03: Corona Jokes with a Side of Lyme Disease
(Comic by Andy Marlette)
2020 has been a year unlike any other. Plagued by a literal plague, millions of people have been under lockdown, prevented from ever leaving their house except for bare necessities — and even then, we have to wear a mask to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. People have been stuck with nothing but an internet connection and pets. Hundreds of thousands have died.
So naturally, there are jokes made about the entire situation. One tweet read, “Unreasonably dark joke, but shouldn’t we wait until after the pandemic to fill out the [2020 US] census?”
The joke itself is dark — but it’s not unique by any means. As the pandemic ravages the world, the internet is flush with coronavirus-related jokes and memes. Twitter quips came a dime a dozen. “A year from now, you’ll all be laughing about this virus,” reads one tweet. “Not all of you, obviously.”
Humor has always played a role in darks times as a shared psychological release between all members of a society, or in this case, the world. There is a word for this: weltschmerz. Weltschmerz is that mood of sentimental sadness at the state of inadequacy or imperfection of the world, compared to the ideal state. Joachim Whaley, a professor of German history and thought at the University of Cambridge, describes it as “pain suffered simultaneously both in the world and at the state of the world, with the sense that the two are linked.” It is sadness at the world over something we cannot control, like a pandemic.
With so few contact with others, save the few people we quarantined with, our jokes are akin to an S.O.S. message as if we are saying, “Is anyone else out here struggling, or is it just me?” When we receive the likes or the retweets or the comments, we know that we are all going through this together — which makes the experience of being under quarantine slightly more bearable. Some of the jokes are tasteless like the ones above; others are silly, like showing Jesus conducting the Last Supper via the videoconferencing app Zoom (with the epic line, “Judas, you on?”). They provide a fleeting distraction as the pandemic put so many lives on hold. Lori Day, an educational psychologist, described the experience as “very similar to the feeling I get looking at baby animals online, which is another thing I dose myself liberally with these days.” Day runs a private Facebook group dedicated to coronavirus-related jokes. Some members of the group are ill with the virus, but they still laugh. “They’re thanking me from their beds,” Day said. “They’re thanking me from their hospital rooms.”
(Comic by Times Colonist Adrian Raeside)
As late-night hosts such as Trevor Noah, Steven Colbert, and John Oliver have shown, it is easy to mock the politicians who seemingly prioritize votes and the economy over lives. Seth Meyers, the Late Night with Seth Meyers host, noted how minutes before the President of the United States was supposed to address a troubled nation, 2008 Vice Presidential Nominee and former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin appeared on the show “The Masked Singer” singing Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.” (“It was so depressing, Sir Mix-a-Lot immediately wrote a sequel called ‘Baby Got Prozac.’”) U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the nation and, when the broadcast failed to cut after the speech, let out an exasperated “Okay.” Meyers, punching up at the President, pounced on the opportunity to critique the address, saying that
[“Trump] reacted to his speech the way the rest of us reacted to it; ‘Okay, that was weird.’ It’s like if [Former U.S. President Franklin Delanor Roosevelt] had said, ‘Yesterday, December 7th, a day which will live in infamy, the United States was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan, so, like, that just happened!’”
For many Americans, believing that Trump messed up the coronavirus response, and Meyer’s joke gives them a chance to laugh at their president. One similar-themed meme reads, “Calm down everyone, a six-time bankrupted reality TV star is handling the situation.” These jokes serve a valuable purpose: to keep spirits high and hold those in power accountable.
On the other hand, jokes have been directed towards the coronavirus. On the dating app Tinder, a profile for “Coronavirus, 29” has the bio of “I love being outdoors, crowded places and food markets.” Other jokes poke fun at the similar-named beer brand Corona (“What goes well with the Coronavirus? Lyme Disease). Coronavirus doesn’t care about whether you joke about it or not; those who joke about coronavirus aren’t any more likely to become infected than those who don’t. So we might as well joke about it, for our own sake!
These jokes include poking fun at the national quarantines everyone faces. Stephen Colbert, host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, did one of his nightly shows dressed in the top half of a suit while submerged in a bubble bath at home (“I’ve been avoiding human contact since before it was cool.”). Once again, poking fun at quarantining doesn’t attack any individual or group, but provides a necessary release from the unique situation millions have found themselves within.
Comedy professionals have been struggling with the lack of audiences and performances, causing some comedians to take unorthodox approaches. Comedians Sam Morril and Taylor Tomlinson, who, after six months of dating, decided to quarantine together. They stay active with an Instagram web series called “New Couple Gets Quarantined.” “People want to just take their minds off of it for a second,” Tomlinson said, “but it’s also hard to think about anything else.” In one episode, Tomlinson suggests watching the film “Contagion,” about a deadly viral pandemic. Morril found the suggestion insane. “No way,” says Morril, who is Jewish. “We’re in the midst of a tragedy. You need some distance before it becomes entertainment. That would be like if the Jews watched ‘Schindler’s List’ during the Holocaust.
