What is dark humor exactly?
I heard that people who appreciate dark humor are more intelligent on average.
I also read the following:
Willinger and her team said their findings suggested black humour processing is a “complex information-processing task”.
But that's not true as some dark humor is rather simple and dull. Like saying "These burnt corpses reminds me of the burnt corpse in Skyrim", which is just a simple observation.
So how do we determine if something is dark humor or not. Is there a set of criteria for determining it?
I assume something like "She used to be a soldier until she took a bullet to the knee" would be considered dark humor.
I am asking, because I want to write a short story with a lot of dark humor.
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Dark humor is pretty simply... its offensive and funny. Now expressing a Dark joke can be hard and fly over most peoples head, especially when you write it on paper where tone and pacing aren't present and you have no way to imply actions without disturbing the joke. So instead of having some fun, you just leave a bunch of people confused or offended which isn't exactly good for your reputation.
For example, when I read "She used to be a soldier until she took a bullet to the knee" I don't see a joke. Being a soldier or getting discharged isn't offensive or funny. Taking a bullet to the knee is at best a parady of skyrims arrow to the knee, which was neither funny or offensive. Simply a meme all over the internet. So your joke has flow over my head, failed to offend me, and failed to be a joke to me.
Now if I change that to, "She used to be a soldier until she got on her knees" its a bit darker in my opinion. (Take a pause here and see if you can spot the joke) For me, the implication of "got on her knees" implies a sexual act, but not everyone will see this, in which case your joke has failed. Its a bit better than "bullet to the knee" which I think people will interpret literally. Finally, to try and seal the joke, you add in some extra dialogue from a nearby character "And a load on her face". And to really nail it home, have someone making blowjob actions nearby.
There is no way for you to tell if black humor is going to work or judge if your humor is dark enough. Why? it depends on your target audience. What do they find offensive and far do they read into it? A skyrim joke is meaningless to me. A rape joke could be too offensive and an anti-vax joke could be just the write amount of offensive to funny to work.
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Dark humour is more about the situation. The theme can be anything - including death and dismemberment. A soldier in battle could notice a fallen comrade and remark about a poker debt he will never collect.
Dark humour can be used as a defence mechanism, distancing a person from tragedy and misery if only for a moment.
In Les Miserables, Thenardier inadvertently saves the life of Colonel Pontmercy by reviving him while rifling through his pockets. He was robbing the dead. The contrast between his intentions and the recipient’s perception of it, which leads him to offer a reward, has some humour to it.
She used to be a soldier until she took a bullet to the knee
That strikes me as a simple statement of fact regarding an injury that ended a career. Dark, but humorous? Not really.
There is often contrast in humour.
She used to be a soldier until she broke a nail’ - but that shows a weak commitment.
Write your story and use some humour to leaven it. Dark stories tend to invite dark humour.
I have a scene where a character has been given sodium pentothal and is about to be interrogated. Before it takes effect, I have this brief exchange.
Looking into Edgar’s eyes, Alex said, “If I confess to something I didn’t do, just shoot me.”
“I will render you unconscious first, if you keep talking then I will shoot you.”
My character also tries to refuse the drug - saying he’s cutting back on his salt.
Humour is often about the absurdity of life, which can be found in almost any situation.
Create a witty character and see how he or she sees the world.
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Dark humor (aka black humor) is about finding something funny in a difficult situation, one where humor is usually not acceptable.
Dark humor is not about being offensive. While some humor is deliberately offensive (and much unintentionally so), being "dark" has nothing to do with it. Though there can be offensive in finding humor at all in a very serious circumstance, such as murder, rape, genocide, etc. The actual jokes may or may not be offensive, depending on how they're written.
As for humor, yes, something has to be funny to count as dark humor, or any other kind. What's the measure? Humor is like selling something; you determine its worth based on how much people are willing to pay for it. It's funny if people laugh.
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