While the dawn of social media has brought opportunities for crisis managers, its affordances have also made way for a unique type of crisis (paracrisis). Although categorized as a crisis threat, a paracrisis has the potential to spiral into a crisis and harm the reputation of the organization if not addressed with an appropriate response strategy This study examines the effectiveness of using humor to address negative publicity during a paracrisis, focusing on a case study of three X posts and 140 replies on Ryanair's X’s page. The purpose was to understand how and when humor can be applied as a response strategy to mitigate the impact of negative publicity in a paracrisis. Through content analysis of Ryanair's humorous tweets and subsequent audience reactions governed by the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) framework, the study found that humor can be an appropriate and effective tool in paracrisis communication. However, the success of this strategy is significantly influenced by the severity of the crisis, the nature of the crisis, and the audience’s pre-existing perceptions of the organization’s reputation. Further research is recommended to expand to other social media platforms and evaluate the appreciation of humor across different cultures to better understand how to apply the humorous response strategy.