Other people (like me) don't see the humor in dark humor because we live in a form of darkness all the time. My partner is bipolar, and I spend a several weeks a year literally talking her off the ledge. So if some edgy cynic makes a "joke" about suicide at work, I've probably already heard the punchline. And it dredges up a reminder of the biggest ongoing challenge in my life. Not finding that funny doesn't make me naive.
It doesn’t make you more naive but it might be an indicator that you’re not able to cope with all the realities faced in your life all the time.
I don't know of any evidence to say either method is objectively better. By removing the situation from their thoughts/avoiding the topic they may be able to cope for just as long or longer than someone who addresses the situation through comedy.
As another depressive person, I have lost most of my social circle because I consider my thoughts dangerous for others, don't lose touch with people around you because you try to hard to insulate them from your thoughts that might damage them.
If you work hard to make your gallows humor actually funny, you can turn things around. No one really knows the person who is too quiet, no one really likes the bitter person who always complains about everything, but the depressed dark humor guy can be the life of the party.
Robbin Williams, Ricky Gervais, and Jim Carrey, and Allan Watts all operate in the "realist" branch of thought. But the way you share those thoughts really matters.
So far this conversation has been around dark pessimistic takes on life, death, and work. I'd like to throw out that there are some descriptive things I believe about the world that I have no desire to spread, because I think that people will generally treat each other worse if they accept the ideas. Because of the very nature of such ideas I hesitate to provide any real examples, but as an absurd and (hopefully) harmless illustration we could use Roko's basilisk. If you believed such a thing, and you weren't trying to spread it for selfish reasons, wouldn't you just not talk about it? I've made the mistake of arguing horrible things which I myself didn't want to believe to close friends and actually changing their minds in ways I wish I could take back... but can't. It's ugly, and I try to avoid it these days, but I do also feel somewhat disingenuous because of that -- I think that's just something I have to bottle up and accept.
>If you work hard to make your gallows humor actually funny, you can turn things around. No one really knows the person who is too quiet, no one really likes the bitter person who always complains about everything, but the depressed dark humor guy can be the life of the party.
I've been this person, and still am in some social circles. I appreciated working in environments that can tolerate dark humor. On a visceral level I really don't understand the other poster who brought up the mental anguish of hearing suicide jokes, despite having dealt with suicidal friends in the past. I don't understand what it's like to get triggered by a suicide joke, but that doesn't mean the experience is invalid, or that the benefits of me being able to make suicide jokes in the workplace outweigh the detriments of other people being sent into dark rumination cycles because of them. It seems presumptuous to assume that somebody else getting upset at a joke is necessarily a result of the joke not being funny enough, they might be in a vastly different headspace that is hard to understand from the perspective of somebody who relishes in dark humor.
The Underachiever's Manifesto: The Guide to Accomplishing Little and Feeling Great (Funny Self-Help Book, Guide to Lowering Stress and Dealing with Perfectionism)
It will surely pierce a lot of people's beliefs.
Could you unpack this for me?
Reading it can be frightening for overachievers and people whose world view and beliefs (the upper class who need servants) requires we have people working for them otherwise their materialist and GDP/economy driven world views might cease to exist...
https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-stars-ratings-calculated/
many of our medicines are "poisons" in the sense that if you take them in a large enough dose, they will kill you. but a small dose can be therapeutic, in the right context.
likewise, a dose of reality-groundedness is a necessity to navigate life correctly. some people can tolerate the side effects of higher doses better than others, however.
the trick is to understand that all people live in a marginal headspace where engagement with the nature of the world is heavily filtered and limited so that their psychology can continue to mostly function on a day to day basis. this is true whether you are a "realist" or "pessimist" or "optimist".
piercing the veil is uncomfortable and unwanted for most people, and it doesn't necessarily provide them with any value to have their comforting or familiar illusions destroyed. in a sense, it's rude if you pop their bubble. in other words, some people don't see the humor in dark humor because they are unfamiliar with darkness, and it scares them.
for me, graveyard humor is the best way to tolerate things. but it's important to know your audience.