Schadenfreude, from the German nouns Schaden, meaning “damage” or “harm,” and Freude, meaning “joy,” means joy over some harm or misfortune suffered by another. This is different from laughing during the recounting of something terrible without meaning to, but something about how it unfolds or how it is told sets the belly monster roaring. I blame Mike.
PS: Blink every time you read the word “tragedy”.
(By the way, congratulations to Sigmund Freud for making his life an act of rebellion against his name.)
I first read about the French frigate Méduse around 2016 and at the time it was another tragic story in the history books. Théodore Géricault’s painting “The Raft of the Medusa” was also no comfort from the dark imaginings of traumatised sailors. It depicts the horrific aftermath of an actual grounding of a French frigate off the coast of Mauritania that occurred in 1816.
Then I forgot about it.
Until last night when my favourite True Crime Youtube Channel “That Chapter” covered it. Mike has one of my favourite storytelling styles recounting the worst tragedies with tact while serving appropriate spite to perpetrators.
(Apparently, the then Restored Bourbon Monarchy wished to keep The Medusa tragedy under wraps. So “In The Heart of The Sea was as close as we were going to get.)
Until now that is…
When tragedy such as death is inevitable, it’s like a string you cannot untangle or one that goes through your heart to keep you tethered to eternity, crawling with disease and emotional pain that shock your system and move in an endless cycle until the end. So laughing at it is like playing with that string. Not like a guitarist, but like a child snapping the string to amuse itself with the vibration or dull sound.
Horror movies are the biggest players of this string.
Some say laughing does well to ease the shocks and throw off some of the crawlies.
Anyway, I was amused by the storytelling but also the fact that our nature is so inevitable. You can be altruistic, cold, level-headed, impulsive, etc and become something you don’t recognise within a short period of time in extreme and unfamiliar situations.
Perhaps this tragedy was the vibration of the curse of the French Revolution which was still thrumming since the revolutionaries played the string.