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Sarcasm or Gallows Humor?

It’s appropriate to start with Dilbert’s take on the topic at hand:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO1UWmRS7yc&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

My wife just read my post on the Power of Sarcasm and decided to go digging for the actual definition. She’s an editor. That’s what she does.

Here’s what she found:

“Sarcasm” is “a keen or bitter taunt : a cutting gibe or rebuke often delivered in a tone of contempt or disgust” or “the use of caustic or stinging remarks or language often with inverted or ironical statement on occasion of an offense or shortcoming with intent to wound the feelings.”

She pointed out that I’m not really a bitter person, and that my jabs are playful. So why bring myself down in the gutter and suggest I’m a bad person when I’m not?

In the comments section of that post, she wrote:

Why you say the off-color remark is as important as what you say. If the intent is to show your contempt, to point out an offense, or to hurt someone, you are being sarcastic.

But if your intent is to make light of a tough situation as a release, not to wound, that seems to me to be more of a black humor: humor marked by the use of usually morbid, ironic, grotesquely comic episodes.” It may be something else altogether as well; I won’t pretend to be an expert on humor and all its vagaries. But I do sense different emotions and intents behind different humorous responses.

Sarcastic seems very mean to me (esp. in light of the definition above) and a very different thing from a gentle teasing, not meant to wound at all.

Fair point. I would definitely describe mine as a dark humor. Or Gallows humor. Sarcastic when I’m in a bad mood, perhaps.

As I said before, sarcasm is also a root of dysfunction in other parts of my family. Several of my family members are equally sarcastic, if not more so. But I sometimes get offended by it because I feel like people are laughing AT someone instead of laughing WITH them. This has produced a fair share of strain on that side of the family, and I have to claim fault on my end.

I described it as hypocrisy on my part in the last post. But if one is to take these definitions in their purest meaning, maybe I’m not being hypocritical after all.

Which means I’m now free to unleash even more sarcasm. Or dark humor.

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Things That Make Me Laugh

Early in the life of this blog, I wrote about humor as one of my most indispensable OCD coping tools in “Laugh It Up, Fuzzball.” I expanded on it Monday in my “Power of Sarcasm” post. Today, I have fresh humor to share.

A never-ending source of laughter is my kids. Every day they say things that make me wonder where the hell they came from. They came from God, of course, and they definitely get their brains from their Mom. I admit they get some of their bathroom humor from me. What can I say? I did grow up in one of the reigning capitals of bathroom humor. And I worked in a record store where we often used toilet humor to pass the time.

Anyway, the kid example:

Item: Duncan comes running down the stairs red-faced. “What’s the matter?” I ask. Duncan says, “Sean called me cupcake!”

Item: Annoyed at the effort I have to make to get the kids out of bed on time, I decide to turn on the old-fashioned, bells-on-the-top alarm clock on their nightstand. It goes off on queue, to Sean’s dismay. Sean says, “Dad, don’t ever turn that thing on again. It rattles my brain and makes me cranky.”

Item: Duncan, when asking for a cheese sandwich, tells me I can use any kind of cheese except for the “cheese wedgies” (he meant cheese wedges).

Item: Erin expresses her dismay one afternoon over the inability of the three boys in her house to have their coats and shoes on in time to leave for an appointment. Sean responds: “Well, we are the Baloney Boys.”

Another source of laughter is a relatively obscure comic series called Savage Chickens, penned on post-it notes by Doug Savage. Here are two favorites:

Savage Chickens - Death

Savage Chickens - Coffee Is My Muse

Then there’s the FakeAPStylebook, which I follow on Twitter. Here are some gems:

Putting a lowercase “i” in front of capitalized words in stories about Apple is iDiotic.

When interviewing Satan remember that he is the Prince of Lies and will tell you his name is actually “Heywood Jablomi.”

All scandal names should end with the suffix “-gate,” as all scandals center around the Watergate complex.

“Catwoman” is the Batman villain. “Cat Woman” is your neighbor whose apartment smells funny.

I saved the movies for last, because pointing to funny films is the typical thing to do. But they are important, so here we go…

I tend to get the biggest kick out of the dark humor. I guess it hits me where I live. But then there are movies that make fun of other movies. “Spaceballs,” anyone?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aElFcPMZHVo&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Con Air is universally panned as a bad movie. But I love it. Cheap explosions. Bad dialogue. Bad is funny when done right.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px1W7ZOv3mA&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Johnny Dangerously was panned as well. But it’s one of my favorites. How can you go wrong with Roman Moroney?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GVCgTFw2Qk&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

There’s plenty more, but it’s time for me to go write about information security…