One moronic swastika of our times

San Francisco, February 6, 2025 | #humor #musk #trump

One moronic swastika of our times is the "🤣" emoji. People incapable of laughter use it to declare funny their resentments, which bring them no joy. A lifetime of perceived exclusion from the laughter of others makes the joyless mistake themselves for laughter's victim. And so they only understand laughter as a way to victimize. It's intolerable to fascists that laughter can be anything else, so they go through great pains to never be funny ("Don't say Hess to Nazi accusations!"). They revel in the secondhand embarrassment they inflict – because their inability to enjoy other people's humor has convinced them that others' non-enjoyment proves their humor.

Their nonhumor differs from the Dad Joke, which the Dad uses to bond with others, not assert himself at their expense. It differs from edgelordism, whose solipsism is limited by its stake in the reactions it provokes. And though it mimics Trump – the only funny fascist – it never lands. Trump never laughs, either, but neither does he envy laughter. His resentments do not unsettle him, so he feels no need to autistically mimic the humor that might neutalize them. The humorless mimic Trump not that anyone might laugh – but that they might finally feel at home in not knowing how to.