Black humor: the transformation of tragedy into an abstract idea

Introduction. Humor is a mirror of sociocultural changes, looking into which you can learn about the desires, fears and concerns inherent in people of a particular historical era. This article is devoted to one of the most specific features of our time - black humor. In the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century, its popularity increased significantly. Among the possible reasons for this phenomenon, it is especially possible to distinguish the role of the media in the unnecessarily detailed coverage of tragic events. Materials and methods. Materials for reflection were philosophical and artistic texts, folklore, films, content of television programs and Internet files. We used the abstract-logical method, the method of system analysis, historical, hermeneutical comparative methods. Results of the research. Socio-cultural factors that caused changes in the attitude of society towards laughter and humor from a generally negative to a generally positive attitude are revealed. Thanks to this, black humor, despite all its ambiguity, has become a familiar phenomenon for many people. Acquaintance with black humor begins with the earliest childhood - from children's literature, cartoons and folklore, the creators of which often act themselves children. Moreover, much of the black jokes for the adult audience are also devoted to children (themes of child mortality, disability, pedophilia, etc.). A radical shift in the attitude of people towards death, and in particular child death, could also serve as the reason for the increased popularity of the humor genre in question. Details of the peculiarities of humor about real disasters, Internet trolling, humorous coverage of public and private deaths, connection of black humor and fear of death are considered in detail. Discussion and conclusion. The main dimensions of black humor are temporal, territorial, social, hypothetical distances, repeatability, irreversibility of damage. Positive function of humor is that it serves as a means of counteracting any limitations of life. Black humor opposes the main of these limitations-death. It is the transformation of tragedy into an abstract idea. Abstractive idea is abstracted from the events that occurred and reduces the psycho-traumatic perception of real phenomena. Thus, black humor performs a positive function of psychological defense.