In reference to Husky's post that TexAgs Fine Staff deleted, I recently had some thoughts about humor and horrible events like murder and crazy deaths. I find it a bit hypocritical, but mostly fascinating, that some tragic events are totally off limits, while others are fair game to most. And sometimes, but not all the time, the magnitude of the tragedy has no relation to whether jokes about it are ok or not. Now my thoughts don't deal with the usual "Has it been long enough since 9/11 to make jokes about it?" time discussion. Never understood that one by the way.
Rather, it seems as though the more the story is reported on in the news and the more familiar people become with the victims or even the criminals, the more off limits it is. For example, all the time on the GB a thread will be started about how someone died and it's often a competition from the word go for funniest comment. But try doing that on an incredibly similar topic, only this one has been on national news for days and everyone has become familiar with the people involved, and you get hated on by almost everyone. Dude gets run over by a bus and only one article about it? Jokes! Bring on the humor! Hot chick gets her face sliced up by a helicopter blade, her story becoming national news as she makes the morning talk show rounds during her recovery? How dare you try and be funny, you sick ****.
A good real life example is presented to us by the show, the Jeselnik Offensive. The week after the Boston bombings I was interested to see what he would say since he has almost no limits. Well, most everyone else has limits and the producers or whoever, recognizing this, didn't allow him to say shiit on the topic, which he referred to quite heavily. However, during the same show he makes a joke about the drowning of a few kids in NYC "marking the unofficial start of summer!" The crowd erupts with laughter! Hooray! Yet,if that tragedy had been reported on Fox News, was on the cover page of MSN, and the parents went on to the Today Show to share their story, 90% of those who laughed would've likely been pissed off by the joke. As soon as most can see and hear the pain tragedy causes, they suddenly grow a heart. While it makes sense, it also speaks to how nonsensical we can all be at time. It's interesting to say the least.
Now, this is not to say that the relationship between exposure and the acceptability of jokes is completely negative, nor that it's the only factor, but there certainly is quite a bit of correlation. Usually the more violent or horrible the crime, the more likely it is to be reported by the national media. America and violence! **** ya! And violent crimes, which a lot of people find more upsetting than fatal accidents, are big headline stories more often. So there are some flaws in this theory, for sure.
And to those of you who laugh at none of it, or laugh at all of it, nice. We can all respect that.
Hot damn, I should write a blog. There definitely aren't enough amateur philosophers out there internetting.
