Why laughter becomes a serious discussion!

Laughter can be a serious discussion. That’s sad! But laughter by itself is fun.

In https://tinyurl.com/c62nuku8, the author refers to lulz as a form of laughter as ‘amusement at other people’s distress’ and ‘entertainment for entertainment’s sake’. An example is how we have mercilessly trolled some communities for ages.

Her need for laughter was triggered by the mass shootings in her country. Look within you, and you may find a pain to inspire your laughter.

When used as protest, laughter can be a weapon against the powerful and the evil. It is a playful tool that can be easily used by anyone. It is simpler to make a humorous comment than to write poetry. It is also safer to poke anonymous fun at those in power than to publish a serious article against them.

‘Laughter is power and we need more laughter’ says she. Laughter is therapeutic because it releases tensions. That’s why RD has had a section called ‘Laughter is the best medicine’ for generations.

Laughing at the establishment, Jonathan Swift wrote Gullivers’ Travels. When his target did not realise that it had been shot at, he wrote three sequels (all satires?). That was sly, smart and funny!

Besides satire, I know of three other genres of humour: graveyard humour, self-deprecatory humour, and limerick. What about you?

Laughter comes in two waves. The first one is when you have composed your message: you chuckle at your effort. The second is when you notice the annoyance of the target: this time, you guffaw. If the first was a ripple in a pond, the second may be a tsunami.

Laughter is rooted in humour. It’s not easy to describe humour but you know it when you see or hear it. More than seven decades ago, PGW tried to explain humour in a serious essay, but failed. Instead, he found it easier to write 90+ books that had every reader LOL.

Memes and trolling unify those who laugh but enlarge the gap between the laugher and laughee (you figure them out!).

You will laugh because it doesn’t matter who slips over the banana peel as long as it’s not you or your close friend. Whatever the source, target, language, medium, culture or genre, laughter is fun, sometimes at the expense of someone far away from you. Laurel & Hardy and Chaplin are fun to watch because somebody else gets hurt, not you.

To laugh, you must be able to see the ridiculous and the ludicrous in life. Ogden Nash, the world’s first commercial poet, did and showed himself to be a master of the two-liner poem.

Humour sells. It soothes. Laughter succeeds. Why didn’t Maslow show that laughter was at the top of every need? Why didn’t Bloom see that the ultimate objective of learning was to laugh?

To laugh is the world’s #2 emotion; it is involuntary and spontaneous. As #1 is hatred, fully voluntary. Both are like laxatives: they cleanse you but differently. I had warned you: this is a serious discussion.

Are you feeling helpless and miserable due to others’ actions? If you want to retaliate, write a meme. Don’t keep it with you: release it in your favourite SM. Let us laugh with you.