Introduction

In this clinical research article, we interpret the narratives of adolescents who allowed us to inquire into their singular ways of becoming subjects in group contexts. In particular, we discuss how youth fuse humor, laughter, and a cynical attitude on their nicknames to build a sense of being new subjects who are named according to their wishes. To begin with, we offer context on the verbal exchanges between adolescents (par-ceros)1 taking place in two Latin-American urban cities: Cali (Colombia) and Mar del Plata (Argentina).

Cali and Mar del Plata are cities important for tourism. Both hold international art and music festivals throughout the year. A large musical festival takes place in Cali during December, and a major movie event takes place during November at Mar del Plata. These cities are densely populated (approximately 10,000 and 7465 people per square mile in Cali and Mar del Plata, respectively). Tourism is a major income source for people in both cities, which are characterized by high levels of income inequality.

In the cities where this research was conducted, par-ceros are often persecuted by the police force due to their ways of inhabiting public spaces (Bolaños, 2011). The salience of conflict between youth and the police force has even been the object of artistic creation. A popular Argentinian singer wrote in 1972, when the country was still under political dictatorship, that “students run past, as they are chased by the guards” (Piero, 2017). In Colombia, and particularly in Cali, social protests have been strongly repressed by the police, reflecting the psychosomatic action of police violence (Guerra et al., 2021). A United Nations Human Rights report, finding that most of the 63 deaths that occurred during the massive mobilizations that began in April were at the hands of the public forces, was explicit: "The authorities would have to reform their way of managing the protests." (Noticias ONU, 2021).

Despite the exclusionary practices to which low-income youth in these cities are subjected, some take part in hip-hop culture, including some of the adolescents participating in our research. These adolescents use the southern summer (December through March) to demonstrate their skating, graffiti, and rap skills in scenarios largely attended by tourists. Par-ceros gather to perform in some of the cities’ streets, railroads, and parks. In Mar del Plata, particularly, they also gather around the beach. In Cali, they frequently meet at public transportation stations. Non-governmental organizations contacted youth leaders with our research team and asked for their consent to participate in a group meeting when we (authors) explained the research goals and process. We conducted fieldwork from 2014 to 2016, visiting gathering places in both cities. During this time, we first observed the interactions of 37 par-ceros (20 in Cali and 17 in Mar del Plata), specifically focusing on their colloquial language. Ten par-ceros (five in each city) consented to participate in two interviews. Although several participants used humor and cynicism in their chains of signifiers, two of them used this resource repeatedly. In this work, we focus on observations and interviews with Tirador and Three to illustrate our analysis.

Theoretical Approach

In psychoanalysis, the concept of the proper name refers to an impossible: the notion of a subject whose identity can be represented as “a closed and complete sign” (Zelis, 2012, p. 777). This gives rise to the concept of identification, which is the basis of the theory of the subject (Vappereau & Giannotti, 2012) and subjectivity. Given that subjects undergo a continuous adaptation–disadaptation process, concepts such as individual and individuality—both defined as “an integrated unit” (Gallo & Ramírez, 2012, p. 355)—are also considered impossible. The notion of a subject, defined by Lacan based on its premise of submission to the laws of language, highlights the importance of naming in building an identification (Lacan, 2009). Thus, as for the identity and individual terms, psychoanalytic theory explains how the concepts of identification and subject are transformed through “symbolic variations of meaning” (Gallo & Ramírez, 2012, p. 355).

Nicknames and proper names share a symbolic function linked to adolescents’ identity but are distinct regarding whose wishes each nomination represents. In other words, the use/disuse of the proper name is not the bland action of representing a role or masking itself. Although the proper name can be considered something covering up a subject, the resultant question is what does it cover up? The subjects’ wishes are covered up while allowing them to hide or sublimate their parents’ desires when naming them. Naming is sublimating. This is both applicable to the adults who assign or “bestow” children with (the) name, as it is to the adolescents who, as they play in their symbolic universe, self-assign nicknames.

Thus, a name establishes a meaningful relationship of the signifier, which in turn works as a “recursive object” (Zaiczik, 2004, p. 14) that conveys information about the incomplete whole known as the subject. As Lacan (2009) described, the proper name is a representation that other signifiers make of the subject in question. In sum, as the proper name is uttered, it works as a subject operator by giving it a meaning for the others.

