Lessons from Schadenfreude by Tiffany Watt Smith
Why We Feel Better When Bad Things Happen to Other People
We are living in an Age of Schadenfreude. The Spitegeist kinda but not really.
Let’s admit it: we’ve all smirked when the arrogant boss gets publicly corrected, when the influencer’s mic cuts off mid-humble-brag, or when that overachiever from high school gets a tiny taste of mediocrity. The list is ENDLESS. We may not tweet it, but the glee is real. Tiffany Watt Smith’s Schadenfreude: Why we feel better when bad things happen to other people doesn’t just normalise that quiet snort; she gives it cultural, emotional, and even evolutionary credibility. There’s a certain delicious fizz that bubbles up when someone who had it coming finally gets what’s coming. Why?
Schadenfreude, exultant, exquisite and utterly shabby, is a flaw, granted. But it is a flaw we must face up to if we truly want to understand life in the modern world
In just 147 punchy, clever pages, Tiffany who is a cultural historian and also author of The Book of Human Emotions charts a mischievous emotional terrain: from petty workplace rivalries to collective justice served ice-cold and private pleasures watching self destruction in action. This is not just a book; it’s a mirror…albeit a slightly cracked, delightfully human one; as we all are…all the time. And like potatoes, Schadenfreude is as versatile as there are sunsets and sunrises.
A Community of the Failed
The Japanese have a saying: “The misfortunes of others taste like honey”
The book begins with a warm welcome to “a community of the failed”(yes, us…ALL OF US) who find unexpected solace in watching others stumble. See the book makes an undeniable case. That this is far from a selfish and/or isolated endeavour from the human experience. It’s not about malice, really. It's about recognition. We feel closer to others, strangely reassured, when we see they’re just as flawed, insecure, and unfiltered as we are. Schadenfreude, for all its bad PR, is actually a social glue. As Dostoyevsky puts it:
“That strange sense of inner satisfaction that always manifests itself, even among the victim’s nearest and dearest, when someone is afflicted by a sudden catastrophe; a sensation that not a single one of us is proof against, however sincere our feelings of pity or sympathy”
Watt Smith cleverly reframes the emotion not as a defect, but as an indicator of our social wiring. In a world obsessed with success stories, curated wins, and polished LinkedIn updates, there’s an odd; but telling…comfort in being reminded that others, too, fall short. It is our human enmeshment. That beneath all the personal branding, we are just people trying (and failing) in public(and in private).
In this way, schadenfreude isn’t just mean; it’s democratic. It reassures us that perfection is an illusion and, ironically, creates a sense of community among the imperfect. The Individual is the Universal.
We may well be living in an Age of Schadenfreude, and fear that this emotion is leading us astray. But as with all emotions, condemning it only gets you so far. What we really need is to think afresh about the work this much-maligned emotion does for us; and what it tells us about our relationship with ourselves and each other.
Accidents: Falling over, diarrhoea and other disasters
In Accidents, Watt Smith unpacks the viral joy of pratfalls. Why do banana peels still get laughs? Because physical misfortune feels harmlessly universal; a karmic slapstick routine we secretly enjoy. There is something ancient and theatrical about watching people fall over. Make no mistake. Over time, and in many different places, when it comes to making ourselves happy, we humans have long relied on the humiliations and failures of other people.
‘Laughing at people falling over or being whacked on the head by a mallet must have its roots in our furthest pre-history. Our pleasure in the mishaps of others helping us survive, allowing us to cope better with physical hardship and, more crucially, bonding us together in the groups that have protected us. And if this reaction is hardwired in us, how young does it start?” ~Accidents
She doesn’t stop at the literal fall. She takes us through traffic jams, wardrobe malfunctions, and email fails; those micro-catastrophes that momentarily dethrone someone. Think of the boss who confidently says "erection" instead of "election" in a boardroom. Or the wedding MC who mispronounces the couple’s surname. We laugh, not out of cruelty, but out of relief: it wasn’t us this time.
Glory: Blood, sport and triumph
In Glory, it’s the fall from greatness that lights us up. You might think that a rival’s mistake is especially pleasurable when we stand to win as a result. But in fact many studies of sports fans have shown that our own success is not half as enjoyable as our bitter rival’s failure. Think Arsenal consoling themselves that “at least Man-U didn’t win also”.
In her sharpest observation, Watt Smith suggests that we don’t resent success; we resent the denial of failure. And when reality catches up to someone who acts immune to it, it feels satisfying. Honest, even. We love to watch the mighty tumble because it restores a sense of balance to the world.
“Laughter is nothing else but a sudden glory arising from sudden conception of some iminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmities of others” ~Glory
There is also something to be said for how often people defend their Schadenfreude by saying “they deserved it”. Most of all, “they deserved it for being smug.”
