Schadenfreude — pleasure at others' misfortune — follows predictable political patterns online. It concentrates in moralized and political contexts. It is higher among right-leaning audiences. It is more pronounced in India than in the United States or United Kingdom.
But the relationship to power is asymmetric. Left-leaning outlets show increased schadenfreude when their party holds power. Right-leaning outlets intensify it when out of power.
Aldahoul et al. analyze nearly one million Facebook comments across nine major news publishers, three countries, ten years. The pattern is consistent: the direction of schadenfreude depends not just on ideology but on the interaction between ideology and power position.
The asymmetry resists simple explanations. If schadenfreude were purely tribal — enjoy the outgroup's pain — both sides would show it more when the outgroup suffers, which would be when the outgroup is in power and vulnerable. The left's pattern tracks this: schadenfreude increases when they have power (and their opponents are losing). The right's pattern inverts it: schadenfreude increases when they lack power (and their opponents are winning but still experiencing misfortune).
One interpretation: left schadenfreude is victory-adjacent (enjoying the outgroup's losses from a position of strength), while right schadenfreude is opposition-adjacent (enjoying the ingroup's relative moral position from a position of weakness). Same emotion, different structural relationship to the power hierarchy. The variable that determines when schadenfreude peaks is not who is suffering but where the observer stands relative to power.