In all honesty, this list might not be the best example of dark humor. You see, to analyze dark humor, scientists had to determine what it is. 

Their definition? “Humor that treats sinister subjects like death, disease, deformity, handicap, or warfare with bitter amusement and presents such tragic, distressing or morbid topics in humorous terms.”

So, yeah, Shrek memes might not be the best example of that. However, once you look at how those researchers determined the correlation there, the connection to these memes might seem a little more obvious. 

Firstly, it is important to note that scientists were presenting images to the participants, not solely written jokes. They were humorous comics with dark undertones by Uli Stein. So, in a basic sense, it is similar to memes.

Then comes the main argument. The researchers claim that the reason people with higher IQs like dark humor is the fact that it is harder to understand what is funny about them. Discerning them is a tough thing to do, so much so that they call it “a complex information-processing task.” There are layers there that take more mental work than an ordinary gag.

If that didn’t sound like a very apt description of a meme for you, then let me break it to you: memes are layered jokes that often require context and additional knowledge to fully grasp them. In other words, you need to be in the know and do a little bit of mental processing to laugh. In that sense, they are very similar to the dark humor examples used in the study.

The difference between the two is that dark humor requires you to do some additional emotional labor. As in, for you to find a dark joke funny, you have to emotionally distance yourself from the joke to see it as amusing and not threatening.

When it comes to memes, the emotional connection is usually attached to the gag. For example, it’s not uncommon for the images to evoke nostalgic feelings. Still, a lot of the memes also get into disturbing/disgusting territory, so removing yourself from the initial feeling of repulsion to see the hilarity of it might also be necessary.

All in all, if you found this collection of memes funny, you might just be a brilliant genius. Or you might just be aware of the social context that makes these specific memes funny. Either way, we hope you had a chuckle!