However, the proper name undoubtedly brings existential voids, gaps, spaces that deepen the incomplete subject condition: a lacking subject. The lack can operate in different ways. For example, in this research, Octavio, a participant, mentioned his two older sisters did not acknowledge him since they did not support their mother. The two sisters did not provide support, economic or emotional sustenance to the mother, while he, being the last, the third child, did, hence the claim of that number 3 as his nickname, his artistic signifier. In turn, his reality of being “unacknowledged” is symbolically expressed in his nickname “3” (Three). Moreover, he expresses an existential emptiness that both his proper name and nickname help him process:

Three is a person different from Octavio. Octavio is more … he has been educated in another way. Maybe a more submissive way, calm, a way that is a better fit to society. However, Three tries to express everything that he really rejects and dislikes about society … (Bolaños & Pereira, 2019, p. 57)

Lacking is crucial in structuring a subjectivity. Relatedly, the existence of a name plays an essential role in the constitution of such subjectivity, since the subject uses its name as an identity operator. The name, as an operator, relates to the relation subject/signifier, which makes it possible to note the relevance of the name’s subjective function.

The subject’s proper name is a defining signifier. In other words, the proper name becomes an important element of someone’s subjectivity. Through its demonstrative character, a name describes unique features of subjects and specific qualities of things. In turn, the proper name singularizes a subject by conveying its uniqueness. The distinctive aspects of things and unique features of subjects denoted by the proper name turn out to be the special characteristics that anchor identification processes.

Nonetheless, although the proper name is related to a subject’s identification, it does not entail their whole identification. That is to say, choosing a name for someone carries a meaning, a desire, a joy, and enigma that escapes from its holder, being the subject marked by a void, the void of what is not owned. Thus, the proper name is not so much owned by its holder and, instead, undergoes an appropriation process that does not always convey identification. However, thanks to the subject’s appropriation of their name, others assign to it an identificatory function, and after repetition, it ends up accomplishing that function.

Appropriating and using a name requires an elaboration process for the subject. Throughout that process, subjects differentiate their meanings from the meanings of others and detach their subjective position from their name, even when responding to it (Rivadero, 2011). This complex process, initiated by the subject who now owns a self-assigned name, requires the decision of “getting rid” of the name given by others. Additionally, self-assigning a new name needs to be understood based on the discourse, meaning, and singularity of those who un-name themselves.

As we have included the concept of meaning in this text, it is worth explaining the origin of the notion of a “name’s meaning.” First, we should state that the name is set in the unconscious mind according to what Lacan described as real, symbolic, and imaginary registers in Book XXII of the Seminar (1974–1975). Based on Miller’s conceptualization of “the Names-of-the-Father” (Miller in Lacan, 2005, p. 7), the father’s name is put forth as the signifier for the lack in the Other, thanks to a fundamental affirmation (Bejahung) that is key in the mother’s desire regarding the child. The given name constitutes a linguistic imprint for a child, attached to their body before birth (Costa Neves & Vorcaro, 2011). Zaiczik explains this process as follows: an imprint “applied to the object, overlapping their oneness” (2004, p. 9). Such overlapping occurs when the holder of a given name responds to someone who is calling them, thus becoming the object of attention that is transferred from their body to their name.

Regarding the name function in the real, symbolic, and imaginary registers as a starting point, we note that everything the name overlaps or imprints in the subject is based on the given word, which is “a form of an act” (Lacan, 2005, p. 45). Thus, naming is a symbolic action that transforms the subject into an object, almost tangible, even when absent. This is understood as the act of naming or giving a name. The proper name, as a given word and as a concept, preserves the subject’s image over time. Thus, the name is placed within the universal and immortal symbolic space, which, as Miller suggests, perpetuates the subject as an entity different from the body. Eventually, the name and its function articulate the real and the symbolic: “at some point, the name will stand alone, and nobody will respond to the invocation” (Miller, 1997, p. 92).

A crucial element is the name’s meaning. It is worth highlighting that the meaning is registered as part of the subject’s imaginary, and in the case of a proper name, it becomes “a valid naming, tying the imaginary to the remaining registers” (Rivadero, 2011). Thus, meaning and support are crucial for the name. According to Lacan (1974–1975), the meaning responds to something that is differentiated from the symbolic register, and as support, it is placed in the imaginary to be interpreted or “read between the lines” (intelligere). Regarding the name, intelligere would account for what a subject’s name and its appropriation represent for the subject who carries it, rather than the sign (the name’s etymology or history). Therefore, the proper name exceeds the social identity condition and acquires a function as a subject’s longstanding representation.

