Earthquake, pandemic and…humor: a social chronicle from memes

Abstract

This article starts from two assumptions. In the first place, humor is an expression that allows, in ocassions, to make a social approach to experiences, concerns and feelings or sensations of a social group. Secondly, humorous social expression, among other functions, focuses on communicating and relieving the tension caused by different life circumstances. In this sense, in the month of June 2020, a series of catastrophic and complex socio-natural events coincided in Mexico: we highlight in these pages the earthquake that took place on June 23, added to the context of the health crisis unleashed by Covid 19 planetary expansion. The objective of this article is to carry out a reflective review around the situation experienced at that time, taking as a reference for this approach, the memes that in those adverse circumstances navigated in social networks as a creative explosion and communicative need, at the same time as emotional transit, desire for social connection and urgency to release tension in the framework of the cotidian overwhelming reality experienced in those days. Based on this cutout, we are interested in describing and outlining some interpretative lines expressed in these forms of social manifestations of humor, and underlining the place of humor and laughter in moments of crisis, traumatic shock or situations that emotionally overload people and social grups suffering from a catastrophic event.