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Why Do We Find Violence/Misfortune Funny?

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I was reminded of this distubring fact of life as my husband played the Sims 2 earlier. He had made a redneck couple which he named the Simbies (a name I came up with the first time I played).

All was going well until I kept hearing the sounds of his two Sims falling asleep from sheer exhaustion. (The game plays the tune of "Go To Sleep" every time this happens.) He explained to me that both his Sims were miserable and he was trying to let them die because one of Mrs. Simby's desires was to be saved from death (by having her husband beg the Grim Reaper not to take her when he comes). He then explained to me that both of them were probably going to die. I asked him, "Why both?" and he really couldn't answer. Eventually a fire was set in the game, and I had to listen to them screaming for their lives as he watched, laughed, and did nothing to save them.

Now, I realize the Sims are completely fictional. "They're actually just programs," he pointed out. And, yeah, I can completely understand taking pleasure in killing a program - say Microsoft Word or AOL - but not simulated humans.

We talked about this some after church, and I guess we see each other's point of view a little bit better, but I think, me being a girl, and him being a guy, it's basically something kinda natural and will probably never change. He will always see it as "just a game", and I will always see that it is essentially simulated torture.

Now, I'm not saying Wallie's a bad guy at all. I don't mean to say anything bad about him. I realize this is simply a male phenomenon I will probably never fully relate to. But, is there any explanation for it? I mean, like I told him, since he's an INFP and I'm an ISTJ, he should technically be more feeling than I am. (And, admittedly, he pretty much is in real life, lol.)

Also, he pointed out - all humans tend to laugh at smaller catastrophes, as evidenced by America's Funniest Home Videos. What is WRONG with us???
 

Totenkindly

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This sort of situation has been around throughout human society.

This is generalization, admittedly, but males play games for sport and don't generally personalize the violence. (That's why they can sit around and play shoot-em-up games obsessively without any bad dreams about it later.)

Females are nurturers and naturally want to protect/keep people from harm.

Psychology researchers have long noted that girls gravitate towards the dolls or neutral toys, while boys can very easily turn a doll into a gun or weapon of violence. This isn't socialization, this is brain wiring. (There's some overlap there, obviously; but generally that is how it plays out.)

This is that age-old conflict butting heads. Don't feel bad that the game makes you feel bad; but don't feel bad that he deals just fine with it.

And, honestly, everyone of either gender can watch slapstick or Warner Brothers cartoons and be able to laugh at the violence that occurs... because it's more the juxtaposition or extremity of what is going on that is funny, not the violence itself. The characters are just vehicles for the humor.

Another good quote: "Comedy is when bad things happen to others; tragedy is when they happen to us."
 
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Well, see, I can actually deal with shooter games better than this 'cause they're less personal, and usually don't involve the more personalized screams of simulated humans. (When they scream, they screaming to him btw, almost as their god of sorts.)

I mean, shoot, one of his favorite games lately was Serious Sam, an older shooting game involving blasting the crap out of aliens in the desert. This didn't bother me 'cause they didn't pretend to be humans.
 

Totenkindly

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Well, i admit I was taking a more generalized view rather than looking carefully at the Sims example. I don't know, since the Sims people were more personal/real. Sometimes the whole absurdity of the thing can be laughable, even if the event itself is a little traumatic.
 

Athenian200

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Have you read of the Romans and the Colosseum? Even women and children often watched the contest without shame or disgust. What we consider repulsive is definitely in part determined by our culture and expectations. Hence, the differing expectations might have contributed to why he is less disgusted by such an event. That purely biological argument may or may not be true, but it makes me uneasy enough that I want to present the other side more completely, to avoid the possible validation of certain stereotypes (especially since she used the absolute phraseology "are/is," rather than "tends to be.")
 

cafe

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I think I remember my INFP daughter putting Sims in the swimming pool then deleting the ladder so they would fall asleep in the pool and drown. :blink:

She really liked the little cemeteries, I think. :unsure:

I'm not really sure why suffering is funny, to be honest. Maybe we're just relieved it isn't us?
 

Varelse

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Because it happens, and it's easier to be amused then to be reminded of my own misfortunes.
 

Metamorphosis

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If Roman gladiatorial combat still existed, I would watch it (and it would probably be one of the most watched televised sports). But then...I am a guy, and an INTJ.
 

snegledmaca

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I find something funny if there are no serious consequences. I cannot enjoy another's suffering. Even if it is simulated.
 

celesul

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I hate watching people suffer actually. I don't understand them, but I want them to be happy. I hate TV shows where people suffer, and I usually leave the room if someone is being bullied in a movie, and I come back later.

However, I've played a bit with the Sims, and tortured them at times, but my favorite part was building their houses, so I stopped. Slapstick humor is funny for the absurdity though. Who doesn't like Looney Toons? And I love the video game Super Smash Bros. Melee, but no one dies... Everyone just smacks eachoth with big metal sticks! (and we did that in gym class when we learned fencing).

And snegledmaca, your avatar is awesome.
 