As a subject’s longstanding representation, the name conveys the parents’ desires (as those who give the name to someone) and requires the subject to become part of a culture. In turn, with this action, the person(s) who grant a name have included a subject in the language. The subject, then, makes that language one of their own and uses it to interpret the world surrounding them. So, the name represents a subject’s signifier (of Others’ desires) and acquires an effect of jouissance—enjoyment (Ramírez, 2018). This is yet another articulating “inter-game” between the symbolic and the imaginary registers. This “inter-game” functions as follows: when a name is given to the subject, they receive “the key” to access a new language-governed symbolic universe, and when entering it, the subject uses their name to present themselves to others and play the game of social relationships.

The name and its function in the registers (RSI) lead to the presence of the corresponding dimensions: real, symbolic, and imaginary. The real dimension explains the relationship with the Other who is named. As for the imaginary dimension, it entails the meaning that the subject has given to the name according to its historical condition and depending on the name itself. Regarding the symbolic register, both the name and its function move toward the wish to be named by the Other. As exemplified by 3 (Three), he references his name (Octavio) to explain how he (Octavio) has been “educated in a submissive way that fits with society” while Three disrupts such submissive characteristics. Therefore, Octavio wishes to be named Three when he performs, subverting the meaning attached to his given name.

The aforementioned inter-games take place among dimensions, articulating each register and highlighting that a proper name and its function will only exist if the subject has conferred it with meaning. In other words, it is only possible for us to find the name’s true existence in the imaginary register, which, in the naming act, in turn, allows for the subject’s existence in a language and with a language.

Nicknames as an Alternative to Constituting Subjectivity Among Adolescents in Urban Areas

The act of substituting names positions the subject in a dual identification. In other words, it provides the subject with two latent nominations: the proper name and the substitute. These latent nominations may work as the signifier’s kernel of the unconscious (Lacan, 1961–1962). In other words, both the name and nickname share an important function in our participants’ subjectivity. Specifically, the linguistic imprint of the proper name is partially displaced by the nickname’s linguistic imprint. Importantly, the nickname does not erase the subject’s first linguistic imprint, as it does not erase the subject’s history.

Introductions are not indifferent, because, as Lacan himself pointed out: “All sorts of things can lie behind this kind of dissimulation or effacing that would be in the name, concerning the relation that it may bring into play with another subject” (Lacan, 1961–1962, p. 48, our translation). We understand that the name used by the subject to show the other their desire to be named, besides introducing themselves, serves as the basis for identification, self-recognition, and recognition of the Other who names them (or at least by whom they wish to be named, moreover, if the subject is an adolescent). To that effect, replacing a name with a nickname is a phenomenon worth further analyzing, given the implications entailed for the constitution of subjectivity.

During the interviews we conducted for this research, some par-ceros spontaneously mentioned their nicknames or the names by which they are known when asked to introduce themselves and share their experience. They mentioned nicknames, saying, for example, “I am Shooter (Tirador),” or “my name is Virus”; “they call me Quak,” “I am the Secret,” “my name is Toscó”. Names are displaced, and potential masks are built from the imaginary, in line with the process explained in Lacan’s seminar on identification (Book IX). In this text, Lacan highlights that analysts should pay attention to the name patients are called, how they say their names, and the logics of their introduction, as this is “never indifferent” (1961–1962, p. 48).

The first and second nominations (name and nickname) are supported by actions carried out by the imaginary register (which supports and guides vital experiences) and are also mediated by the subject’s desire of changing and possessing. We may say there is an advantage to the nickname when compared with the name, and such advantage lies in the pleasure (benefit) that a subject derives from being called as they wish instead of how they have been called before. It would be difficult to analyze name substitutions among adolescents without regard for the benefit they derive from it, an action that needs to be analyzed from a psychic economy perspective. We would therefore assert that a nickname provides a mark “of its own” to a significant world that is imprinted with the first name assignment, but that is now invested with a pleasure that was not present during the first naming.

There were also times wherein jokes, taunts, and pranks emerged across the par-cero interventions. One of the triggers involved mentioning nicknames (of their own or others’), often followed by laughter, expressions, and verbosity—sometimes having little to do with the situation and even bordering on disrespect toward the other participants. These attitudes may be assumed as humorous and cynical. Our interpretation of how their nicknames were associated with that humorous and cynical attitude is further illustrated by an Argentine par-cero (Tirador), and we discuss how such attitude intervenes in the constitution of Tirador as an adolescent subject (Alberti, 2009).

