![]() ![]() The smiles of Schadenfreude and joy are indistinguishable except in one crucial respect: we smile more with the failures of our enemies than at our own success. The psychologists found that when the Dutch missed a goal, the German fans’ smiles appeared more quickly and were broader than when the German team scored a goal themselves. ![]() However, in a laboratory in Würzburg in Germany in 2015, thirty-two football fans agreed to have electromyography pads attached to their faces, which would measure their smiles and frowns while watching TV clips of successful and unsuccessful football penalties by the German team, and by their arch-rivals, the Dutch. In historical portraits, people beaming with joy look very different to those slyly gloating over another’s bad luck. Melanesians still enjoy telling the story of how an Australian government minister visited the village, got annoyed because the villagers wouldn’t do what he wanted, drove away in a huff and crashed into a tree. More of an everyday sort of Banbanam is gloating at someone’s humiliating failure behind their back-as when the rival villagers’ feast day is rained on because their Weather Magician’s spells fail, or a wife grabs her cheating husband by the testicles and ignores his pleas for mercy. This is a hard saying, but a mighty, human, all-too-human principle.”įor the Melanesians who live on the remote Nissan Atoll in Papua New Guinea, laughing at other people’s pain is known as “Banbanam.” At its most extreme, it involves taunting a dead rival by exhuming their corpse and scattering the remains around the village. “To see others suffer does one good,” wrote the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Earlier still, the Greeks described e p ic h a i r e kaki a (literally e p i, over, ch a i r o, rejoice, kaki a, disgrace). More than 2,000 years ago, Romans spoke of ma l e v o l e n t i a. In Hebrew enjoying other people’s catastrophes is s i m ch a l a ‑ e d, in Mandarin x ì n g ‑ z āi‑lè‑huò, in Serbo-Croat it is zlùradōst and in Russian z lo r ad s tv o. The Danish talk of s k ade f r y d, and the Dutch of l e e d v e r m a a k. The Japanese have a saying: “The misfortunes of others taste like honey.” The French speak of j o i e m a l i g n e, a diabolical delight in other people’s suffering. Whe n synchronized swimmers get confused, swivel the wrong way, and then have t o s w i v e l b a c k r e a ll y q u i c k l y and hope no one notices. The b o ss c a ll i n g h i m s e l f “ H e a d o f P u b i c S e r v i c e s ” o n an important letter.Ĭ e l e b r i t y V e g a n Caught in Cheese Aisle. ![]() And sometimes I feel good when others feel bad. I’m often late, and usually lie about why. I smoke, even though I officially gave up years ago. There was a warm sensation working its way across my chest. ![]() I looked about, took the magazine to the till and counted out my change. Tragically lonely following a tragic breakup. Now I’m the sort of person who usually curdles with envy on hearing about someone else’s luxury mansion. My favorite story was an interview with a pop star, or perhaps she was a model, who lived in a giant luxury mansion. There was the cellulite, the weight gain and loss, the bikinis riding up between the bum cheeks and bingo wings circled in red. But then I picked one up, j u s t out of c u r i o s i t y. And my first instinct, just in case someone was listening in on my thoughts, was to think: ugh, who b u y s t h o s e t e r r i b l e m a g a z i n e s. Last Tuesday, I went to the corner shop to buy milk, and found myself pausing by the celebrity gossip magazines. ![]()
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