Humour is the Best Medicine
By- Dr Srabani Basu
Associate Professor, Department of Literature and Languages, SRM University AP
Think of the bewilderment of future historians.
“Wait…they were protesting?”
“Yes.”
“But why are some of them dressed like marvel characters? Why is another filming a ‘Get Ready With Me: Protest Edition’ reel? Why are placards competing with stand-up comedians? And why, in the middle of civil disobedience, is everybody…laughing?”
Somewhere, a nineteenth-century revolutionary would probably adjust his moustache in disbelief. He had expected barricades, fiery speeches and grim expressions that could curdle milk. Instead, he found memes, satire, impeccable comic timing and a generation audacious enough to weaponise wit.
It turns out that these students had stumbled upon a rather inconvenient truth: authority has spent centuries preparing for angry slogans, but very little time preparing for punchlines.
Because it is difficult to intimidate people who refuse to surrender their laughter.
And that may well be the most revolutionary idea of this protest.
Before this protest, humour was often treated as the lighter cousin of dissent. We laughed after the protest, not during it. The latest student movement overturned that assumption. It demonstrated that laughter is not merely an emotional release; it can become a political language. Memes, parody videos, witty placards, costumes, “Get Ready With Me” protest reels, pop-culture references and self-deprecating jokes transformed demonstrations into a movement that travelled far beyond the streets and into millions of mobile screens. Humour did not dilute the protest; it amplified it.
Traditionally, civil disobedience has been associated with solemnity. Protesters marched with stern faces, raised slogans in unison and projected moral seriousness. There is undeniable dignity in that image. Yet this generation introduced another possibility: disobedience could smile. Their placards resembled punchlines rather than manifestos. Their satire pierced authority more effectively than prolonged speeches. They refused to surrender joy simply because they were resisting power. In doing so, they challenged one of authority’s oldest assumptions; that fear is the only language capable of maintaining control.
Humour performs a fascinating psychological function. It lowers emotional defences. People instinctively resist being lectured, but they willingly share something that makes them laugh. A speech may reach a few hundred people standing before a stage. A clever meme can travel through thousands of WhatsApp groups before lunchtime. A witty poster photographed by one stranger can become tomorrow’s headline. Humour transformed every participant into a communicator and every smartphone into a printing press. The protest ceased to belong only to those physically present; it became participatory, portable and contagious.
This was not humour as escapism. It was humour as resilience. Anyone who has ever laughed during adversity understands that laughter is not the denial of pain; it is its companion. The jokes emerging from the protest were not evidence that students were taking their concerns lightly. Rather, they suggested precisely the opposite. They had found a way to carry frustration without allowing frustration to consume them. When videos of students running from police were edited like video games or when protest outfits were presented like fashion “fit checks,” they were reclaiming agency. Power attempted to define the narrative; humour quietly rewrote it.
History reminds us that ridicule has always unsettled authority. Tyrants are accustomed to opposition. They prepare for slogans, marches and speeches. What they find more difficult to confront is laughter. Anger can be labelled as aggression. Humour is harder to criminalise because it exposes contradictions without shouting. Satire does not merely oppose power; it makes power appear absurd. And once authority becomes the subject of collective laughter, it loses a portion of the psychological distance upon which unquestioned authority depends.
There is another remarkable aspect to this movement. The humour was deeply collaborative. Protesters borrowed the grammar of internet culture: memes, gaming references, GIF aesthetics, influencer formats, not as distractions but as rhetorical devices. Their generation communicates through compressed symbols, visual jokes and shared cultural references. Rather than asking young people to abandon their language in favour of older forms of political expression, the protest elevated their native dialect into the language of civic engagement. The medium itself became the message.
Many critics are tempted to dismiss such expressions as frivolous. They mistake lightness for shallowness. Yet Shakespeare knew that the fool often spoke the deepest truths. Court jesters survived because they could say what ministers could not. Charlie Chaplin ridiculed dictators more memorably than many political commentators. Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw wrapped profound social criticism in sparkling wit. Humour has never been the enemy of seriousness; it has often been its most elegant vehicle.
There is a neuroscience behind this as well. Laughter activates emotion, attention and memory together. Information accompanied by emotional engagement is remembered more readily than information presented in purely factual form. A slogan may fade. A brilliantly ironic placard remains etched in memory because it engages both cognition and emotion simultaneously. These students intuitively understood what communication researchers have repeatedly demonstrated: people remember experiences more than information.
Perhaps this is the greatest lesson of the protest. Every generation invents its own vocabulary of dissent. Earlier generations relied upon pamphlets, poetry, street theatre and songs. This generation has added memes, satire, digital storytelling and humour to that tradition. The essence of protest remains unchanged, which is, the demand for accountability, but its expression has evolved with its communicators.
It would therefore be a mistake to judge this movement merely by its jokes. The jokes were not the destination; they were the vehicle. Beneath every meme lay anxiety about the future. Behind every parody stood a demand for accountability. Behind every laugh was a refusal to surrender hope.
Humour, after all, is not the opposite of resistance. Sometimes it is resistance in its most sophisticated form.For centuries, disobedience has marched with clenched fists. This generation proved that it can also arrive with a smile.And perhaps that smile travelled farther than the loudest slogan ever could.
Perhaps governments, universities and institutions need to rethink their crisis-management manuals. Alongside chapters titled How to Handle Demonstrations, Managing Public Relations and Damage Control, they may now have to add an entirely new section: What to Do When the Protesters Are Funnier Than You.
After all, how does one issue a stern warning to a meme? How does one cross-examine sarcasm? Which section of the rulebook deals with a placard that has already become tomorrow’s profile picture? You can confiscate banners, but good luck confiscating a joke that has already travelled through a million phones before your official statement has even been proofread.
The students understood something that communication experts, advertisers and Shakespeare’s fools have known for centuries: people may argue with facts, they may ignore sermons, they may forget speeches,but they almost never forget a good joke.
Perhaps that is why power has always feared laughter just a little more than anger. Anger demands a response. Laughter delivers a verdict.
So, here’s a modest suggestion for those who write policies. Before drafting the next circular, don’t just consult the legal department. Consult someone with a sense of humour.
Otherwise, your next notification may not be challenged in court.
It may simply become… the internet’s favourite comedy.