Through the analysis of the name displacement, it was possible to detect four possible meanings:

  1. 1.

    Renovation/strengthening of the proper name as signifier;

  2. 2.

    Avoiding distress caused by the lack taking place during naming;

  3. 3.

    Removal of symbols and desire to be named differently;

  4. 4.

    Connection/repression of the proper name’s meaning. (Bolaños, 2017, p. 145)

All these possible meanings may be understood as negation, perhaps contempt, regarding the proper name. By the effect of such negation, other signifiers built throughout the first years of life are also compromised. If the said action involves laughter, suggests mockery, as if the adolescent now considers everything related to the name to be embarrassing, we may say it results in pleasure representing cynicism, that, in turn, constitutes a complex signifier Law established in and by the name’s unary trace.

The four highlighted elements (contempt, embarrassment, pleasure, and law) are the pillars of the cynical attitude in its origins. Contempt for unnecessary material things; the embarrassment of social practices; the challenged Law; and the recognition of pleasure in the simplest things (Bolaños, 2017). We do not equate these forms of laugh and humor to the origins of cynicism in Ancient Greece, but we note there is a potential to destabilize the status quo conveyed by the symbolic power of names (Brancaleoni & Kuperman, 2021).

We note that cynicism in the language used by par-ceros (laughing as nicknames are uttered) may be similar to the action of laughing at appearances, unmasking, or confronting established powers. The question remains of what specific power is being taunted. We think this has nothing to do with notable political, religious, or economic powers but with that applied to them as named subjects. Again, we refer to the origins of cynicism when laughing was a privileged action used by Diogenes and his alumni to destabilize the mainstream values in Greece.2

Nicknames and Laughter: Intersubjective Repercussions in Adolescents

We posit that the simultaneous appearance of laughter and the nickname’s utterance suggests there is subversive power in nicknaming. Adolescents’ laughter when mentioning their nickname can be understood in the context of its social meaning (Critchley, 2002). Perhaps, that meaning is to break out (or move off from) countless signifiers bestowed upon them along with their names, which are also strongly linked to their family ties of those moments. In sum, using or assigning a nickname may have an impact on adolescents’ social connections. If the action of using or assigning a nickname is linked to a humorous attitude, it becomes a cultural resource that can be extended to a variety of contexts above and beyond those where the nickname originated (Birman, 2010); humor’s impact on culture can be such that it “promotes ruptures in social imaginary” (Birman, 2010. p. 179), including social imaginaries about established hierarchies.

Freud classified negation as a symbol: “Thinking frees itself from the restrictions of repression and enriches itself with material that is indispensable for its proper functioning” (1992, p 254 our translation). We build on that notion to interpret the name and nickname assignment as “a sort of secondary invention granted by the need of using something that is situated at different levels” (Lacan, 1961–1962, p. 61). According to Lacan, these levels of need can be identified as first “response,” second “the relation’s imprint,” third “disjunction,” and fourth “emotional symbol.” We consider that some adolescents use nicknames to break away from the initial imprint of the given name.

We observed that to free thought from repression (Freud) and for a secondary invention (Lacan), negation is considered a creative act as seen in most nicknames. This creative act covers an emotional manifestation, which, in some cases, may be based on the disgust with a subject’s name. Disgust is evidenced by laughter and taunting (i.e., displaying a cynical attitude towards the given name); moreover, “laughter arises if a quota of psychical energy which has earlier been used for the cathexis of a particular psychical path that has become unusable, so that it can find free discharge” (Freud, 1905/1992a, p. 140).

Regarding nicknames as a channel for the potential discharge of tensions among par-ceros, Freud’s theory opens the path toward the association between laughter and jokes. In particular, “(the) ability to find similarities between dissimilar things, that is, hidden similarities” (1905/1992a, p. 13), confirms that laughter is directly related to the unconscious subject that surpasses the explanation of laughter being a mere mechanical–physiological response.

Laughter after a nickname is uttered—along with the jokes associated with such nicknames—is filled with the latent content that gives rise to it. Such content can be found in perception as pointed out by Hobbes in Leviathan (1651/2003), who considers it a possibility for revealing perception of a given deformed thing.3 A name distortion can be a joke itself and position the par-cero as superior (since they are now in a position to name or assign a nickname to others), and one who owns and performs a newly found power. As we illustrate in a subsequent paragraph based on Tiradors verbal interactions, he anticipates an instance of police oppression towards him that results in verbal aggression, similarly as he does when sentencing teachers as “oppressed laborers without freedom.”

