Say that one of your friends suffers a colossal personal failure - doesn't get tenure, gets fired for lack of basic aptitude, accidentally loses his favorite thing in the world, etc. He's feeling too devastated to even function, and you're the only person around to comfort him. What can you say to him? It's not quite like a stroke of bad luck, so "I'm so sorry that happened" doesn't quite fit. These aren't situations where there are any lessons to be learned, or any amends to be made, so you can't reasonably point him towards such courses of action. There's the option of doing something to take his mind of it, but that's normally a longer-term solution, and you might want something that will work in the moment, something you can say that will make things seem at least a little better (and so perhaps open him up to the option of doing something that will take his mind off it).
One response that naturally surfaces in these sort of situations is to say, "f*** it, man." Superficially, that might sound cheap or shallow, something we'd just say as an impulse when we can't come up with anything that would really help. But I think this natural inclination is really on to something. It might even be the best consolation available.
To see that, contrast it with two other things you might say.
(1) You might say, "Oh, it wasn't all that important. Don't beat yourself up about it." Obviously, this isn't a good move - the sort of situation under consideration just is one where the thing that happened was important, and in a very personal way, so there's no chance that the person will be convinced by a claim to the contrary. Still, there is a good idea behind this sort of response: your friend is devastated because this event seems like a huge deal, so if it stopped seeming like a huge deal, he'd feel better. The reason this response flounders is that it's completely obvious that this was a huge deal, so any statement to the contrary will fall flat. Attempting to give reasons why it's not a huge deal isn't going to fare much better, since the weight of reasons is clear.
(2) Alternatively, you might say, "Hey, you're a great person, and this shouldn't get you down." This is better than the previous idea, but still isn't likely to help. The problem is that what happened is just the sort of thing that would make someone seriously doubt whether he's a great person; it was a failure that reflected on his worth as a person. So this response will flounder in a way similar to the last one - it will strike your friend as obviously false (or in denial of what actually happened), and trying to make an argument for it isn't likely to get far (though it may, if the person has some other sources of self-worth you can point to). Again, though, there's a good idea here: your friend is devastated because his sense of personal worth took a nose-dive, and he'd feel better if that could be boosted.
Summarizing a bit: the two responses considered above gesture towards a good strategy for consolation: to reduce the psychological impact of the failure by making the failure seem less of a big deal or less tied to his personal worth. The problem was that there's no straightforward, rational way to do this.
Now, consider what happens when you curse at someone. On the playground, a bully tells the nerd that he's just a piece of s***. The bully gets a rush out of this, it gives him a sense of power. At the same time, it reduces the nerd even further in his eyes (and maybe in the nerd's eyes too). Despite what some nerds have thought, there's no level-headed response to this (e.g. challenging the bully's evidence for his claim). The only way to re-balance the power (at least in the moment) is to respond in kind with some sort of cut-down (literal or figurative).
There are two points here: (1) cursing at something or someone gives you a little bit of a power rush, and demeans the thing (at least in your eyes), and (2) there doesn't need to be any rational (or at least evidential) basis for doing this. But, taken as an invitation for your friend to join in the same attitude, this then shows how saying "f*** it" accomplishes what's was good in the first two responses (making the failure seem lesser, boosting up your friend), without having to worry about the things that made those responses fail. And, unlike nerds, the failure has already done its worst and is past, so it can't respond in kind.
(A related note) A foreign correspondent noted that it would be very odd to say "f*** it, man" and simply stop. The normal follow up is, "let's get drunk." It's also noteworthy that there are some follow-ups that would just seem inappropriate, such as "that's really terrible" or "let's talk about how you're feeling." Now, if the above claims about the effect of "f*** it" are true, then we can explain all this. In saying "f*** it, man," you are implying that it's not worth worrying about what happened, that the thing isn't really of any importance. Given that, if you lingered on the topic, or talked about its badness, that would run afoul of the earlier implication. After all, if something really isn't worth worrying or thinking about, you should move on to something else.
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