Example:
My parents are frugal af and refuse to get a new phone charger and tries to “fix it”. I think my mom mentioned it caught on fire (or sparks) once or something like that…
So I was like: “Just get a new one for fucks sakes … Oh I mean I guess you can keep using it… the house is insured, fire is included in the policy, so I guess it’s fine.”
Then my mom gets mad because it’s “bad luck” to say stuff like this… as if somehow making this joke is gonna have a cause-effect to the house catching on fire… 🤔
Like are they afraid of angering the Gods? Spirits? Wut lmao?
🤦♂️
I’d argue that isn’t even dark humor. The joke’s focal point is how ridiculous your mother’s position is. You’re taking up an untenable and patently absurd position in faux support of the initial absurd position. That’s ridicule. Now I will grant that lampooning a rhetorical opponent’s position can lean “dark”. Unless the punchline relies on taboo for the heavy lifting though it isn’t crossing that line.
You didn’t say anything offensive or taboo. You criticised someone’s bad take using contemptous analytic hyperbole. I grew up with this kind of humor in my family. It was mostly used as a learning tool which avoided direct confrontation of idiocy while allowing the temporarily embarassed idiot to save face, realize they weren’t thinking clearly, and choose to be in on the joke at their old self’s expense. There are other choices, or course, but if you chose to die on mount stupid then you’d better expect to get buried underneath it as well.
Your family doesn’t seem to be receptive to that brand of social therapy. That’s ok. My point is more to encourage you that you didn’t do anything wrong (and that it’s even normal to joke like that elsewhere).
Your mom might not think you’re funny… But I do!