As Brancaleoni and Kupermann (2021) showed in their research with participants who identified as transexual or transvestite, humor and jokes are commonly used resources to delegitimize heterosexual assumptions and impositions. We posit the same resource takes place in these adolescents’ interactions, considering that jokes and comedy are the features that made the par-ceros laugh after mentioning their nicknames. So, it makes us wonder was the change in their names a joke for them, or did they think the new names were hilarious? What is the source of joy for their laughter? These two questions, following Kupermann’s (2020) concepts, led us to delve into the adolescents’ narratives. We found that imagining other generations under unusual, ridiculous, embarrassing, decontextualized situations, or showing mastery of uncommon skills according to their age, was maybe one of these sources of joy. As Critchley (2002) remarks, a person who would give the impression of someone who makes them laugh—perhaps as a scapegoat, a ridiculous individual—may be triggered by stimuli as diverse as a joke or a ridiculous situation, as Baldiz proposes (2004). The joke, however, would regularly be about the strange, the foreigner, the one different from the group, who as a result of their situation does not know how to position themself.

This was proven by Tirador when he explained that “In a Speed commercial, an old lady was playing “online” with her friend and she comes up and says: `wait in the back there's a snapper…'” (Laughter) “then, suachh, it rang in my head there: I went and cut. Tirador ” (Laughter).4

In the situation described by Tirador, we interpret the change of name itself as a hostile counter-generational process, so it is possible to assert that evoking the origin of his nickname serves a hostile purpose: it “serves the purpose of aggressiveness, satire, or defense” (Freud, 1905/1992a, p. 91), and simultaneously alludes to his uniqueness based on the subjective condition of the joke, which, we know, is not the same for everyone.

When laughter arose after a nickname was mentioned while talking in our presence, we supposed that there was a humorous trend whereby the par-ceros attempted to include us as third parties in their confrontation against their symbolic referents. During the research process, adolescents indirectly searched for our validation of their confrontation impulse. The search for validation is consistent with Freud’s (1905/1992a, p. 97) explanation of the “enjoyment of overcoming the enemy, by making him small, inferior, despicable,” as we can observe in the particular case of Tirador. After choosing his nickname, he talks down, laughs at, and offends others—especially adults. We note, however, that he can also hold affection towards the elderly woman he referred to (as it is culturally common in Argentina to express affection using jokes).

Tirador introduced himself in the interview by saying “I am … I won’t say my nickname … well, yeah, I will! My name is Tirador,” and then he smiled. He hesitated over saying his nickname at first, but he finally did so. Moreover, he completed his introduction with these remarks: “I don’t paint for others but just for myself … I mean, I say ‘I want to stain a wall’ and I spot wherever I feel I should.” Concerning education, he said: “School is useless; it is good for nothing. I think it molds workers, and I am a dreamer.” He also added: “Teachers are shitty workmen that are not free to do anything in their fucking lives, and end up repressed in their forties, without a clue of what to do with their lives.”

In the same interview, Tirador told us about one of his experiences with the police: “We were just painting, having a blast, and all of a sudden, the cops arrived. It was Sunday … what kind of cop works on Sunday? Only a pain in the ass who never gets laid.” He referred to his clash with the police as follows: “I blabbed about my age … I am 16; you can’t do anything to me, I said” [laughter].

Tirador is an example of the cynical use of nicknames. He insults and prejudges the police by using the slang term (cop) and saying that they “never get laid,” and also criticizes educators. In this way, he stands as a superior being who abides by a more powerful Law. As (an effective) Tirador (shooter), he rebels to vindicate his representation of a hero, challenging the Law (as he paints where he wants) while he holds “a greater” power: being a minor (“I am 16; you can’t do anything to me”) as he laughed.

In Book V of the Seminar, Lacan described laughter as follows:

The question of laughter is far from being resolved. Of course, every single person is happy to make of it an essential characteristic of what happens in wit. However, we interpret an expressive character of laughter, connoting emotional responses to issues that, generally speaking, are extremely troublesome. (Lacan, 1957–1958, p. 114).

Laughter itself, of course, extends far beyond the question of both wit and the comic. It is not unusual to see recalled in laughter something that is, for example, the simple communication of laughter, laughter at laughter, laughter at something that is linked to the fact that you are not supposed to laugh; the laughing fits of children in certain circumstances is also something that would be worthy of attention. There is also the anxious laugh, and even that before an imminent threat, the uneasy laugh of the victim who suddenly finds himself threatened by something that altogether exceeds the limits of what he expected; the laugh of despair. There is even the laugh that can come when you suddenly learn of bereavement. Laughter touches everything that is imitation, duplication, the phenomenon of the double, the mask, and if we look more closely at it, not only the phenomenon of the mask but that of unmasking, and this according to moments that deserve our attention (Lacan, 1957–1958, pp. 115–116).

