Temporada 3 · Espasmos del Fin · JVV-T3-08
The laugh of the abyss: black humour as a lubricant of collapse
I A joke on the rim of the crater
A grid of memes shows the planet burning with the caption “This is fine”; the timelines toast every crypto crash with clown emojis; on doom-posting forums the phrase of the season is “LOL, we are premium stardust”.
Far from frivolity, black humour works as psychic oil: it cuts the friction between panic and action, it lets you look at the crack without turning to stone.
“When the abyss guffaws, laugh with it so it does not swallow you chewing.”
II A short genealogy of the catastrophic laugh
| Era | Device | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| The plague of 1348 | Dances of death | Domesticating omnipresent death |
| Cold War | Soviet jokes on pirate radio | Venting the pressure under a repressive regime |
| Climate crisis | Post-irony memes (“I'm no denier; I just take mine toasted”) | Processing systemic impotence |
Every cycle proves the same law: the more intractable the horror, the more corrosive the joke.
III Formula for the abyssal joke
- L = liberating power of the laugh
- D = density of perceived disaster
- C = internal / external censorship
- E = residual empathy
- \alpha ≈ 0.8 (empirical)
When D rises faster than C+E, the guffaw turns into a nihilist roar.
IV Four techniques of viscous humour
| Technique | 2026 example | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-emptive self-ridicule | “I only invest in crypto that already collapsed: that way I win on irony” | A vaccine against outside mockery |
| Late punchline | A serious thread on fintech ends with “it will all be True-USD… once we are dead” | Cognitive skid, a shock pause |
| Hyperrealist parody | The fake app “ThermoSwipe” that matches people by CO₂ footprint | Points at the absurdity of greenwashing |
| Palindrome meme | An image that reads the same left-right “COLLAPSE” | Stands for the eternal cycle of falling |
V Risks of the corrosive guffaw
- Anaesthetic cynicism — so many jokes that the impulse to change anything disappears.
- Commercial co-optation — brands use the same black humour to sell “apocalypse edition” trainers.
- Offensive escalation — a contest of ever crueller jokes that trivialise real victims.
VI Manual for safe use
- The lag rule: make the joke after you have informed yourself and before apathy sets in.
- Double the empathy: if the joke draws blood, give time or money to the problem you exposed.
- Reflex loop: share the meme, then write in 140 characters what micro-action you will take while you laugh.
VII Experiment — “Inverse meme fast”
- 24 h consuming only raw data (papers, statistics).
- At the end, make an absurd meme out of the most chilling figure.
- Watch how the laugh changes your body tension; note whether it motivates or paralyses.
(A psychological exercise with no physical risk; stop if it brings on severe anxiety.)
VIII Coda
“If you are going to look into the abyss, bare your teeth at it: it might mistake the laugh for a mirror.”
Black humour does not save the world, but it greases the hinge between horror and movement.
Laughing with the collapse is not denying it: it is taming it just enough to keep pushing when silence would freeze the will.
May the next guffaw be a bridge, not a wall; an edge, not a blindfold.