An attempt in history of emotions, this paper offers a new explanation for the emergence of modern Persian satire in Iran. A frequently noted aspect of the Persian "constitutional literature" is an unprecedented proliferation of nationally self-conscious, sociopolitical satire, dissimilar to any classical Persian humor. Scholars often explain this phenomenon as one of Iranians' many "new beginnings" in their move towards tajaddud (modernity) during the late 19th-century; however, it remains unclear as to why and how such extraordinary welcoming of sociopolitical satire by Iranians occurred. To answer these questions, I turn to the formative role of self-conscious affects in the 19th-cenruty Iran. Extant historiographical accounts of Iranian modernity hint the existence of something akin to an "emotional regime" in the mid- and late 19th-century intellectual milieu of Iran, caused by many modernist thinkers' "self-colonizing" attitudes towards farangestan (the West), which they perceived as Iran's most significant Other. Accordingly, such thinkers vigorously disseminated frustrated feelings of embarrassment, humiliation, and shame towards Iran and Iranians. Focusing on two influential modernist thinkers, Mirza Fath-Ali Akhundzadeh (1812-1878) and Mirza Malkam Khan (1833-1908), I will show how they were preoccupied with ridiculing laughter within the said affective framework, viewing derision as a necessary, self-disciplinary tool to provoke social and intellectual reforms. While the Tbilisi-based Akhundzadeh encouraged and oversaw the Persian translation of his comedies (1871) and produced a satire manifesto of sorts during his writing career, Malkam Khan's work reveals his constant anxiety over Iranians' being asbab-e tamaskhor-e ghuraba, i.e., the object of foreigners' ridicule, a fear manifested also in his own frequent, sardonic criticisms of Iranians, not least in his influential, London-based, Persian periodical, Qanun (Law, 1890). Unsurprisingly, Malkam Khan was for long also mistakenly credited for the first Persian comedies, where had been written by Mirza Aqa Tabrizi (1871; first published in 1908) under the influence of Akhundzadeh.