Do you find it funny when people trip over?

[Dresssos]

I have friends that are, on the whole, generally polite. We are in our 30s. When it comes to a member of our group tripping over though, that all goes to shit and everyone thinks it's bloody hilarious! I remember being at school and if anyone tripped over, they would always be greeted by a "wheeyyyy" and a clap. I genuinely have never found it funny, but wondered what other people think?

Depends who it is and what happened; if it’s a close friend who clumsily slips, but aren’t hurt at all, then it’s funny

I wouldn’t laugh at anyone I wasn’t extremely close to, or that was injured or smashed their phone etc. I don’t find slips/falls funny in general, but there are a few that are comedic.

@Vivi0
Can I ask, have you ever fallen over and hurt yourself badly?
When it happened, did you have people around you who laugh at you for falling, despite the fact you were hurt?

Just wondering really.

I’ve been in that place. I personally didn’t find it funny and was quite angry at the people who thought nothing of laughing at me for being hurt.
Not being self righteous. Just plain literally down to the ground experience.

@callmemaybee, yay but the problem is you normally don’t have a pause, check I’d the person is ok and then laugh.
People just laugh and THEN realise the person is hurt and it wasn’t that funny afterall

@KeepingTrack yeah there’s definitely silly idiots like that out there. For me, I don’t generally laugh at people falling so I wouldn’t do that. Tbh the only time I remember someone falling in recent memory has been a video on social media, I can’t actually think of any recent real life occurrences!

Sort of but not because I find it funny, (well not all of the time anyway), but more of a nervous sort of laugh. I fell last year. Twisting both my ankles as I went down. I did lay sprawled out on the floor laughing for a while at how stupid I must've looked and crying cos it bloody hurt. The next day I couldn't move the pain was that bad In pretty much every bit of my body that made contact with the floor. I also had a very nasty fall doing roller disco. I'm lucky because that one could've either left me paralysed from the neck down or killed me. Thankfully the only thing that I'll suffer from is the neurological effects of the back my skull smacking a wooden floor hard and more than likely arthritis in my neck when I'm older. I also know someone who slipped and fell backwards pulling a heavy cage onto him whilst delivering stock to a store. Luckily as he slipped he fell and landed partly into a storm drain and the cage landed partly on him and partly on the kerb. Had he fallen straight back onto the floor he would've suffered massive crush injuries when the cage landed on top of him

I don't find it funny but I don't really get annoyed by people that do. I don't like slapstick humour either though, so I guess it's down to personal taste.

[quote KeepingTrack]@Vivi0
Can I ask, have you ever fallen over and hurt yourself badly?
When it happened, did you have people around you who laugh at you for falling, despite the fact you were hurt?

Just wondering really.

I’ve been in that place. I personally didn’t find it funny and was quite angry at the people who thought nothing of laughing at me for being hurt.
Not being self righteous. Just plain literally down to the ground experience.[/quote]
I’ve fallen over and hurt myself, but not to any serious injury.

Each time I’ve fallen, I’ve got up and laughed it off. I have no problem laughing at myself. If I had been seriously injured, I don’t think I would really care if some strangers passing me had found my fall comical or not.

To be honest, I’ve never seen a situation where someone has fallen and people have just congregated and started laughing. I’ve seen people cringe with second hand embarrassment or stifle their laughter as they walk on by. But not what some people are describing on here.

I mean, when my husband tore the ligaments in his shoulder, it’s not like I ran onto the pitch pointing at him and shouting “You fell over”. He was absolutely the instigator in the back of the that ambulance. And we laughed partly because his fall was comical, partly from relief that he was going to be okay and partly because we had only started dating and it was the last thing we expected to happen when he invited me to go and watch him play football in a game where he never even got the chance to kick the ball.

Every person and every situation is different.

I would ask you, if your fall hasn’t resulted in a serious injury, would you still be angry that other people had laughed or found it funny?

*hadn’t

Yes, I would be really pissed off. As I said up thread I have a balance problem which is starting to limit what I can do. I am a fit fifty something so I don't look frail and it is quite possible people would assume that I am drunk as I can be quite wobbly, particularly in poor light. Sometimes I fall over, which is really embarrassing. If you laughed at me then you are laughing at my disability.

Nope, I’ve never once laughed at this. I always hated you’ve been framed as a child because I never found it funny at all. DH has tried showing me similar videos in recent years and I still don’t find it funny. Never laughed when someone fell at school, just felt sorry for them.

If I had been seriously injured, I don’t think I would really care if some strangers passing me had found my fall comical or not

You might not be in a position to care, but how do you think your loved ones would genuinely feel if they knew that as you’d fallen over and seriously injured yourself there were people whose first reaction was to stand and laugh at you - or worse, laugh and film you? Hurt maybe? Angry, pissed off? In disbelief that their first thought wasn’t for your well-being, it was to laugh at you? Because that’s what those of us on here who wouldn’t immediately laugh feel about it happening to us or our loved ones.

