Of schadenfreude, humor, and sympathy : emotional reactions to fail clips and their relation to digital empowerment

Fail videos—clips showing accidental mishaps—are a popular online genre, yet evoke ambivalent emotions. This study examines how schadenfreude, humor, and sympathy relate to perceived deservingness and harm severity in fail clips. In an experiment with 424 participants, schadenfreude was strongest when misfortune followed immoral behavior, while humor remained high across all conditions, even without schadenfreude. Sympathy exhibited an inverse pattern compared to schadenfreude. Findings highlight that humor and schadenfreude are distinct emotional responses with different implications for digital empowerment: schadenfreude as norm reinforcement, humor as a coping strategy. Discussing emotional reactions to digital content – such as schadenfreude, humor, and sympathy – may foster emotional competence in media education.