Just Laugh It Off: Humor, VET TV, and the Possibilities of Resilience

Humor has potential for assisting trauma survivors and their resilience. Vet TV is an online comedy network creating humor to help veterans recover from their psychological wounds, connect with other veterans, and create resilience to prevent suicide. In this paper I explore the connections between humor and resilience after trauma and how Vet TV argues its comedy helps veterans. By focusing on the communicative functions of humor we can better understand the potentials and pitfalls of humor when used by veterans for the purpose of creating community and the possibility of resilience.