Do we really want
to live in a world where
no one is ever offended?
Perhaps one of the biggest changes made possible in the era of social media is the ease with which an offhand joke can not just offend those within earshot, but instead thousands–if not millions–of people. We have a tendency to assume the conversation we’re having online is only being seen by the people within our circle, but all it takes is one outsider who doesn’t “get it” and shares it with the rest of the world to turn you into the next Justine Sacco.
“Free speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequence!” is something you hear a lot these days and it’s absolutely true, but the problem is that if we take this idea far enough we risk entering a world were candid, honest public conversation becomes impossible and we’ll all eventually have to choose our words as carefully as a presidential candidate or corporate PR flack.
And I’m sure to some people that sounds like heaven–an oasis where their sensibilities are never offended and their ideology is never questioned. I imagine we would all talk about the weather a lot. The problem is I like to tell jokes and occasionally express an actual opinion and those are activities that are pretty much impossible to undertake without occasionally pissing someone off.
There’s a good reason for this and it’s because there’s over 7 billion of us on this planet. That’s a lot of different attitudes, ideas, backgrounds, beliefs, convictions, prejudices, bigotries and experiences to dive out into. Even the best of us with the best of intentions will eventually run into a situation where we say or do something that has offended someone–it’s literally impossible to avoid, especially since there are even people who are actively offended by deliberately inoffensive behavior.
🙂 🙂 🙂
Of course, it’s better for everyone when we take time to consider our words and the effect they will have on others–sometimes that just isn’t possible, but for the most part it’s a reasonable expectation. But I think we also have to accept that sometimes a person’s well-considered words will collide and contradict with what we find acceptable and believe in and the best thing to do in that situation is shrug it off and let it go. We certainly can turn everything into a fight, but that doesn’t mean we should.
Lest you think I am saying this in admonition to any one particularly vocal faction of the Internet, let me assure you that I am applying it as a blanket statement for everyone–regardless of their affiliation, denomination, cause or crusade. Until we reach the moment where we all achieve mass-consciousness and begin to finally think and act as one global being (probably around the introduction of the iPhone 17 or so), we have to work a little harder to accept that we are going to often disagree and that for the sake of not killing each other before the iPhone 17 comes out we’re going to have to let some of those disagreements go.
This is especially important to me because my preferred method of expressing myself is through humour and humour is a concept that varies radically from being to being to the point that it is the purpose of existence to some and completely incomprehensible to others. There are people who like jokes and people who hate them. The people who hate them will deny this and insist that they love jokes, but just “funny” jokes, which–on the rare occasion when you actually hear them laugh–almost invariably turn out to be the worst jokes ever.
“Good comedy needs no explanation!” is something people who hate jokes often say, which–and I hope even they know this–is complete bullshit. I know plenty of people who need Monty Python explained to them and still don’t get it after it has been and any serious claims that their comedy isn’t funny is objectively drowned out by the rest of us who actually operate on their wavelength and repeat the word “Spam” to each other until we can’t breathe anymore.
But even those of us who DO get it and appreciate comedy have our soft points–the places where we don’t think comedy should ever be allowed to go. And this is understandable because comedy is a tool and–like many tools–it can be turned into a weapon. Jokes in the hands of bitter angry assholes looking only to lash out at the world and mock others in a desperate need to feel superior can be as dangerous as a hand grenade, but more and more frequently I see people being admonished just as harshly for jokes that are the armory equivalent of a snowball.
Sometimes that person is me. Yesterday morning I tweeted the following:
Why did no one tell me Kari Byron was fired from MYTHBUSTERS? Is it because I'd become too emotional? WELL YOU WERE FUCKING RIGHT!!!!!!!!
— Allan Mott (@HouseofGlib) September 11, 2014
Which is completely innocuous, but–based on the response I got from it–was followed by one that toed much closer to the line:
Where were you on September 11, when Allan found out that his favourite TV redhead who isn't Christina Hendricks was no longer mythbusting?
— Allan Mott (@HouseofGlib) September 11, 2014
Now I knew going in that the joke wasn’t without risk (or even particularly inspired), but I went ahead and posted it anyway. I did so believing that the “victim” of the joke wasn’t the people who died on that historic date, but was instead my own oblivious pomposity–by implying my discovery of this distressing fact was equitable to the events of 9/11/01, I was mocking my own self-importance and questionable attachment to pop culture.
