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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to be sickened and horrified that people will make jokes about the Haiti disaster?

31 replies

emkana · 15/01/2010 15:06

Last night a friend of mine received a text message which said "Can we make jokes about Haiti yet or shall we wait for the dust to settle?" My friend didn't find it funny but I was amazed and disgusted that it would occur to people to send a message like that, aibu?

OP posts:

Rosa · 15/01/2010 15:09

No but there are always sick people who make jokes about other peoples misfortune until one day its hits them ...then they might stop.
Mind you I never heard any jokes about the Tsunami maybe I was lucky.

LaurieFairyCake · 15/01/2010 15:13

No, it's a coping mechanism and perfectly normal. Same reason why people laugh when given bad news or giggle uncontrollably at funerals.

tiredemma · 15/01/2010 15:13

I remember jokes about the Tsunami. Bloody awful

StealthPolarBear · 15/01/2010 15:13

that is really sick. When you're having a desperate time it's bad enough that life for everyone else is going on as usual, the fact that other people might actually be joking about it is unthinkable.

StealthPolarBear · 15/01/2010 15:14

LC I laugh when given bad news, it;s involuntary. Surely sending on jokey texts is completely different?

LaurieFairyCake · 15/01/2010 15:19

It's just another distancing mechanism. Just because you can think about it and then send it on doesn't mean your brain is doing something different.

i've already heard one joke - the same person was crying an hour later.

Actually arguably it might mean that the Haiti disaster or Tsunami has a greater impact on you the more you try to distance yourself from it by making light of it.

StealthPolarBear · 15/01/2010 15:22

Sorry but I really can't agree with that. You choose to type it out or forward it on. Either way you press send, it's a conscious thing. Surely you must realise how inappropriate it is?
(Not 'you' you, more a 'one' you, iyswim!)

LaurieFairyCake · 15/01/2010 15:25

'inappropriate' in this context is a social construct - I am arguing that something primitive is going on. I think that most 'know' on one level its inappropriate but still can't help themselves sending it. So that actually it is more traumatic for them as they can't override their basic instinct in this case.

Hope that makes sense, even if you don't agree.

pooexplosions · 15/01/2010 15:26

I wouldn't do it by text (but I don't do texts anyway), but I don't think there is anything intrinsically wrong about makeing jokes about awful things. Its a normal mechanism for processing and coping.

StealthPolarBear · 15/01/2010 15:27

yes, it does However I sometimes think it's an attempt to be cool - black humour is seen as shocking so the blacker you can be the better iyswim.No, that makes no sense!

claraquack · 15/01/2010 15:27

I can't understand how anyone can make a joke about something that has killed so many people and left so many others, including lots of very small children and babies, homeless.

LaurieFairyCake · 15/01/2010 15:30

Agree with the black humour, very common in many jobs I've worked where tragedy is an everyday occurence (like police/nurse etc).

Doesn't mean that post traumatic stress isn't going on underneath though.

shivster1980 · 15/01/2010 15:31

YANBU That is horrible!

pagwatch · 15/01/2010 15:34

tbh it happens. And sometimes the post- tragedy jokes are funny and mostly they are not. But people do it.

People will make a joke about a tragedy that they have no direct link with in a way that they would never find the 'real' situation funny .
And I know people who will laugh at a joke and yet will raise money and actively support charities going in to help.
A friend of mine worked for 2 years for medicin sans frontier and yet had a terrible line in sick jokes during his down time.
I think humour is personal - people laugh regularly at 'jokes' about disability which I fail to find funny at all. I remember Chandler getting a huge laugh on Friends for calling Joey 'rainman'. Lots of people find that funny. I don't. But I don't tend to lecture others about what they find amusing.
There is a certain macho attitude to this stuff too. In the city people made 9/11 jokes when actually many of them were personally affected.
It is weird and personal and human

I rarely find tragedy jokes funny but I actually have less time for those who cry crocodile tears and get prissy about it but do nothing and turn the page looking for the next tragedy to gawp over.

And that is DEFINATELY NOT aimed at anyone here - but I have seen and met those types. They are worse IMHO

Sassybeast · 15/01/2010 15:34

Laurie - whilst I sort of understand your logic in terms of people directly involved in a tradgedy/disaster, I don't for a second believe that the people who dream up and start those cruel texts are in any way traumatised or moved by what has happened in Haiti. the 'joke' that I received was not only sick but it was sickeningly racist.

LaurieFairyCake · 15/01/2010 15:37

The fact that it's very racist too is interesting - yet another way to distance yourself and make it us and 'them'.

Would the person who sent you this joke normally be thought of as a racist?

mumof2222222222222222boys · 15/01/2010 15:39

A friend of mine went to see the News Quiz being recorded last night (it will be broadcast this evening). Apparently Sandi Toksvig said - haiti may be the biggest story of the week, but it would be inappropriate to make jokes about it. I doubt that bit will be broadcast.

mumof2222222222222222boys · 15/01/2010 15:40

by that I mean that they won't mention it - which is quite right. Black humour is one thing, but joking about a disaster such as this is not on.

Sassybeast · 15/01/2010 15:44

Laurie - she falls into the camp of 'I'm not a racist BUT....'

LaurieFairyCake · 15/01/2010 15:47

obviously she's a twat then

MorrisZapp · 15/01/2010 16:25

It's a time issue, not a tragedy one.

It's perfectly fine to make light hearted references to the Titanic, or to Jack the Ripper etc.

I think it's a fairly natural response tbh and while I wouldn't think much of somebody who sent me a 'joke' about Haiti, if it was funny I would laugh. Laughter doesn't know about taste and compassion, if something is funny it's funny - these jokes of course rarely are.

Malificence · 15/01/2010 16:34

It's gallows humour, it's very prevalent in any job that involves horrific things - you should hear the jokes that police/ambulance/firefighters/soldiers come out with.

You need a bit of a laugh when you've just scraped a body up from under a train or cut a child from a car that wasn't in a car seat.
It's a safety valve and people would go insane without it.

abra1d · 15/01/2010 16:37

I'm afraid that kind of black humour is part of human nature. It doesn't mean they're (necessarily) callous, it means that some people just can't deal with the emotions of what they see in any other way.

abra1d · 15/01/2010 16:38

Interesting about the race angle, though...

pointysaysrelax · 15/01/2010 16:49

there is always a rash of jokes after every major disaster. You are free to express your disapproval.

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