One of the reasons Schadenfreude can seem so nasty is that this feeling of power at the expense of someone else’s physical pain and clumsiness may tempt us to enjoy ever more ghoulish sights. We may shudder to think of videos of beheadings becoming clickbait(we are living in unprecedented times of a life streamed genocide, the book is too apt). It seems this desire to see death is old and runs deep. For some wayyyyyy more than others.
Justice: Karma & Compulsion
Ah, Justice; the most morally righteous form of schadenfreude. Nothing feels quite as pure as watching a villain meet their downfall. It’s the emotional engine behind half the internet’s memes and the other half’s viral court cases. Nothing makes the world gleam like bad people getting the fate they deserve. Little is more pleasing that seeing a transgressor get their comeuppance.
In this chapter, Watt Smith draws from news headlines, courtroom dramas, and the vengeful thrill of #KarmaIsReal. There’s something deeply primal about watching unfairness corrected, and even more satisfying when that correction is public and humiliating.
Most writers in history agree that there is one situation where we may be entitled to enjoy the spectacle and that is when they deserve it. ~Justice
Justice is highly emotional. Clearly. Look at our world and the capture of legislature across continents by technocracy.
These moments of high emotion are intriguing because they break through the social veneer. Are we allowed to gloat? Are we entitled to add an extra dose of humiliation to the carefully measured punishment? In these moments of curdled pleasure and shame, we might wonder not just why we feel good, but how far we would be willing to go to get that hit[Justice Junkies I am talking to you]. Remember, the hackles of our moral indignation rise most forcefully when the transgression could affect us. For me; part of what motivates my pleasure to see others brought to justice(aside from my hatred for rule-breaking and hypocrites); is self-defence. Their transgressions might affect me in the future. I revel in the spectacle of their comeuppance in the hope that they will be forced to learn from it, and amend the error of their ways(the eternal optimist in me).
The Smug: Superiority, pretensions and fantasy comeuppances
In The Smug, Watt Smith points a finger at all those who need to be brought down a peg — and why we love to see them fall. It’s less about hate, and more about rebalancing a social scale. Think of the motivational speaker caught misusing sacco funds, or the Twitter influencer who preaches “soft life” but is exposed for not paying their intern. How about the pastor preaching to women about their ‘holiness’ caught with the alter boy? That smug air of superiority becomes their downfall, and the laughter that follows? Cathartic. what goes around comes around no?
When it comes to those who have wronged us, most of us secretly want to see—or at least, imagine—the precise moment that the person realises they have transgressed, the confusion, the horror, the regret crumpling their faces. If we can’t actually witness our erstwhile tormentors broken and shamed upon realising the gravity of their mistake, then we must, of course, imagine it.
“Smugness is a fragile pedestal. One wrong word, and we are all too ready to push.”
~The Smug
Love: Siblings, sex and gossip
And in Love? Yes, schadenfreude slinks into our relationships too.
It is hard to point to the precise moment that competitiveness awakens. One moment you are enjoying a perfectly convival conversation with a sibling; the next moment some piece of news has triggered a bristling feeling and an urge to outdo, or else left you with a roiling, lurching feeling that you are being left behind. No wonder that in these moments we are so happy to take any news of a failure as a win, and breathe a sigh of relief. Such feelings, however, are not necessarily the result of having parents who have compared and contrasted us. They are amplified because we live in a world where it is inevitable that we measure ourselves against the next person, and where sometimes, our only chance of seeing ourselves as successful is if the competition has lost.
Human? Definitely. Petty? Perhaps. Real? Always.
It comes down to this: how do we measure our own worth? There are many studies which suggest that we are happiest when we are surrounded by people who have slightly less than us. When pyschologists asked in one study, ‘Would you prefer it if other people’s children were less or more good-looking than your children?’, most said they would be happier in a world where everyone else’s children were less good-looking than their own. ‘Even if your child is ‘ugly’?’ ‘Yes’, they replied.
Endless attempts to compare accomplishments or money or status may seem distasteful, yet the truth remains. That living in small, interdependent groups inevitably also brings with it jockeying for power and competing over resources.
Clearly, we are capable of engaging with other people’s bad news in many different and complex ways. But the fact that, we sometimes benefit from hearing about other people’s crises is not a secret. In fact from time to time, we even comply, willingly offering up our own miseries in an attempt to help strangers feel better about theirs.
Envy: Friends, Celebrities and Z-listers
Watt Smith even acknowledges how this plays out in our advice-giving; that faint thrill when someone ignores your warning and, predictably, it goes south. It’s not that you want them to hurt. You just want to be… right.
Does gloating over someone else’s failures ever change anything at all?
Envy amplifies other people’s successes, and makes our own seem paler by comparison. We have all been there. A flicker of Schadenfreude can neutralize the envy, catching it before it turns into hostility and spite. And there is one area where we need its compensations most of all: in our conflicted, profoundly masochistic relationship to celebrities and celebrity culture. One the one hand, we love a rags to riches tale. On the other, we hate them for how much we idolise and admire them, and wait eagerly in the wings for those moments when their entitlement to the high status they enjoy is tested—and if they fail, the more spectacularly the better for the Schadenfreude brewing in us.
