic situations.
“Getting the joke, in some ways, is like having control over our fears, to feel assured we are alive.”ĭark humor has been a coping mechanism ingrained in human nature for centuries. “Terrifying situations produce anxiety,” explains professor Janet Gibson. Unsurprisingly, most memes in the shadow of COVID-19 have been tinged with a certain desperate comedy. While we can’t visit beloved restaurants or hang out with strangers in the park IRL, we can commiserate online and share our favorite memes. Over the past two months, our pandemic-stricken world has been spinning out of control. As none other than Mary Poppins once sang: “A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.”
In most cases, humor isn’t meant to belittle misfortune or suffering-it’s a way to make anguish easier to digest. We need to laugh, even during the worst of times.
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