The Story of “Humor” in Iran: Why Do Iranians Laugh in Times of Crisis?
WANA (Jun 03) – Iranians have a saying: “If we don’t laugh, we’ll cry.” This isn’t just a joke—it’s a concise expression of a complex psychological, historical, and cultural mechanism. In Iranian culture, humor isn’t merely a form of entertainment; it’s a survival strategy—a defense mechanism developed over centuries by a people living under the shadow of historical insecurity, social pressure, and political constraint.
Whether in the metro, taxis, bread lines, tweets, or Instagram stories, Iranians are constantly creating and recreating humor. They turn crises into comedy—not because these events are trivial, but because humor becomes a way to reframe hardship; a kind of playful interaction with reality that helps reduce its weight.
Humor: The People’s Second Language
In many societies, humor exists mainly for amusement. But in Iran, it often serves a dual purpose: it entertains and speaks truths that cannot be openly expressed in formal language.
This alternative language becomes especially active in restrictive times—much like Eastern European satire under communism or the subversive jokes in apartheid-era South Africa.
Take 2019, for example: following a sudden spike in fuel prices and widespread protests, a meme went viral comparing gasoline to luxury perfumes: “Don’t use the 3,000-toman gasoline—it’s for special occasions!”
A cartoon about the rising price of oil in Iran / WANA News Agency
This joke became a shared language of dissent.
Or consider the recent Israeli missile strike on Iran. Instead of taking shelter, many Iranians went up to their rooftops to film the skies. The captions shared alongside these videos were darkly humorous:
“Dear Israeli friends, please aim a bit lower—there’s no signal up here.”
“Could you come back tomorrow night? We’ve got a party tonight.”
In such moments, humor turns into a form of symbolic resistance—a way for people to reclaim agency in the face of uncontrollable threats.
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A Tool for Psychological Balance
When discussing certain issues becomes dangerous or seemingly futile, humor fills the void. During widespread internet shutdowns in Iran, people joked: “If you’re reading this tweet, it means either you have a top-tier VPN or some serious connections!”
During power outages that left entire regions without electricity for hours, users posted: “If you’re reading this, congratulations—you’re part of the elite class that still has power!”
A simple joke transforms an unpleasant reality into a shared, even laughable, experience.
A satirical image about power outages with the caption: “After 40 years, these three honorable figures have returned to the arms of the nation.” / WANA News Agency
The Meme Generation: Digital Humor as Daily Ethnography
Over the past decade, digital humor has become a collective tool for confronting everyday life in Iran. From mocking the plummeting value of the rial to jabs at the housing crisis or even security threats, memes offer a vivid reflection of daily life—not through official analysis, but through lived experience.
After a sharp drop in the national currency, a viral image showed a basic sandwich with the caption:
“Guys, remember pre-inflation fast food? When two people could go out and come back on 100 tomans? It’s like a legend now…”
Another viral moment came when Mohammad Reza Golzar, a famous actor and TV host, posted a luxurious photo with the caption: “It’s not showing off—it’s a lifestyle.”
Users responded by sharing their own everyday struggles, from financial woes to family crises, mimicking his words:
“Not showing off—just my lifestyle.”
Users responded to Golzar’s Post on Instagram by sharing their own everyday struggles, mimicking his words: “Not showing off—just my lifestyle.” / WANA News Agency
This ironic reframing was both hilarious and heartbreaking—a way to narrate inequality from the ground up, beyond the reach of official discourse.
On platforms like Instagram and Telegram, ordinary users become journalists, comedians, and anthropologists all at once. Humor here becomes a counter-narrative to a world where official narratives often fall short.
Social Memory in the Form of Satire
These everyday jokes aren’t just momentary reactions—they often become a repository of collective memory, not as historical data, but as emotional and social snapshots.
Iranian humor has transformed in the digital era. Now, anyone with a smartphone can be a satirist—from student sketches to migration posts to critiques of social restrictions.
Mohammad is a 32-year-old Iranian man who plays the Joker in street theater performances, with the aim of making people happy during the outbreak of Covid-19, is playing with children in one of the lower neighborhoods of Tehran, Iran December 12, 2020. Picture taken December 12, 2020. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency)
Though these jokes seem fleeting, what they capture is profound:
a way of being in a particular time and place—a sense of shared fate, of laughing about what everyone knows but rarely says aloud, and a persistent effort to preserve mental equilibrium in an uncertain world.
Iranian humor is, in essence, a homegrown antidepressant. When a nation responds to missile threats not by hiding, but by filming with their phones, their laughter is not a sign of denial—it’s a sign of awareness, and of playfully negotiating anxiety.
To laugh, in this context, means: We still get to tell the story. Iranian humor is not merely a defense mechanism; it is a subtle form of resistance.
Even when people are absent from the battlefield, they remain active in the realm of narrative.
The game is still on.
