Mosh Pit Fail Videos Triggers Continuous Laughter

Last Wednesday during class, we watched some mosh pit fail videos as well as some other random funny/fail videos. There was one video especially that seemed to make the class just bust out in long fits of laughter. In the video, a girl was seen dancing with her group of friends at a seemingly techno/hard rock concert in an open space—all of a sudden, she disappears as she gets run over by “the wall of death,” which is a term used to describe a form of moshing which sees participants split into two halves before slamming the two sides into one another. I just remember the entire class busting out into laugher, myself included. I couldn’t stop laughing for what seemed like minutes. I have a high-pitched, cackle type laugh, so I knew that this video really had to get to me in order for my witch cackle to come out. We had to watch the video again because we just couldn’t believe that that had happened. Now you see her, now you don’t. I think I kept laughing because my classmates were laughing along with me. Earlier on in the semester, we talked about how laughter is contagious—it can be so either in a destructive way or a positive way. Yes, I was laughing at the fact that the girl in the video was physically taken down by two groups of people running toward each other, but it wasn’t in a malicious way or with ill intent. What I mean is that maybe it’s not particularly appropriate to laugh after that moment, but in a way, I couldn’t help myself. Maybe it was just the way she disappeared into the abyss of people, or how she seemingly just slipped away, but it triggered the response of laughter. In terms of how this event relates to materials discussed and learned in class, I relate it to what Comic Relief mentioned in that laughter causes us to lose control sometimes, especially by joking. I also see connections to the Superiority theory as well, which basically says that we laugh in situations where we feel ‘higher’ than others, especially during moments when the object of the laughter is caught in a misfortunate situation. I’m not saying that myself or the class looked down on the girl in her misfortune, but I’m merely saying that I can see a link between this event and that concept merely because of the way it happened. The girl experienced an embarrassing and absolutely disastrous moment that was shared for the whole world to see, thereby exemplifying the Superiority theory. There’s this element where I knew I shouldn’t be laughing because it was an unfortunate incident due to the fact that it was completely unintentional and out of the blue, but there’s always been this response to laugh when others hurt and/or embarrass themselves. I see this through the other various fail videos we watched during this class session, including the one where two friends were playing the game rock, paper, scissors and if one of them won, then the other could bonk the one who lost on the head with a large, empty water jug. I hope the girl wasn’t hurt and can laugh at this in the future. It’s little moments like these that bring light to the course topics and adds an element of relaxation and fun to the course as a whole.