New Delhi: Humour can relieve stress and although many may not like the idea of making fun during tough times like world under the COVID-19 attack, millions of people have flooded social media platforms with funny memes, jokes, videos, GIFs and what not to lessen the panic of the pandemic.
As work from home gained momentum worldwide, people have more personal time with their devices, and are busy expressing their feelings in creative, witty ways.
Why would COVID-19 won’t do any harm to Hollywood actor Tom Hanks?
“He has already survived a World War, being stranded on an island, being stranded at an airport, a failed moon landing, an emergency flight landing on the river and a ship hijacking,” commented a Twitter user, hinting towards his marvelous films like eCaptain Phillips,’ eCast Away’ and eSully,’ among others.
Another funny Coronavirus post read: “This is your pilot speaking. I’m working from home today”. From TikTok to Facebook, people are sharing videos with their pets around as they work.
“Important questions to ask your pet if you’re working from home: Are you at work? Are we working together? Did you forget to wear your pants? Are we coworkers? Are you the employee of the month? Are you my supervisor? Who hired you?” posted one user on TikTok.
“Coronavirus won’t last long because it was made in China,” read one meme.
The influence of humour on stress has been explored in various researches, especially in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
One recent study in the bulletin found that the tendency to use humour was associated with lower levels of psychological distress, especially under traumatic and distressing situations like the one the world is currently going through.
Calling such people who are posting hilarious stuff on coronavirus inconsiderate will not be right as another set of researchers noted that there was a tendency for self-enhancing humour (taking a cheerful perspective on life) to be associated with reduced stress over time.
“You see a coronavirus meme, you laugh at it, your start coughing, you have a sudden urge to travel the world,” read a meme.
“Love knows no borders, neither do people with coronavirus,” read another.
“When you hear the coronavirus is coming to America but you know corona is a Mexican beer,” read a meme with US President Donald Trump putting a ‘Wall’ on the Corona beer bottle.
There is nothing funny about what is a global pandemic but people can relieve some anxiety by posting reasonably acceptable humor online, for others to smile.
“For office folks suddenly working from home: Drink water, get sunlight and you’re basically a house plant with more complication emotions,” another tweet said.
The best one, as usual, is kept for the last.
“It’s been almost a week me and wife are working from home due to coronavirus situation. I think we will kill each other before the virus does!”