Mutiny: Employees, bosses and rebels
By the time you reach Mutiny, you start seeing how collective schadenfreude; say, entire groups relishing the fall of a CEO; can feel like rebellion. A kind of revolution by ridicule. It’s the slow clap when toxic leadership finally implodes, the meme storm that follows public layoffs, the viral Slack messages when a tyrannical exec “steps down to pursue other interests.”
“Laughter is often the only weapon the powerless have.”
~Mutiny
The book doesn't shy away from the politics of it all. In Africa especially; where power is often concentrated, unquestioned, and generational; the laughter when the powerful trip is not just funny. It's necessary. It’s survival. Watt Smith hints at this global dynamic subtly, but the resonance for African readers is unmistakable.
Power: Politics, tribes, mockery
In Power, it’s all about toppling. From schoolteachers to presidents, we enjoy moments when power is shown to have cracks; because it reminds us it’s not permanent. It reaffirms that those who rule are not immune from the forces they command. And that, sometimes, Twitter has better memory than justice systems. Satire has played its role in democratic debate for at least two thousand years. Under many regimes, political jokes are particularly important, smuggling criticism and keeping opposition alive. Power becomes laughable the moment it stops looking invincible.
“Sociologists have studied allegiances to ‘in’ and ‘out’ groups for over half a century. One of their important—and quite terrifying— insights is that it is possible to feel very strong group affiliations even when the group has been hurriedly assembled based on something as inconsequential as a coin flip or the color of someone’s T-shirt. This finding, known as the ‘minimal group paradigm’ shows that we need not share any values or opinions at all to form a group and defend it vigorously—but that these may well align later'“ ~Power
The power of Schadenfreude has long been known by feminist campaigners—which is satisfying, since Schadenfreude has historically been judged a peculiarly female moral failing. The dominant culture has ALWAYS ridiculed the suffragettes, who have by and by learned to sneak strategy where it counts. These moments of glorious anarchy inevitably but momentarily upset the usual power relations, and create a sense of ‘possible camaraderie’. As George Orwell said. “Every joke, is a tiny revolution.”
An Afterword on the Rules of Engagement
I loved reading this book because it challenged my humor-radar(Which is quite on the dark side for such a sweet person as moi I might add). Thoroughly. In her Afterword, Watt Smith offers a brief etiquette manual. When is schadenfreude harmless, and when does it tip into cruelty? The takeaway: it’s okay to laugh; just not too loud, and never while pointing.
She reminds us that schadenfreude, when kept in check, is a way of coping with inequality, pressure, and impossible standards. But when weaponized, especially online, it morphs into shame and cyber bullying. A well-placed laugh can liberate; a relentless one can destroy. It’s a lesson for our times: be honest about your laughter, but never forget who it lands on. Some basic principles in your new found relationship with Schadenfreude;
Schadenfreude helps.
Schadenfreude won’t define you.
Schadenfreude tells you things you don’t want to know.
Own up to your schadenfreude(Sometimes)
Schadenfreude goes both ways.
A Catalogue of Our Guilty Pleasures
The book ends with An Index of Schadenfreude, a satirical but strangely accurate taxonomy to answer the burning question of whether something/a situation can be dubbed a case of Schadenfreude. A select catalogue of its variations, causes and consequences. It’s an anthropologist’s field guide to twenty-first century glee(even includes a curious case of Reversed Schadenfreude
“Every age has its own favourite forms of failure.”
This section is both hilarious and haunting as I went through it. A neat reminder that as much as schadenfreude evolves, it also reveals. What we laugh at says more about us than we think.
I cheekily dare you to reflect on your inner algorithms: do you laugh at the elite, the entitled, or the unlucky? And why?
Why Read It as a Bookish in Africa enthusiast?
Schadenfreude might be a flaw, again, granted. But I think you will agree after reading the above, that we need it. It is probably not too much to call it a salvation. In an era where comparison is constant and public failure is a digital sport(especially in Kenya where I find the whole narrative RIDICULOUSLY teetering on borderline madness), Watt Smith offers us a balm. Not to shame us, but to remind us that schadenfreude is part of being human; and that it can, surprisingly, bring us closer together. In a continent rich with communal narratives, this book(MY BIG TAKEAWAY) nudges us to examine not just how we succeed, but how we delight in others’ failure; and what that says about us.
If you’re going to laugh, let it be knowingly. If you’re going to fall, hope it’s not viral.
Something I found on the internet on the history of human emotions by Tiffany for extra banter on this most peculiar and most satisfying of existential topics. Enjoy!
Thanks for reading! See you at the next book review!
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