And in the defence of the gentleman who called me out on it, he understood this, but still expressed offence. He endured several of my glib responses to his criticism by writing, “Twitter is a fairly public platform, and I’d urge you to be careful when making light of tragedies”. This is probably sage advice, but I couldn’t help but feel that it ignored the very important reality that for a significant portion of the population, making light of tragedies is actually how we survive them and carry on.
🙂 🙂 🙂
At my mom’s memorial service I didn’t prepare a speech, but instead went up in front of everyone and told my favourite anecdote about the time she asked my dad what religion he was–over 30 years into their marriage. I told it because I thought it was funny and in that moment it felt better to laugh than it did to cry. To some people it might have been inappropriate. I could see them being offended by my refusal to discuss her passing with solemn, respectful dignity, but I knew that wasn’t the path I could take to endure the worst moment of my life.
By making “light” of something, we are also making it less “heavy”–what might seem like a lack of reverence to some is actually a survival tactic for others. That joke isn’t intended to trivialize the tragedy, but instead to keep the teller from being crushed under the agonizing weight of it.
Was that what I was doing with the joke shown above? Not really. Like many people who weren’t directly affected by it, 9/11 an abstraction to me now. I can bring back memories of the visceral terror I felt watching the footage of the planes flying into the buildings when I woke up that morning and then later in the afternoon as I walked around the streets of Vancouver and it played out on the TVs that suddenly seemed more ubiquitous than ever, but they are just memories, buried deep in 13 years of other experiences, many of which were more personally traumatic.
And just because I am now so distanced from the event doesn’t mean I have the right to dismiss those who still view it as though it happened yesterday, but the fact remains that I can still listen and appreciate their criticism and decide I will probably tell similar jokes in the future. Sometimes snowballs hurt when they accidentally hit you in the head, but–before you lash out at the person who threw them–it might help to take a second to see if they threw it to hurt someone or if they threw it because if they held it in their hand a second longer they risked freezing inside and shattering into a million pieces.
🙂 🙂 🙂
Despite the occasional dark joke, I do my best to keep my humour light and aimed at myself and even so I have managed to alienate some to the point that they describe me as “repulsive” and react to my existence with genuine anger and I admit this has coloured my feelings on this issue. If someone whose online presence can–at both it’s best and worst–be described as “harmlessly benign” invokes such strongly negative feelings, can we ever really expect to live in a world where no one is ever upset or offended by another person’s words or actions? Would we even want to live in a world like that?
Justine Sacco is an asshole and there was a kind of venomously karmic beauty in seeing her being taken down for it while her airplane flew through the air and she had no idea what her tastelessly cruel joke had wrought. Most times people are justly offended and the actions that result from their being offended are righteous, but with the new power social media has given us to act in these situations comes great responsibility (I totally just invented that idea–anyone who says it came from somewhere else can speak to my lawyer). I think we have to be more conscious of this as we move on. We must be vigilant in ensuring that those we decide to take down are actively aiming to destroy and not merely expressing their own helplessness in a way we dislike, because it’s only a matter of time before we each face this level of scrutiny ourselves.
And very few of us will pass.
“Free speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequence!” is something you hear a lot these days and it’s absolutely true, but the problem is that if we take this idea far enough we risk entering a world were candid, honest public conversation becomes impossible and we’ll all eventually have to choose our words as carefully as a presidential candidate or corporate PR flack. Another good argument that isn’t made anything like as often as it should (at least in the US) is one I first saw being made by SF writer Will Shetterly, who was in turn referencing the ACLU. People… Read more »
I think maybe you got flack for it because it was a stupid, unfunny joke? Not because it’s offensive, but just because it was dumb.
I’d agree if he argued that it would have been more acceptable if it was a good 9/11 joke, but he didn’t do that. And–as I pointed out–comedy is subjective and just because you think it’s dumb doesn’t mean it is. I think it’s a dumb joke, but that doesn’t mean I’m right either. Still, thanks for playing!
Yes. Bravo. The overly-sensitive need to be called on their reactions, to jokes, or anything else. Some people may feel things deeply, and they have that right–and most of the time I’m sympathetic to their pain–but that doesn’t mean they have absolutely no obligation connected with their sensitivity. If someone’s offended by something that’s really not that bad, the offender shouldn’t be made to feel like he can’t say what he feels: hell, it offends me to think that I’d be forced to be all politically correct 100% of the time just because some people have hang-ups, or even legitimate… Read more »