Schadenfreude

This is one of the greatest words in the English language! Well German, actually, but we stole it and all’s fair in love, war, and language. We even appropriated one of the roots, but I’ll get to that later.

I’ve been looking for such a word, without even knowing it, since Burt Reynolds said something I’d never heard anyone admit: he took more pleasure in the failure of films starring other actors, than in the success of his own films.

Juvenile! Hateful! Yet I knew he was saying something 99% of humans feel at some point in their lives.

Schadenfreude is a pejorative term meaning to derive pleasure from the misfortune of another. I recommend Google, and ask for an audio pronunciation.

I’m practically a saint this late in my life because I can’t remember feeling schadenfreude, but I must have. Every REAL Yankee and Red Sox fan certainly has. Even when the Red Sox couldn’t possibly get out of the MLB American League East cellar, I probably wished them ill. And from my misguided Red-Sox-fan friends, I’m confident they felt equal antipathy in reverse. I’m grown up now but my 40-year friend Anne still wallows in anti-Yankee schadenfreude. She’s Catholic and I love her a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck, so I pray for her soul.

If your preferred team is in a heated, standings battle with an opponent, I wouldn’t label your feeling schadenfreude because that kind of wrath is almost virtuous. Notice above, I mentioned the Red Sox had to be in the standings-basement before hate became a character flaw. Germans may quibble with my qualifying the definition but I’m talking about a word that’s been hijacked by us Yanks [See what I did there?!] fair and square. Once it became ours, we can do with it as we like.

You may be thinking if that word’s so great, why haven’t you heard it. But YOU HAVE! Maybe. Especially if you’re young or hip or study the Urban Dictionary.

Ever heard of someone THROWING SHADE? Does shade look a bit like shade-nfreude??? They don’t mean exactly the same thing — “shade” as a standalone means to criticize or do harm without necessarily taking pleasure in the attack — but how often do you disparage without being a tad delighted?

My very very very good friend despises the opponents of his (and my) fav football team and calls them mean names, even when his own team isn’t contending for anything reputable. That wouldn’t be so bad if he did it once and let it go but if he mentions an opponent a thousand times, he’ll call them the same name a thousand times. At some point it becomes childish as he dissipates his rage in schadenfreude. Do I, now that I’m almost a saint, want him to stop? Yes, but if you really like a guy you accommodate some arrested development.

As a new weapon in my literary arsenal, I’m afraid I’ll overuse the word so I’m gonna try to not do that, but if I do, feel free to comment in a nice way. Most comments are so negative, it’s a dead giveaway the author needs his/her daily fix of schadenfreude.

Which is what a preponderance of Internet Commenting is about.

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