# Humorwashing

Humorwashing is a psychological trick used to make people accept [evil](evil.md) by embedding it in some kind of [joke](jokes.md), parody, satirical or sarcastic statement or similar kind of humor. Obvious analogy is that of feeding someone poison by mixing it in a sweet tasting food. This tactic enjoys wide use in [corporate](corporation.md), [capitalist](capitalism.md) and political propaganda for it being very simple and cheap, yet extremely effective.

Examples:

- [Egoism](egoism.md) masked as joking: For example [Linus Torvalds](linus_torvalds.md) stating he "Waited for someone else (HAHAHA) to name [Linux](linux.md) after him (HAHAHA) because doing so himself would be too obviously egoistic (HAHAHA)".
- YouTubers stating they're doing something evil while laughing, such as "Sorry for clickbait but I have to do it because I'm a GREEDY GREEDY BASTARD YOUTUBER who needs money for his overly expensive gold plated house and paying all the speeding tickets I get because of making videos for you (HAHAHA)." It's fine because we laughed, right?
- TV host: "Why did you write a book about yourself? Aren't you worried the audience will see it being a bit narcissistic?"; The author: "Joe, ask my wife and she will confirm I am VERY narcissistic HAHAHA!"; [BA DUM TSS] [PLAY THE LAUGH TRACK] [APPLAUSE PLEASE].
- { Personal experience: I once had a colleague at slavery, a self proclaimed "Christian". Once she said she hated the homeless and immigrants and they'd better be exiled from the country or something. Of course I proceeded to ask how such a view was compatible with Christianity, her reply was: "I am a Christian! But everything has its limits, HAHAHA." -- as if making a joke out of it legitimized the view. ~drummyfish }
- many more, you get the gist

Analysis of **why it works and why it's done so often**:

- Evil entity *A* wants to establish evil phenomenon *B*, which by its nature cannot be concealed (because it's something that naturaly HAS to be noticed, such as rising taxes etc.). *B* may also be a confession to an evil already done by *A* or something similar.
- It is clear the evil WILL be noticed, so rather than trying to fail at hiding *B* and risking people forming an independent opinion upon randomly stumbling upon *B*, *A* rather decides to expose people to *B* on his own terms, with an effort put on maximizing the chance that people will accept *B* if it is presented in a way they will likely approve of, so *A* will now for example reserve a seat on the latest brainwashing talk show on TV (or he'll make a youtube video, twitter post, write a book, pay for a billboard, ...) to deliver the news about *B* in a digestible form of a joke pill.
- *A* now has a stage set and eyes of millions on him, he now clearly states to the masses: "HAHAHA, I am an EVIL entity (hahaha), so I will now start doing B, HAHAHA. Why? Because I'm evil (hahaha) like your favorite movie villain [parodies Joker], HAHAHA. [APPLAUSE PLEASE]".
- Now most people probably either accept *B* or, in a worse case, wave it off, but they will not protest. This is so because:
    - He makes people laugh (even if the joke is bad, just by laughing himself and possibly having paid actors laugh along with him) and this psychologically makes a friendlier bond between him and the audience, people are very rarely able to find hostile feelings against someone they laugh along with.
    - People think: *B* is not so bad because if it was, he wouldn't be so publicly open about doing it. So *B* is probably fine. Why would he publicly say he's doing something evil? (The error in reasoning is apparent and explained above: *A* can't possibly hide *B*, so the next best thing is to expose *B* in this way, betting on people making this exact reasoning error.)
    - Humorwashing is a psychopathic behavior, absolutely foreign and incomprehensible to most people -- someone publicly opening up about doing evil and joking about it at the same time is so bizarre to most that their brain just stops working, people stop being able to accept they could live in such an advanced [dystopia](capitalism.md) where this would be possible, and their reaction to this is often just closing their ears and shutting down the think, letting it pass, and moving on. Imagine someone in a suit getting up to a stage and starting to talk about how he raped a toddler in front of his mother while cutting his limbs off and drinking his blood and everyone applauding him -- you have the option to either wake up to the realization you live in a nightmare (dooming yourself to spend the rest of your life in alienation and depression), or you can just join the cheerful crowd (simply by doing nothing) and let everything be happy like it has been until now -- what will you do? Or rather what do you think most people will do?
    - Very considerable part of the audience is simply so retarded they do not think about anything and just watch and wait for signals they should start laughing -- these further increase the laughing majority.
    - In addition the audience is distracted, not thinking about *B* so much, for example by analyzing the bad joke itself, pointing out how terrible it was, how they'd make a better one etc. The show is also staged to quickly go on and jump to another topic to not let people think for too long (and usually something quite interesting or even more 
controversial will follow immediately to shift the attention away from *B*).
    - Even if some see it's a bit fishy, there is a very comfortable excuse offered to them, and many people actually take it: for some reasons many tell themselves: "Yeah he's evil like all rich people, but at least he has a sense of humor -- I am more fine with being raped by a company owned by a guy whom I like, so I accept this".
    - Some unorinically think it's a joke in the sense that it's not true, just because it's so bizarre. If these people protest later on upon finding it indeed wasn't a joke, they'll be in a significant minority which can just be told to shut up because they had been told about *B* and they didn't protest.
    - Most people around are laughing so the rare few who spot the tactic AND don't want to accept it actually have no chance or courage.
    - If now, at this very point, people accept *B* (even with mild irritation) -- which they most likely will (and which is *A*'s goal) -- they psychologically form a perpetual approval of it and will most likely go on accepting it and NEVER again change their position -- next time hearing about *B* they'll just remember they already heard of it and approved (and this will go even as far as splitting the public to a minority opposing *B* and the majority being actively HOSTILE to them, actually starting to fully support *B*). It doesn't matter if the pill tasted a little bitter, only that most eventually took it. Most people decide their stance about a thing during their first encounter (possibly forming a [mental shortcut](shortcut_thinking.md)) and will then stick to this stance (if only out of laziness, but also for other reasons such as not wanting to contradict themselves).

## See Also

- [shortcut thinking](shortcut_thinking.md)
- [euphemism](euphemism.md)
- [slowly boiling the frog](slowly_boiling_the_frog.md)