Covid-19 Humour in Egypt: An Analysis of Al-Daheeh Episodes

Abstract With everyone under lockdown because of the Covid-19 pandemic, a not insubstantial number of people turned to Netflix, TV, and other media channels to cope with the psychologically oppressive measures taken to limit the spread of Covid-19. Ahmed El-Ghandour, who used several episodes of Al Daheeh to explore the Covid-19 pandemic through the use of dark humour, was probably the most famous YouTuber in Egypt at the time. As an MA student in biology at Hong Kong University, El-Ghandour introduces scientific subjects in a humorous way (pop science), partly serious and partly candid. During the pandemic, El Ghandour posted many episodes, three of which will be discussed in depth in this article. The episodes achieved unprecedented success and popularity, as evidenced by the large number of subscribers to his channel during the pandemic, providing fruitful ground for research. The aim of this article is to shed light on the ways humour can have an effect in times of crisis, thus ultimately giving hope to a distressed population. The article adopts an analytical approach focusing on three types of black humour to investigate the three chosen episodes. Humour arguably never fails to educate and instruct in times of crisis. El-Ghandour taps into that potential to the full, thereby bringing hope for survival to a pandemic-stricken Egypt and the Arab world in general.