A man walking down the street gazing into space. He doesn’t notice an open manhole, and falls into it. It’s hard not to laugh at a silly scene like this but why we find it so amusing is an interesting question. Witnessing someone trip or fall, takes us back to younger and simpler times when those things happened and it really wasn’t that big of a deal. We got back up again, and continued on.
According to research laughter helps to maintain the rules of society. We learn to laugh at careless or eccentric behavior, and this makes people pay attention to the requirements of the world they live in, because nobody likes being laughed at. Laughter pushes us towards being normal.
Recently we witnessed Alizeh Shah’s video where she tripped and fell on the stage while a catwalk on the ramp. It became viral and the entire internet was amused and filled with memes and laughing emoji’s. It was indeed unfortunate to see people so amused at someone’s embarrassing situation. I believe we as a society and obviously as humans need to be more empathetic.