@MaMelon

If I had been seriously injured, I don’t think I would really care if some strangers passing me had found my fall comical or not

You might not be in a position to care, but how do you think your loved ones would genuinely feel if they knew that as you’d fallen over and seriously injured yourself there were people whose first reaction was to stand and laugh at you - or worse, laugh and film you? Hurt maybe? Angry, pissed off? In disbelief that their first thought wasn’t for your well-being, it was to laugh at you? Because that’s what those of us on here who wouldn’t immediately laugh feel about it happening to us or our loved ones.

I’m sure if I fell and seriously injured myself and people stood around laughing and filming me my loved ones would be quite angry, but as far as I’m aware, the people on this thread who said they find it funny when people trip over, haven’t said that they stand about laughing and filming anyone.

Friends yes as long as I can see they haven't seriously hurt themselves. A friend once tripped over in a shop and did a double roll over on the floor, she found it as funny as I did.
Strangers though, no I wouldn't.

No they haven’t said they filmed - and I said laughed or filmed and laughed, because the latter does occur (as per social media and TV).

How about just laughing - do you think your loved ones would think ‘heee heee, there was Viv lying on the ground with a head injury, and rather than checking she was ok they stood and laughed - tbh I’d have done the same, cos it’s funny innit’? Bet they wouldn’t.

Depends on the situation really, a colleague clowning around having had a few and ends up on their arse? Yeah as long as I can see they're not hurt it's funny.
A resident where I work falling? Absolutely not.

I've been around horses all my life and you sort of stop and wait when someone gets ditched, or flattened to see if they're hurt or not, if they start to get up calling the horse a little turd then it's usually not serious, if they don't move or make a move to, or aren't laughing etc themselves, you help.

Strangers my default would be to offer help and then follow their lead, if they get up, laugh about it and dust themselves off then all's well.

I once slipped on some ice and went flying on to my back when I was 26 weeks pregnant, bump clearly visible. I remember some young women laughing at me at the bus stop. I didn’t pay much attention to them at the time as I was in so much pain and I was more bothered about my baby than them anyway. But looking back I think how sad that they find a pregnant woman falling so fucking hilarious

I’ve always showed concern for strangers who fall, even before that happened. I feel so sorry for them. If it’s someone I’m out with, my initial feeling is still concern, but we might have a laugh about it together afterwards! My best friend is always tripping up over the thin air, and she says I’ve saved her so many times.

I feel over. Two weeks in hospital and 4 months in plaster and none weight bearing was not funny and I would have been seriously pissed off if someone had laughter whilst I was in agony with my foot facing in the wrong direction.

@MaMelon

No they haven’t said they filmed - and I said laughed or filmed and laughed, because the latter does occur (as per social media and TV).

How about just laughing - do you think your loved ones would think ‘heee heee, there was Viv lying on the ground with a head injury, and rather than checking she was ok they stood and laughed - tbh I’d have done the same, cos it’s funny innit’? Bet they wouldn’t.

I must have missed something, because I don’t recall any poster on here saying that they would behave like that either.

You keep giving me these extreme situations and asking how I would feel.

The OP asked if anyone found it funny when people tripped. People have answered yes, they do, but that it is either situational or an instinctive response that they quickly suppress to help the person out.

No one has said they stand about laughing, filming, pointing, humiliating - whatever. They have said that they cringe or have an instinctive urge to laugh. Unless they stop dead, doubled over with laughter and start reaching for their phones, I don’t see the problem.

And what other people have said (including myself) is that those people who laugh straightaway - and there are posters on her who say they would because they just can’t help it - have no idea if that person is injured when they see them fall/trip/whatever you want to call it. Their immediate reaction is to laugh. I posted about that poor bloke who fell in the station - so I have seen how some people react to an extreme situation and it isn’t nice. I hope that is family didn’t ever find out some people actually laughed at him as he fell.

No absolutely not funny.

Frankly I'm a bit disgusted anyone would think it was.

I am THE WORST! I try and hold it in and that only makes it worse when inevitably I end up cackling. A poor young man tripped over a stand in Topman, tried to save himself so ended up being one of those slow mo running falls....then stacked it into the shoe display....I tried so hard to hold it in that when it came out I roared top volume continually, the escalator could not have moved slower whilst I was crying my way to the exit....I am a bad person

I am struggling to understand why you find it so funny @Dugi3.

Do you not have any empathy for people who might have hurt themselves?

@confusedandshaken, I have weak ankles too and do fall over quite often if I step on an uneven surface. The most recent falls were in January and today!

Do you wear anything to give them a bit of protection so don't fall over that often? Or any exercises to strengthen them.

No