Zergling

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If fictional, it's much easier to not worry about it. It does kind of ruin it for me when unnamed bystanders get killed off without a thought.
 

niffer

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I think I remember my INFP daughter putting Sims in the swimming pool then deleting the ladder so they would fall asleep in the pool and drown. :blink:

She really liked the little cemeteries, I think. :unsure:

I'm not really sure why suffering is funny, to be honest. Maybe we're just relieved it isn't us?

I do this whenever I play Sims. I also pause the game and build fences around people so that they can't escape, and I let them die. I never let them get killed by fire though...the fire's always freaked me out somehow. Also, I usually always feel kind of sad when my sims die, even if it was me that killed them.

It's more of an experimentation thing for me. I want to see how realistic the program will be, and I like the power. Controlling stuff is fun. Sims is one of the ways people can express their inner control-freaks in their lives that they otherwise don't have much control over at all.

I never sit through their deaths, watching intently and shivering with glee at their every moan though. I just fast forward through them to get to the end result. It's interesting, like conducting a science lab kinda.

My ISTJ friend once told me that she constantly cleans out her computer and deletes all files she hasn't used recently, just because she can "feel the computer suffering". I told her I had 5.6 GB of music files on my computer, and she started shaming me and telling me I was evil and a hypocrite (??!?). I told her that computers don't suffer, they're machines and she insisted that they did. :shock:

edit: What I'm trying to say with my last section is that the images in games and the characters people play out with dolls and stuff aren't humans, even though we might give human attributes to them. Where the line is drawn is ultimately cultural.
 
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MacGuffin

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"He he he. It's funny cause I don't know him."
-Homer Simpson
 

Ivy

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I think the Sims thing is not really the same as finding actual violence and misfortune funny. For some of us it's harder to separate and so we project our own perceptions onto people who can. My daughter's the NF to end all NFs, and even she likes to make the Sims wet their pants and die. But she's not a kid who finds real pants-wetting funny-- she said to me once about a kid who wet his at school "and I just felt so awful for him, he was embarrassed and he even cried and the other boys made fun of him for that too." Stuff like video game violence, to me, is not so much enjoying violence as it is poking a system to find the parameters of the system.
 

Sahara

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If Roman gladiatorial combat still existed, I would watch it (and it would probably be one of the most watched televised sports). But then...I am a guy, and an INTJ.


If it was still around, that would mean that the majority of people still enjoyed it, so not only you but many others would watch it with relish, no different to how it was back then.

I can not compare a computer game, and beating people up etc in a game as enjoying and lauging and suffering, because it is just a game.

Yet log into youtube and search up the happy slapping craze that is getting much worse in the UK, and you will see that there are thousands who get off on watching real people suffer, it's disgusting. Groups will jump on teenagers, or adults, and beat them senseless, film it and upload it on youtube for the amusement of others, it's sick. Why can't they feel satisfied torturing a simm to death? :steam:

People are filming stab victims dying, rather than using their mobiles to phone for help.

I hate people.
 

Athenian200

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People are filming stab victims dying, rather than using their mobiles to phone for help.

I hate people.

:hug: Not everyone's like that, you know. The people that do that just aren't in touch with their hearts. Don't blame everyone for what a few did. Don't give up on everyone.
 

Zergling

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:hug: Not everyone's like that, you know. The people that do that just aren't in touch with their hearts. Don't blame everyone for what a few did. Don't give up on everyone.

And out of touch with their brains, I have a feeling that they would rather get help in that situation rather than turn into an internet video.
 

snegledmaca

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... Stuff like video game violence, to me, is not so much enjoying violence as it is poking a system to find the parameters of the system.

But do you know that? You are assuming it's not enjoying violence for everyone. But some people might be living through computer violence as if were real. Would you condemn that? Or would you say that too is "just computer violence"?


And snegledmaca, your avatar is awesome.

I love it. It's so cute
happyjh3.gif


Thanks for the compliment.
 

Ivy

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But do you know that? You are assuming it's not enjoying violence for everyone. But some people might be living through computer violence as if were real. Would you condemn that? Or would you say that too is "just computer violence"?

That would be why I said "to me." That was my point, actually-- that not everyone has the same mindset, and it's not fair to superimpose your own mindset over someone else's actions because they may not be approaching things the same way you would.

I'm sure there are some people who enjoy video game violence because they would (or do) enjoy real violence. That would disturb me but I'm not sure I would "condemn" it exactly. It's still up in the air whether that kind of sublimation prevents or encourages further violence.
 

snegledmaca

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That would be why I said "to me." That was my point, actually-- that not everyone has the same mindset, and it's not fair to superimpose your own mindset over someone else's actions because they may not be approaching things the same way you would.

I'm sure there are some people who enjoy video game violence because they would (or do) enjoy real violence. That would disturb me but I'm not sure I would "condemn" it exactly. It's still up in the air whether that kind of sublimation prevents or encourages further violence.

Sorry, didn't see the "to me". I feel that propensity towards violence is inherent. Mostly because I have none and violent video games repel me instead of attract me. I guess I see them as a manifestation rather then a cause. Perhaps even used as indicators (Drawn to violence - higher possibility that the individual enjoys violence).
 
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