Darkness—a simple utterance of the word can send shivers down your spine. It’s fascinating how a single word beholds an array of negative connotations. In a way, social taboos have the same effect on us.

Taboo topics are forbidden scandals. Socially unacceptable, they set boundaries as to which conversations are to be left “untouched”. Toying with taboos is like playing five finger fillet. In a blink of an eye, if not cautious, you can inflict pain so profound, you fear opening your eyes to see the mess you’ve created. 

Although social taboos are prohibited to see the light of day, we still have to face the dark. Enter dark humor—risky humor that dares you to venture into illegal territories. Dark humor doesn’t float everyone’s boat but, for some, it serves as the coping mechanism essential to bring you back ashore.

To understand how dark humor becomes the flashlight to enable us to see the so-called monsters prowling around in society, let’s dive into the psychology behind it.

The Psychology of Dark Humor

Dark humor is characterized, by a 2017 study, as treating “sinister subjects like death, disease, deformity, handicap or warfare with bitter amusement and presents such tragic, distressing or morbid topics in humorous terms.” Even though this type of humor continues to manifest negative connotations, it helps to “express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world.” Or as the comedian Daniel Sloss in his 2018 Netflix special Jigsaw simply puts:

“Dark humor is not about belittling a victim or making fun of a tragedy, but rather bringing a level of humanity to a moment that seems to lack it.”

Taboo topics are like playing The Floor is Lava, where you do the impossible of moving around while avoiding the floor at all costs. This is symbolic. The floor represents the social taboos, while our maneuvering and evading touching it is how we go about in our everyday lives. We can’t keep playing The Floor is Lava forever. Dark humor is the key to cracking the taboo code. 

As explained in the psychology of humor, when you’re caught in the act of laughing, you’re blissfully enjoying the moment. Sharing a couple of laughs opens up a safe space of interaction, allowing you to be at ease with those around you.

In behavioral science, this is known as an automatic response. Your brain launches off an emotional reaction, which requires little to no thought. But dark humor requires a bit more thought to find pleasure in the art, so it taps into your brain’s manual response, where you analyze and process new bits of information. Here’s where it gets interesting.

The Interpretation of Dark Humor In The Brain

The beauty behind dark jokes lies in the few more seconds of comprehending its true essence. Dark jokes are clever at communicating taboo messages by its provocatively alluring execution. It’s the attempt to pry open your eyes to the monsters in the dark, to find comfort in your awareness and reassure you that you’re not alone. This allows you to understand that dark humor isn’t making fun of a certain issue, but rather making you aware of the circumstances that make it “the issue”.

We often retract ourselves from enjoying a joke because it’s painful, twisted, or morally wrong. And since society has constructed taboos that are to be “unspoken of”, we tend to annihilate any type of exposure or connection out of fear of being pronounced as an outcast. Even theories of speech monitoring state “that speakers can inspect inner speech and inhibit speech plans that are incorrect or inappropriate before these become overt.” In short, we tend to map out our strategy when playing The Floor is Lava since we’re afraid to come into contact with the ground due to the “burns” it can cause. Through this process, we become blind to the real intent behind the joke, which as a result unveils how crucial manual response processing is in gazing beyond the looking glass.

When we take those extra seconds to decipher a dark joke, we begin to appreciate the real message. The reason why the message was packaged in dark humor wrapping was to grab your attention and put the spotlight on the taboo topic. It’s then up to you to decide how to acknowledge this new bit of information. You either identify it as the darkness or what makes up the darkness to begin with. 

Individuals that choose the latter appreciate the genius disguise because it violates their automatic response, and forces them into manual response—peeling the layers of darkness out of the joke. Meaning, it’s a topic you’re now more conscious about and can’t be so easily dismissed. The joke will linger in your mind like a broken record. And the only way to hush the noise is to face the music. 

These stains dark humor imprint in our minds can be used as neuromarketing techniques, which brands use in their messaging antics to drive consumer behavior. Let’s explore this in the next section.

How Consumer Behavior Is Influenced By Dark Humor

Brands communicate to us with the intent of leaving a memorable impression. Their goal is to be the stains that can’t be washed away with Mr. Clean. However, brands that use risky humor as part of their brand voice must execute flawlessly. With social media and the prevalence of cancel culture, the pressure is daunting. 

Aside from being living organisms, influencers on social media are also living, breathing brands. Brand voice varies from influencer to influencer, but those that take it a step further uses dark humor to personify their boldness. This differentiates them from the effervescent noise. With high risks, high rewards may follow, so those that successfully apply dark humor in their branding end up with a massive cult-like following and engaging audience.

The major downside is brands face a brutal recovery process once faced with significant controversy or backlash. Suddenly, times are darker than their supposed dark jokes. Taboos end up fueling the audience in the efforts of retaliation, and instead of getting any messaging across, they hone in on the “darkness” element, rather than “what makes up the darkness”. 

Producing an enormous portfolio of content, popular YouTubers Jenna Marbles and Shane Dawson personify all types of humor in their skits, and challenges. Regardless of how likable and influential they are, some of their past careless acts had resurfaced and caused uproars in and outside of the YouTube community. Topics concerning blackface, racial, and gender slurs were exhibited insensitively and the jokes backfired, damaging their brands (in just 3 days, Dawson lost about 600,000 subscribers to his channel!).

Despite the uproar, these creators brought to light forbidden issues others wouldn’t dare touch. Once the attention was fixated on the wrongdoing, people were left with no choice but to face the “what makes up the darkness” element. Following Shane Dawson’s apology video, the YouTube comments section and Twitter spoke for itself as it provided an outlet for many to voice their opinions on the issue. Only then can people become aware of the gravity of the situation and take the initiative to make the appropriate changes to heal from the devastation. As expected, both influencers have issued their own statements apologizing for their misconduct and have paved a sense of direction as to how to navigate in the dark.

Dark jokes or any form of risky humor leave fragments of taboos lingering in the back of our minds. Not confronting these social taboos is just allowing us to accept that we see the silhouettes in the dark. 

So the next time you feel the darkness coming on, feel its warmth. It might just surprise you.

What’s Next?

References

Foxy Wine Pocket: It’s Good To Be Bad: The Psychological Benefit of Dark Humor, Kathryn Leehane

Liu X, Chen Y, Ge J and Mao L (2019) Funny or Angry? Neural Correlates of Individual Differences in Aggressive Humor Processing. Front. Psychol. 10:1849. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01849

Metro, UK: Shane Dawson loses a million subscribers over Tati Westbrook drama and racism allegations, Louise Griffin

Netflix: Daniel Sloss Live Show “Jigsaw”

NPR: How What Makes You Laugh (And Cringe) Reveals Your Hidden Biases, Maggie Penman & Shankar Vedantam

Severens, E., Kühn, S., Hartsuiker, R. J., & Brass, M. (2012). Functional mechanisms involved in the internal inhibition of taboo words. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 7(4), 431–435. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsr030

The Marketing Society: System 1 and System 2 Thinking, Crawford Hollingworth & Liz Barker

Warren, Caleb & Mcgraw, A. Peter. (2016). When Does Humorous Marketing Hurt Brands?. Journal of Marketing Behavior. 2. 39-67, DOI: 10.1561/107.00000027. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309297781_When_Does_Humorous_Marketing_Hurt_Brands

Willinger, U., Hergovich, A., Schmoeger, M. et al. Cognitive and emotional demands of black humour processing: the role of intelligence, aggressiveness and mood. Cogn Process 18, 159–167 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-016-0789-y