Visual jokes about Christmas and Santa Claus on the internet - Why and why not?

Abstract

This article analyses a collection of Christmas-related images and video clips found on the Internet. The author started collecting this material in 2005, since that time the material in the form of a PowerPoint presentation has been shown to diverse audiences discussing the context (mainly from the perspective of a folklore researcher) while observing the reaction of the audience. The central part of the article is devoted to a brief overview of the most characteristic groups of the jokes (with links to the images, video and descriptions of the traditions): Santa Claus as the bringer of presents, his trip from the northland and his friend Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, arrival through the chimney, different other persons wearing Santa's hat (politicians, terrorists, women, animals, etc.), Santa's sexuality, drunken Santa, Santa murdered/killed, etc. In addition, the regional version - Ded Moroz and Snegurochka (Father Frost and the Snowgirl) - is discussed here. Parodies related to the topic - the Christmas tree, snowmen and figures made of snow, elves, angels, Chinese horoscope's "animals of the year". Some hypotheses regarding the differences, functions, selection and perception of the worldwide available jokes in different social situations (western and post-Soviet world) are put forward, also considering social groups and situations, the time before and after Christmas. Why would people need such jokes? An attempt is made to explain it by different "levels of joking" - starting with "simply jokes" with their specific context in the tradition of the particular subject matter and the carnival-like sense of the reversed world (also used by the traders, making the originally rather eerie Santa Claus look like a friendly joker in the "shopping mythology") and jokes as a kind of psychological self-defence - trying to compensate, by way of irony and black humour, for the rapidly changing and excessive tediousness, seriousness, sacralisation, or right the opposite - secularisation, commercialisation of the mass media imposed Christmas traditions and the holiday stress.