Things Are Funnier When it Hasn't Happened to You: Why You Should Think Before You Joke

Babydyke
Things Are Funnier When it Hasn't Happened to You: Why You Should Think Before You Joke

Look, I'm not about PC police and I don't give a fuck about sjw free speech snowflake bullshit, so don't read this like I'm telling you you can't joke about this or that. This is more about being a decent human being than free speech. And understanding how something could (*shocker*) actually not be as funny as you think it is.

For starters, let's say you're fat. 350-400 lbs fat. Yeah if you're not an uptight person you can still chuckle at a decent comedian making jokes about not fitting through doors and getting out of breath when you try to run and that whole bit, but it still stings wouldn't you say?

Not that bad and hey its not the end of the world, I get that. Let's ramp it up a bit then.

How about race jokes? We've all heard how black people like that fried chicken and white people can't dance, but you could go further than that. How about cops always profiling black people? Or Asians and small dicks? Is everyone still laughing? Thai people are ladyboys and Muslims are terrorists, all those stereotypes start to hurt when all of a sudden it's you that's the butt of the joke. A professional comedian can deliver it in a way that most people still find agreeable, even hilarious. Dave Chappell? Race jokes all the time and he's funny. Jeff Dunham can make racist muslim jokes in Saudi Arabia and still get a laugh. But the random internet schmuck trying to be funny with no set up and no timing can come across as well, just a schmuck. You're not a millionaire who gets paid to make GOOD jokes for a living. You're not as funny as you think you are.

Nothing too bad yet I don't guess, can we keep going?

How about suicide, is that funny? To someone who's actually had the gun to their head begging to be free of the pain they can't stop feeling, I swear to god it's NOT as hilarious as you think it is. Imagine how many tears you have to cry and how numb and devoid of happiness and miserable you would have to be to kill yourself. Imagine their loved ones that come home and find someone they care about hanging from a door or their head blown apart by a shotgun. The smell of blood, you wake up in the middle of the night years later remembering how it smelled. You have to leave that house forever because the stains never come out. Really, I want you to imagine it. That hasn't happened to you has it? That's why you're able to joke about it.

How about rape, is that funny?

Have you ever been raped? I don't fucking recommend it. If you think it's a riot of laughter to be slammed into a hard floor, beaten, and violated in the most inhuman way possible, then maybe you need help. Or maybe you don't know that what you're joking about ACTUALLY HAPPENS TO PEOPLE. It's not funny to us, just an agonizing reminder of something we desperately want to forget. But it never goes away, not the constant fear, not the bitter sadness and hatred and how much you want to kill the person who did it to you. Knowing they never found him and every night you wonder if he's going to find you or who he's raping right now. Because they never stop. You think it's funny because you can't even fathom the reality of it. It hasn't happened to you.

But why stop there? Surely dead baby jokes aren't at all traumatizing to someone who's lost a child? 9/11 jokes aren't extremely insensitive to someone who lost a loved one that day, right? You get my point I hope.

Again, I don't want you to think that I'm telling what you can and can't joke about, because I'm all for free speech and you should be allowed to say whatever you want. But just because someone like Ricky Gervais or Louis CK has the talent for dark humor, doesn't mean you do as well, and even they aren't above being assholes with some of the jokes they make. You, lowly internet scrub of an amateur, come across as an absolutely insensitive cunt when you try and make those kinds of jokes and you should realize that. You won't, but you should.

I guess like if you agree.

Things Are Funnier When it Hasn't Happened to You: Why You Should Think Before You Joke
10 Opinion