We highlight the relevance of laughter, even when it comes to just determining which emotion it may respond to; the anxious laugh; the one arising when we are faced with imminent threat, and especially the laughter close to the unmasking phenomenon, for example, when the name’s mask is removed. In these three emotional situations (anxious laugh, threat, and unmasking) we can associate the name replacement with nicknames with the constitution of subjectivity as a par-cero, which deserves further exploration.

We had already said that names carry a void (the ignorance of the Other’s desire) and its appropriation drags this void to the subject’s name. It is a void that causes anguish, and separation from the proper name entails an enigma as well as a challenge. Some of the par-ceros would be sorting out the enigma and challenge of their adolescence with their nicknames, which triggers laughter from the unconscious and reveals a humorous trend that they need to avoid feeling anguished. Paraphrasing Critchley (2002, p. 12), we infer that using humor to assign nicknames is a tool used by our participants to remind themselves about who they rather are, or at least not continue to be who they have been called.

In “Humour”, Freud stated that “the yield of humorous pleasure arises from an economy in expenditure upon feeling” (1927/1992c, p.157). Twenty-two years before that, in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, Freud had identified that “obtaining pleasure based on emotional processes” was the goal or objective of the joke (1905/1992a, p. 90); thus, associating jokes and aesthetics. In other words, Freud linked the pleasure of such yield to the saving tendency and the technique of the joke itself. Humor, then, has a defensive function that is especially relevant with regards to saving psychic energy: “There is no doubt that the essence of humor is that one spares oneself the affect to which the situation would naturally give rise and dismisses the possibility of such expressions of emotion with a jest” (Freud, 1927/1992c, p.41).

We should therefore go back to the reference of laughter after uttering a nickname. For the youth we observed, avoiding mentioning the name triggered their laughter, which resulted in sparing the tension that the said name, along with its corresponding historic signifier, created on them. As Freud stated, if the joke connotation includes laughter, in this case replacing the name, it is because the subject perceives as triumphant their “impressive” act and their narcissism.5 Namely, their ego “insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world” (Freud, 1927/1992c, p. 41). The name displacement thus becomes an option to avoid the impact of puberty and adolescence upon themselves.

When subjects laugh after mentioning their nicknames, as in the case of Tirador, we may think he is adopting his humorous attitude and using the joke to achieve self-satisfaction with the replacement name. This deduction is supported by the several instances when we observed him confronting and challenging the Law, using taunting language (Lacadée, 2006/2011), and condemning regulatory institutions (such as schools and the police force), from which he seems to derive pleasure. Thus, we suppose that, in these two cases, laughing when mentioning his nickname serves as an escape; a tension release supplemented by cynicism as he feels he is perhaps replacing meanings and signifiers that torment him or are no longer satisfying. Tirador set the target to shoot defamatory expressions to police officers, educators, and education, thus ensuring triumph in the pleasure principle through his narrative.

Now, we propose two possible interpretations of whether laughter appears when the nicknames of others are pronounced. A first possibility is that the presence of the wit is driven by making the other an object of mockery, applying a dose of cynicism and sarcasm. A second possibility is an identification with the subject or object of the nickname. In the latter, the presence of a horizontal identification is somehow superimposed on the trait identification acquired with the initial naming. We suspect that there is an interplay of interests in this horizontality: I pronounce your nickname, and I hope you pronounce mine (Bolaños, 2017, p. 150).

This horizontal identification appears surrounded by laughter and jokes that generate enjoyment, enable relaxation, and avoid displeasure by increasing empathy among some members of the crew.6 Thus, the group becomes a setting in which to grapple with social exclusionary processes (Brancaleoni & Kupermann, 2021). Additionally, mentioning the nicknames of others is an effective avoidance and freeing option. Their ego releases tension and protects itself against anguish, with a comic attitude that is visible through the replacement of others’ names while deriving pleasure from this action.

