It has been almost a year full of grief, apprehension and anticipation for the Syrian people, who have been overburdened by the ongoing unrest and economic hardship. Yet, they still have the sense of humor, perhaps to combat stress and let off steam.

Shortly before the outbreak of the turmoil in Syria in mid- March of last year, Syrians were not daring to tell political jokes. And if they did, they did them in whispers.

Well-known for their wittiness and humor, the Syrian people used jokes to mock leaders in other Arab countries that had witnessed the wave of anti-government protests.

At the very beginning of the protests in major Syrian cities, jokes had already showed up, but Syrians always made them away from the snooping ears of security men and in the privacy of their own shops, houses and cafes through fears of reprisals.

However, as the crisis dragged on, fears began to wear off and many Syrians have begun to express their growing dissatisfaction with the status quo that has recharged their sense of humor.

The public expression of humor mirrors the ability of Syrians to appropriate the seriousness of events in a blithe manner. The harder the events turned, the more the jokes seemed to be boosted, breaking down all barriers of fear and a long-standing taboo on sensitive political topics.

Jokes sweep social network sites like Facebook and Twitter, and Syrians also exchange jokes on emails and cell phones, something unthinkable in the past and was punishable as it was "defaming the government."

Syrians are distraught with some Arab TV channels which exaggerate in their coverage of the events in Syria. Some of them look with suspicion to those channels and blame them for deliberately exaggerating the Syrian issue to enflame emotions and speed up the overthrowing of the current administration to implement a "foreign conspiracy".

"Sometimes some Arab TVs exaggerate about what is happening in Syria... and thus telling jokes about them sounds fun," said Hasan Dakak, a medical school student.

The most recent joke, he said, talked about a man who had simply fallen from a minibus: Some Arab TV channels said that Syrian security men threw 33 passengers out of a minibus, 44 of them killed and 15 others wounded, while the Syrian media said that a half man fell from the bus and turned into two quarters.