Luisa Bernardino

The rise of social media has brought a multitude of new negative jokes, mostly meant to be lighthearted, but having tremendous impact.

Has a friend ever thrown out a funny insult during a conversation? Have you seen a  TikTok post about being a “big back” while ordering food? Most of the time, these jokes are supposed to be interpreted as funny, but these “jokes” impact us more than we might think.

With the rise of social media, ways of interacting with others have drastically changed. Because of the lack of face-to-face interactions, people have become bolder about sharing negative opinions. These online hate comments are common in comment sections of social media posts. This has become the new norm. 

If you are active on social media, you have probably seen the “big back” trend. The trend consists of a person claiming that what they’re eating makes them a “big back” or fat in other words. This trend has taken off and become new slang for a lot of teens’ vocabulary. It is now common to hear this phrase jokingly tossed between friends. The “big back” joke is similar to previous jokes like “kys” and “kms.”

These types of jokes are typically more common in male friendships than female ones. In a 2021 American Survey Center study, 21 percent of men and 41 percent of women reported receiving emotional support from their friends in the past week; the gap between both percentages portrays the upsetting reality.

Friendship is supposed to be a positive aspect of a person’s life but yet typically, you don’t always see that in a male friendship. A lot of guys make jokes about someone’s looks because it has become normalized to do so. As a result, this friendship dynamic can make it hard to talk about serious issues within that friendship. 

That does not mean you should not make any jokes. But, make sure your jokes are lighthearted. Antagonistic jokes can seriously impact one’s mindset and mental state over time. According to the National Library of Medicine, teens who tend to have more self-deprecating humor are more likely to think about suicide and have an overall lower mental health state in comparison to adolescents with more positive humor. 

Jokes can be great because they make people laugh, but it is important to refrain from saying the same insulting jokes over and over again. According to a 2020 Vanderbilt University study, people are more likely to believe a statement they have heard more than once. That means the context of your jokes can impact you and/or other people’s beliefs. 

High school can be stressful, but seeing friends at school brightens the school day. So it is necessary to make sure you keep those friends, and to do that, you can’t constantly degrade them when that person may not know your true feelings behind the joke or comment. Just be mindful of your words and be nice.