Quarantine humour as a coping mechanism. A centennial “dialogue”

Abstract

Quarantine humour functions as a coping mechanism transcending a time lapse of one century between the 1918-1919 Spanish influenza pandemics and the 2020 Covid-19 ongoing crisis. The study aims at observing the main concerns related to the infections and their consequences for both the individuals and the societies. The paper focuses on the analysis of fifteen cartoons, six of them published in a newspaper in 1918-1919 and the rest in 2020 online media and social networks. The findings support the idea that pandemic humour is used not only for coping with the fear of death or illness, but also with coping with more mundane issues such as lack of commodities, losing one’s job, beauty concerns, online schooling or the lack of implication in solving the crisis on behalf of the authorities.