My friend Deryk has a rule of thumb. The things you laugh at, or enjoy ironically or as parody, have a real danger of changing you. At some point, the faux identity bleeds into the real one.
Like hipsters with mustaches, the intentionally absurd and ironic can morph into a genuine fashion. Online shock culture has a darker version of this pattern. The memes become reality.
Absurd acts of political correctness and cancel culture drive people to fight back, play the troll, and engage in extreme humor in seedy corners of the web. As more and more people feel suffocated by the mainstream mob, these seedy corners provide some humorous refuge. They seep out into the mainstream.
The created-just-for-the-purpose-of-offending content has a way of attracting and changing people. It takes on a life of its own, independent of the goals of those who started the memes. People start to actually like it, actually believe it, actually become it.
I’ve said many times that laughter is a powerful tool to defeat the devil. Poking fun at evil and not taking it seriously is a spell-breaker. But there seems to be some kind of subtle turn, when the laughter goes from spell-breaking parody to dark humor skirting the edge of reality. Laughing at tyrants is usually good. Laughing at parodies of the victims of tyrants is usually dangerous.
Those advocating tyranny are also unknowing victims of it. They are to be pitied. Dehumanizing them or using them as playthings whose sole purpose is to be triggered for amusement is a slippery slope. The more you succeed at it, the more you become the tyrant, or the slave of one.
Laughter should leave you feeling lighter, uplifted. Not sinister, dark, secretive, or gleeful about the pain of others.
Heavenly laughter breaks chains. It is fully free, secure, true, light, and loving. It joys in reality, even when it is absurd. It is only strength.
Diabolical laughter creates chains. It is entrapped, insecure, false, dark, and deceptive. It needs to find weakness in others to hide its own.
Be careful what you laugh at.