How the Superego Intermediation Contributes to Humor to Avoid Distress

We posit that by replacing their names, the par-ceros do not derive first-hand pleasure but, rather, they avoid the displeasure of their adolescent existence. Then, the par-ceros release tensions (internal, family, or school), which allows pleasure and triggers laughter. According to Freud, this process is framed within a psychic economy through the joke, where humor takes the position of a “contribution made to the comic by intermediation of the Superego.”7 We suspect that par-ceros replace their proper names when they no longer cause them pleasure. The confluence of the ego and the superego operates from the par-ceros’ narcissistic tendency, which is reflected in changing their names. Such confluence can be observed in their actions when they paint, sing, drink, smoke, eat, insult, and joke rejecting their reality, which, in turn, we interpret as their mechanism to avoid distress. Their avoidance is consistent with their puberty and adolescence convulsion, instead of a sign of psychopathology. We agree with Baldiz in affirming that “humor allows humans to deal with what is real and with the nonsense of existence, putting a smile instead of distress and void” (2004, p. 14, our translation). No subject carries more distress and more creative potential than an adolescent. Nicknames express the confluence of their distress and creative experiences.

We can also interpret name replacement as the equivalent of a joke that makes them laugh in the tendentious orientation (hostile and obscene), as proposed by Freud: “The substance of a joke is completely independent of the joke itself, it is only the substance of the thought that expresses, through a special arrangement” (1905/1992a, p. 87). In the case of Tirador, we perceive his statements about educators and police officers as hostile, thus “aiming and shooting” from a covered, protected place—his age minority. Being a child, legally, protects him from the police actions and, building on such sense of protection, he assumes the authority to predict the future of educators from the perspective of someone who does not acknowledge their signifiers— teachers of transmission (Pereira, 2014, p. 1).

Tirador used obscene expressions towards police officers and educators. In particular, he said “they never get laid” about the former and “shitty workers” about the latter. Consistent with Birman’s affirmations (2010), Tirador expressed his despair towards police officers and educators by ridiculing them. Freud highlighted the notion of a dig that allows “the pleasure to see sexuality naked” (1905/1992a, p. 92) to seduce. These linguistic expressions that sprout from Tirador’s libido are not used to seduce others, but rather are used to offend the authorities perceived as obstacles to his painting and his creativity. So, with his offenses, he makes visible the sadistic component of sexual desire, masqueraded as a joke with no repression or censorship whatsoever. Consistent with Kupermann (2021), we observe Tirador’s actions of laughing at adults who represent authority as an example of postmodern humor, which is characterized by cynicism.

In this way, with sarcasm and cynicism, Tirador tries to show the castration of police officers and educators by protecting himself from it, that is, hiding, displacing, or denying his castration. As stated by Birman (2010, p. 178), Tirador forgets his condition as an equal and assumes he possesses something that others do not have. Specifically, he is not an adult who assumes himself as not yet castrated.

We can give a spin to Freud’s statement: “The tendentious joke may be merely verbal in technique. Thus, for example, jokes ‘playing’ on proper names often tend to be insulting and hurtful and belong to the verbal jokes” (1905/1992a, p. 86). The spin we propose consists in saying that playing with and replacing proper names allows the par-cero Tirador to speak from and with his nickname, insulting, using language cynically, joking, and even showing himself as strong and invulnerable. However, we believe that, both for Tirador and for the other par-ceros who are nicknamed, it is not the nicknames themselves that matter but their witty investiture and the possibilities they give them to express themselves from their appropriation, sense, and, probably, from the signifier, given that these nicknames have been self-assigned. To this end, there has been a certain search for meaning and logic in their choice. Although this search may have been initially based on liking the phonetics, the semantic content of the nickname may have oriented the par-ceros and guided their actions.

If, as we suspect, the nickname is framed within a witty attitude, we would continue to affirm that it is “the joint impression of the substance and function of the joke” (Freud 1905/1992a, p. 87) caused by the nickname that generates enjoyment, pleasure, and group identification. With them, the nickname’s affect replaces the function of the name.

Now, let’s move forward to discuss the witty attitude or, simply, the wit. In Book V of his Seminar , The Formations of the Unconscious (1957–1958), Lacan explains the joke as “the best way of entering our subject matter, … [namely] the formations of the unconscious … it is the most brilliant form in which Freud himself shows the relationship of the unconscious to the signifier and to its techniques” (p. 1). If the joke relates the unconscious and the signifier, as affirmed by Lacan, it is logical to affirm that a joke plays an important role in the constitution of a psychoanalytical subject; an unconscious and linguistic subject. Then, witty attitudes, both in social and clinical psychoanalysis, deserve attention, particularly when teenagers and young people are involved. From the preceding, we assume that manifest laughter, after pronouncing the nickname, is provoked by the replacement of the name and it is triggered by something in that replacement: something has worked as the wit.

