The line between comedy and tragedy is paper-thin. One might argue it only exists in the eye of the beholder and, like a prism held to the light, depending on the time and place and angle with which you look at something, you may see comedy or tragedy. The anti-vaxxer movement and its intrinsic conspiracies are something that can be looked at both ways. The tragedy is in the sickness, death, and mental gymnastics COVID-19 and vaccine deniers endure instead of demanding better medical infrastructure and economic security from their elected officials.
An example of the anti-science tragedy that many of us deal with comically (for our own sanity and well-being) was the fad of anti-vaxxers sticking keys and metal utensils on their bodies and claiming their blood had been magnetized by the Fauci-ouchie. A more recent fad over the past couple of years has involved anti-vaxxers going on social media accounts and claiming that since receiving one or more doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, they or a loved one have been experiencing a very traumatizing side effect of uncontrollable shaking. Also referred to as “spasms,” it is possibly the only side effect that hasn’t actually been seen in any study. The videos declaring this side effect are strange. Whether or not the person in the video is truly experiencing some kind of physical issue is hard to verify, but what is verifiable is that whatever they are going through, it does not have to do with COVID-19 vaccinations—at least not physiologically.
Many of these posts begin with some preamble like “Thanks Pfizer,” or “After the COVID vax...” and then a video. There has been an increase in responses to these videos, probably because post-Elon Musk Twitter has allowed an avalanche of COVID-19 misinformation accounts back onto the platform. The responses make fun of these anti-vaxxer videos because at a certain point, it is too difficult to refrain.
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