Just my two cents as a younger millennial - a lot of us are pretty bad at communication, and pretty much all of us seem to be bad at dealing with uncomfortable situations seriously. So, in my experience, we generally deal with those situations using off color humor (typically dark humor, like the “lol” above). Dkmoo’s explanation was pretty much spot on.
Anyway, more on topic, my condolences on the nem. As stated, lesson learned. Install the nem guard, move on, and keep learning (hopefully through less unpleasant means in the future). Happy reefing!