Finally, as jokes and humor are closely related to the adolescents’ narratives, language, and communication, these can be considered attributes of a linguistic being. According to Lacan (1974–1975), based on what is real, symbolic, and imaginary, we could interpret jokes using the logic of the symbolism and we could interpret humor based on the logic of reality. According to Baldiz (2004), humor can be situated “on the limit between what is real and what is symbolic,” and the wit would fall within “the imaginary elastics of narcissism” (p. 12). It is important to note that the proper name is placed in the register of the imaginary, given that its strength is given by the meaning for the subject. The relationship we find between the name replacement and the laughter when doing so (witty attitude of the par-ceros) integrates the three registers.

Conclusion

Nicknaming impacts the symbolic and real registers of par-ceros subjectivity, as the imaginary supports the action of nicknaming in the same way that supports the proper name and its function. Following the same logic, producing laughter when the nickname is uttered reflects the exteriorization of a cynical attitude that borders humorousness (they find something in the nickname or the process of having nicknamed themselves witty), which is set up in the imaginary dimension and the subjects’ narcissism. Lacan allows us to understand this statement by affirming that “everything shows us that there is in any case a very intense, a very close connection between the phenomena of laughter and the function of the imaginary in man, namely the captivating character of the image” (1957–1958, p. 93). Therefore, we can say that some par-ceros do not escape distress through politics or consumption—they do not fall in with mainstream consumption, as shown in Bolaños and Pereira (2019), or by confronting the established status quo. We find that their strategy to escape the distressful condition of adolescence while establishing themselves as subjects is through humor, mocking among them and towards themselves, laughing at them and others. Their narcissistic attitude is intercepted by sorts of a humorousness in their language, in which nicknames become illustrations of wit and release. As suggested by Kupermann (2021), such release is relative to their communal projects’ failure and the lack of social justice.

The comical adolescent attitude, without any authenticity, constitutes a creative reaction. Critchley (2002) points out the recognition of comedy when youngsters play with the social hierarchies that have dominated them since baptism. Therefore, this playing around diminishes the dominion of the par-ceros’ assigned names. We have analyzed this phenomenon to illustrate an alternative understanding of the constitution of adolescents’ subjectivity, as opposed to “the type of individuality that has been imposed upon us for several centuries” (Foucault, 1986, p. 36, our translation).

Endnotes

  1. 1.

    Written as a single word, the term “parcero” means partner, colleague, friend, and even brother. Its use has become widespread in Colombia and especially in the urban area of Antioquia and the Colombian coffee region. It was popular in the 1980s when soap operas and comedies of manners started portraying the city life of youngsters going through violence, crime, and hallucinogen use. In other words, it is different from its use in Brazil. In this article, the term is written as hyphenated words; this has epistemological connotations regarding our work, alluding to the uniqueness of subjects from which equality is impossible, despite their similarities. Therefore, subjects are never peers within the processes involving the constitution of subjectivity. There are only units, hence the par-cero or cero par (pair-zero or zero pair) (Bolaños, 2017, p. 103).

  2. 2.

    Safatle expresses it as follows: “One of the most widely used motivations by the renowned critics was laughter as a way of unmasking power figures. Its presence is also evident in the Ancient Greek’s cynic, who, as they radicalized Socratic irony, turned laughter into a core piece of critics” (2008, p. 88, our translation).

  3. 3.

    As Bakhtin (1941/2010) pointed out when referring to the subversive role played by festivities, laughter, and comedy in the Middle Ages.

  4. 4.

    The commercial of the reference was called "Speedy-Grandma Sniper". It is found at the following link of YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY9JleHQXM8

  5. 5.

    Concerning humor, besides its tension-releasing characteristic, Freud (1927/1992c, p. 159) highlights four other features: the magnificent, the pathetic, the rejection of the real demands, and the pleasure principle imposition. With all these, according to Freud, humor can “defend itself from suffering,” thus placing the subject closer to “regressive or reactionary processes.”

  6. 6.

    Crew is a name by which graffiti and rap groups are known.

  7. 7.

    Freud (1927/1992c, p. 162) highlighted that the superego (which has been always been considered rigid, as the inheritor of the parental authority), as it comes together with the ego in the humorous attitude and by humorously contributing to wit, which serves to protect the ego against suffering, “shows no discrepancy with its descendants as a parental figure.”