“In every joke, there is a grain of truth.” This quote has been grabbing my attention lately and has made me question the true meaning of a joke. When individuals indicate that they are just joking, I always stop and wonder if perhaps there was some truth in what they said. This struck me one day when I opted out of wearing makeup to school one day last week.
Girls that normally wear makeup on a daily basis (such as myself) sometimes go without it for a day to give their face a break. I thought I would flaunt my natural beauty so that people can appreciate me for… me.
Most boys tell girls “I like it when girls don’t wear makeup,” but their actions speak otherwise. My best guy friend sat with me in a class, looked at my face, and automatically said, “Wow, you definitely do not look like Alex today.” Besides the fact that I felt extremely comfortable with the way I looked, I felt confident that day, which is a rare occurrence. Within a split second, my feelings were hurt and I was in utter shock at what my best friend had said.
As I was trying to forget what just happened, he let out a short chuckle, and replied with an insincere “just kidding!” But, what if I really did look ugly? What if all of the compliments I had received earlier were just a way to sugarcoat the fact that I looked unappealing to everyone?
I decided to shake it off and just accept his “apology.” Jokes are phrases said with the intent to make others laugh; however, I was certainly closer to tears than laughs. Movies and TV shows, I think, have played a large role in the evolution of joke-making. As a result of seeing snide remarks on TV, we make rude comments to each other. Instead of joking about light topics, we joke about peoples’ height, age, style, grades, race, etc.
These are the jokes that really get to individuals’ feelings, and result in low self-esteem and no confidence about their well-being. I was starting to anticipate that with every joke, there comes a little bit of truth.
In order to avoid damaging our days, people should think three times before opening their mouths, whether they are our best friends or knights in shining armor. We all know that one person that has to comment about everything, and we should all be well aware that if the person being attacked is not laughing, neither should the attacker.
