Small doses, joking. Large doses, serious.

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Are any of you ever confused of how people would laugh about something when they talk about the thing to a minor degree but no one laughs when the same idea is talked about to a large degree? In fact, people take it seriously?

There was an incidence once when I was washing the dishes with my brother and I told him how in grade 7, someone in my class who got bullied a lot made a list of people he wanted to kill. I'm not sure what happened but the vice-principal found out and she called each person on the list down to the office. I told my brother the story in a laughing manner and he was like "whats so funny? There's nothing funny about it." Then I realized that I shouldn't have laughed.

One theory I have about why I laughed was because if the person who got bullied wrote a list of people he'll kick in the groin, then it MAY BE funny. If he wrote a list of people he wanted to kick in the shins or slap in the face, then it would have been really funny.

But seriously, I understand that assault and murder are 2 very different things, but why would one be funny and the other not?

Why do people go "oooooooooohhhhhhhh!! !! ! That hurts!!" in a happy manner when someone gets hurt but no one laughs when a person dies? I mean, purposely hurting someone and killing someone is both a crime.

Or why do people "boast" about how fast they drive on the freeway saying "I've done 50 over the limit!" but when its 100 over the limit they say "thats criminal man!! These people need to be pulled off the streets!!"?

Isn't laughing also an expression for scary / uncomfortable thoughts? So with just a bit of scary it can be laughed off, while with a lot of scary laughing isn't enough.

The boasting I think is just trying to make themselves look better / feel important / right / something like that. No matter what the subject is, what the person talking does is great, while doing more or less is terrible.

This is one of the hard things about reading emotions. People will often laugh and smile when they're scared or angry. One of the running themes in the Ren and Stimpy cartoon is that Ren will often be smiling or laughing when he's angry or up to something mischievous.

Another issue is why people laugh about things under certain contexts.

For example, people tend to laugh when someone mentions about "potheads" or "crackheads" in a conversation but when the topic is specifically about drug addiction, it gets serious and no one laughs.

Or people make fun of pedophiles in their attraction towards kids but no one laughs when it happens in real life. I mean, people still laugh at the fact that in real life pedophiles prey on children, its just that it gets serious when it comes up in the news.

Because getting kicked in the groin is something you can recover from completely in a few weeks, and getting slapped in the face is something you'll recover from completely in anywhere from several minutes to several days. You don't recover from getting killed.

People will laugh if they think you are joking. If they think you are serious, they will be serious. People get all bent out of shape over things like school shootings because its one of many things that are blown out of proportion, along with bullying, global warming, etc. Anything else, it depends on how serious you are perceived to be.

Hmm, I do not typically see bullying or global warming blown out of proportion. Usually I see them minimized or denied entirely.