"I think some people have concluded that there was a gleefulness about the AD'S which they found uncomfortable? When people posted about 'granny killing' or buying their 'essential chocolate' I always took it as an attempt at graveyard humour at a very difficult time, one which often was a direct response to people labelling perfectly normal and legal activities, ie, walking, sitting, shopping etc as 'selfish' and illegal."
I've joked about going out for a run and murdering grannies. That's in the context of carrying out a healthy and legal activity at all parts of the pandemic, and the vitriol that was mainly last spring but kindly resurrected by Piers Morgan a couple of months ago levelled at people having the audacity to go out legally and do something more healthy than watching Netflix. It was pretty galling having taken care to choose quiter routes away from people (including rejecting normally quiet routes filled up with fair weather lockdown walkers... plus seeing extra signage and fencing going up because of the ignorant way people were treating the land), and regularly stopping and starting to allow for distancing, and then coming home to threads full of pretty extreme comments that only apply to a tiny minority of runners (and could be equally applied to other users of public spaces). And all the time outdoor transmission was close to negligable, so it didn't even matter that someone "panted" past for 0.75 seconds, 1.25 m away.
For context I haven't actually killed any Grannies and it's now 18m and counting since we've been able to see ours, and thanks to the EU's shambolic vaccination programme, the immediate prospects are still not good for the next few months. In the face of a year of social isolation for little personal gain, a slight morale boost by a laugh at reclaiming some of the vileness bandied around nastily has been no bad thing and not actually caused harm. Unlike people who were put off running because of fear of the vitriol or of breaking imaginary rules; I saw quite a lot of posts on that theme on running groups.
It's not like I've coughed at someone then laughed at killing them which would be a distressing act and falling within the bounds of assault. It's also not like the vile blackmailing posters and comments issued by the government about looking people in the eye or their verbal comments about Grannies.
Dark humour is a well known coping strategy for tough times, roles like the emergency services are notorious for it.