70 Argentine people injured during terrifying piranha attack

[jberryhill]

69. Dark humor is, imho, different from thinking a tragedy is funny

I would contrast "lol, fishes attack" with the comment below in this thread to the effect of not going hiking on "Avalanche Mountain".

While the name of the river and the name of the fish are not related, the second comment is more about wordplay than thinking there was something funny going on.

The thing with dark humor is that part of the humor value is the guilt factor. They say that babies laugh as a defense mechanism against being threatened, and there is a tie-in there somewhere. Take, for example, Lewis Black. He puts me in stitches, but if you really look objectively at some of the things he says, it's not funny at all. He is basically ranting and screaming about awful things, but the way he does it makes me laugh.

He even ends his shows with a self-referential indictment of the audience for thinking he's an entertainer. He tells this story about a circus act in which the human cannonball or some acrobat went flying into the open mouth of a hippopotamus and died. He reads a supposed newspaper account which ends, "The crowd, thinking it was part of the act, applauded wildly" and then just gives a deadpan look at his own audience.... which applauds wildly.