Written by: Srinwanti Sen
Edited by: Jaanvi Thorat
Illustration by: Neha Puttaswamy
"Stop crying about your problems on the internet, bottle them up inside and disguise them with dark inappropriate humour, like a grown-up."
-Anonymous
Humour is something that we all use in our daily lives, and it is a very essential element when it comes to building relationships and interpersonal trust. It fills you with an essence of confidence and attributes of leadership because people think that you're ‘cool’ to have bucked up the courage to attempt a joke. Whenever someone asks us what we look for in our prospective partners or what we love the most about our friends, we do say that they should have a 'good sense of humour' or be 'funny', don't we? We also employ humour to get rid of the awkwardness and tension in perplexing circumstances and recommence great conversations. Being a humorous person has its own distinctive boons. People admire and eulogize you, you become the amusing, quick-witted individual who is also very much respected and loved!
Humour is also an effective way to identify and portray our societal issues and problems so as to bring them to other people’s attention in a subtle and convivial manner and spread awareness.
Now, there are various kinds of humour - satire, sarcasm, dark and slapstick humour, etc. But there is one particular kind of humour that we would be talking about here, and that's self-deprecating humour. In this, people make fun of, belittle or undervalue themselves in order to make others laugh. It is very popular and 'meme-worthy', and is used excessively, particularly by teenagers. (Admit it, we've all done it, consciously or unconsciously.)
Teenagers often use this form of humor to bring forth their negative aspects/qualities in a silly and embarrassing way. This kind of humour makes a person look modest. It seems appealing to us because it allows us to resonate with each other and perceive things in a similar fashion. We often tend to illustrate in humorous and comical ways, the various episodes and incidents that take place in our lives on an everyday basis.
In my opinion, we, teenagers crack multiple self-deprecating jokes because we are so self-aware about ourselves, our strengths, weaknesses and emotions. We know our misfires and want to accept them as positively as we can to try and become perfectionists. We recognize our imperfections and accept them by making a joke out of it and laughing it away. It is a form of coping mechanism for many of us. Laughing at our past mishaps with others helps to create an amusing and more relaxed environment, which gives a safe to open up to each other more freely.
But there's a dark side to it too. It is possible that teenagers feel intimidated and overwhelmed, which augments their sense of worthlessness and despondency, that consequently leads to them presuming that cracking such jokes in the context of themselves, their mental health, failures, etc., is the only way to get some sort of recognition and validation. Such outlets of despair are subtle and sometimes sarcastic, because of which one might be able to understand what they're actually hinting at only if they look at it in-depth. We don't wish to share our true emotions without masking them with distinct interpretations. We overthink, feel inferior and beat ourselves up over past situations that do not matter at the moment. We find it difficult to forgive ourselves. After a time, it becomes detrimental to our health, as we end up building an inflexible wall between our emotions and interactions and forget about maintaining a balance. Teenagers who have low self-esteem find it difficult to accept praises or compliments because the image that they have created of themselves in their minds is not a great one and since compliments are contrary to this, they start feeling panicky and anxious. This is where we use self-deprecating humour and invalidate the compliments. For the ones who persist in engaging in such humour, becomes a reflex. They make jokes at their own expense without much thought about the consequences. Many of us self-deprecate in solitude, which has a major impact on our overall emotional well-being. This is because while we are making self-deprecating jokes around others, doing the same when we’re alone makes us believe that all that we say about ourselves is true and tend to believe it.
Comedians also make use of self-deprecating humour frequently in their punchlines and pieces, because they are aware that that is the only way they can convey impactful messages about deep-rooted societal issues like racism, sexism, sexual harassment, etc. They bring in anecdotes revolving around these issues and with the aid of self-deprecating humour, they are able to reach out to a large crowd and spread stirring messages.
Even though self-deprecating humour is generally associated with negative traits like anxiety, low self-esteem and usage of self-mockery to hide insecurities, there are positive facets too - it makes us feel content, helps to socialise better, improves overall health and helps to deal with stress.
However, we must remember that using self-deprecating humour is not always a healthy way to vent out feelings and frustrations. Self-love is important too. Stop underestimating yourself, you're unique and amazing in your own way. You need not be so hard on yourself, take it easy and focus on building a better version of your future self.
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