That's interesting. I never thought of it like that. Now that I am thinking about it, humor is kind of crazy. Nothing is objectively funny. All depends..

Humor is fairly complex, but it often involves dramatic subversion of expectations.

Sometimes seeing people hurt themselves may just fall into this funny-because-it's-unexpected category. Other times, I think we can relate the way people injure themselves to some dumbass thing we did to get hurt and we're sort of laughing at a memory of our own folly. I think it's less about the injury itself, than the manner in which it occurred.

Most other cases probably do have uglier underlying explanations.

alter_native

Why do we laugh when we see others get hurt?

Humor is fairly complex, but it often involves dramatic subversion of expectations. 

Sometimes seeing people hurt themselves may just fall into this funny-because-it's-unexpected category. Other times, I think we can relate the way people injure themselves to some dumbass thing we did to get hurt and we're sort of laughing at a memory of our own folly. I think it's less about the injury itself, than the manner in which it occurred.

Most other cases probably do have uglier underlying explanations.