But there is nothing you can’t joke about. Pretty sure someone made a joke about 9/11 before the second plane even hit. Probably something like “Damn, sure glad we are not in that tower!”
There was a popular German song at the time and the chorus contained the lines “Airplanes in my stomach” (similar to having butterflies in your stomach).
I heard so many “Why is the World Trade Centre in love?” jokes the next day at school!
You can joke about anything, but if you make dead baby jokes to unknown audiences while in the NICU, you’re still a dick. Most people know this and avoid that sort of thing, but some edgelords need it explicitly said
I’m sorry, I hyperfocused hard while writing this. Tl;dr: imo knowing the audience is half of the art of all comedy, with the delivery as the other half (the craft of comedy is separate and consists of the wording and designing of a set/callback). The same applies in dating in the office and the playfighting that siblings, good friends, and romantic partners do, but that’s a really difficult thing to learn, so the general advice is not to. “Offensive” jokes aren’t unique in that regard, but because a subset of the population doesn’t “get” it, it’s seen as a pointless taboo that should be broken down.
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That’s always the problem with jokes though. Even a hella bigoted, mean-spirited one would make someone laugh. And tbh, the exact same joke told by a klansman at a cross burning might also be told by one “victim” of it to another, with equally raucous response.
Telling people to watch out for their audience instead of their joke causes two problems imo, though. First, it puts people offended by jokes on the defensive, even if they’re offended with good cause. Second, it’s not actually the audience, it’s the interplay between audience and joke teller (and of course your delivery, if you can’t get that right, all your jokes will fall flat and jokes targeting people will generally come off as mean spirited, regardless of the person or group being targeted*): if the klansman tells the same bigoted joke to the people targeted by it, they probably won’t find it as funny, though they might have otherwise.
Learning your audience and perfecting your delivery is much more difficult than just avoiding specific jokes though, so the common advice is to do the latter. Just like most people (myself included) would advise others not to date their coworkers or customers, but at least 20% of couples I know met when at least one of them was at work. The pursuers weren’t reported to HR either, even though their behavior in many cases violated company policies. It’s always a case of knowing your audience. My husband could say the absolute worst thing in the world to me in a way that would make me laugh, but if a stranger said the same thing I’d be angry and/or afraid, depending on what the stranger looked like (a little old lady vs a giant, fully-tatted, young man), even if they said it exactly the same way.
The reason that most people don’t feel weird about the above scenarios is that everyone can relate to them. Targeted jokes don’t hit everyone the same, so some of the people who aren’t offended by being targeted don’t understand why others are.
*think about how the internet reacts to Amy Schumer making jokes about dating men, even though she’s “punching up.”
But there is nothing you can’t joke about. Pretty sure someone made a joke about 9/11 before the second plane even hit. Probably something like “Damn, sure glad we are not in that tower!”
There was a popular German song at the time and the chorus contained the lines “Airplanes in my stomach” (similar to having butterflies in your stomach).
I heard so many “Why is the World Trade Centre in love?” jokes the next day at school!
You can joke about anything, but if you make dead baby jokes to unknown audiences while in the NICU, you’re still a dick. Most people know this and avoid that sort of thing, but some edgelords need it explicitly said
The problem there is telling the joke to the wrong audience rather than the joke its self.
I’m sorry, I hyperfocused hard while writing this. Tl;dr: imo knowing the audience is half of the art of all comedy, with the delivery as the other half (the craft of comedy is separate and consists of the wording and designing of a set/callback). The same applies in dating in the office and the playfighting that siblings, good friends, and romantic partners do, but that’s a really difficult thing to learn, so the general advice is not to. “Offensive” jokes aren’t unique in that regard, but because a subset of the population doesn’t “get” it, it’s seen as a pointless taboo that should be broken down.
————————————————————
That’s always the problem with jokes though. Even a hella bigoted, mean-spirited one would make someone laugh. And tbh, the exact same joke told by a klansman at a cross burning might also be told by one “victim” of it to another, with equally raucous response.
Telling people to watch out for their audience instead of their joke causes two problems imo, though. First, it puts people offended by jokes on the defensive, even if they’re offended with good cause. Second, it’s not actually the audience, it’s the interplay between audience and joke teller (and of course your delivery, if you can’t get that right, all your jokes will fall flat and jokes targeting people will generally come off as mean spirited, regardless of the person or group being targeted*): if the klansman tells the same bigoted joke to the people targeted by it, they probably won’t find it as funny, though they might have otherwise.
Learning your audience and perfecting your delivery is much more difficult than just avoiding specific jokes though, so the common advice is to do the latter. Just like most people (myself included) would advise others not to date their coworkers or customers, but at least 20% of couples I know met when at least one of them was at work. The pursuers weren’t reported to HR either, even though their behavior in many cases violated company policies. It’s always a case of knowing your audience. My husband could say the absolute worst thing in the world to me in a way that would make me laugh, but if a stranger said the same thing I’d be angry and/or afraid, depending on what the stranger looked like (a little old lady vs a giant, fully-tatted, young man), even if they said it exactly the same way.
The reason that most people don’t feel weird about the above scenarios is that everyone can relate to them. Targeted jokes don’t hit everyone the same, so some of the people who aren’t offended by being targeted don’t understand why others are.
*think about how the internet reacts to Amy Schumer making jokes about dating men, even though she’s “punching up.”