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A joke to cheer everyone up. Mayhap, this could turn into a prolonged and merry joke thread...

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13:23 / 13.02.07

X-posted, opening comment aimed at John, and his swarmy comment implying that of anybody who takes genuinely takes offence at a sexist joke or wants to contest same is a silly ninny, fit only to be laughed at.

jentacular dreams

13:27 / 13.02.07

Or perhaps because tempers seem to be frayed all round?

13:33 / 13.02.07

Isn't there a cure?

13:34 / 13.02.07

Isn't there a cure?

Would a joke work?

13:38 / 13.02.07

A joke to cheer everyone up. Mayhap, this could turn into a prolonged and merry joke thread...

Kiltartan Cross

13:39 / 13.02.07

That'll never work.

13:39 / 13.02.07

No, it really wouldn't.

13:58 / 13.02.07

I meant a cure for the leprosy jokes, but it seems we've out done ourselves.

13:59 / 13.02.07

%Way to contribute to the discussion John-tbftf. I value your thoughts, and realise that I was being a antifunPChaterz. Again, thanks.%

14:06 / 13.02.07

That's quite alright. Any time you want to misunderstand me is a-okay. (<-- no sarcasm quotes needed)

14:07 / 13.02.07

I think I saw someone selling the cure for fuckwittery just outside the airlock.

Disco is My Class War

14:13 / 13.02.07

Even if you believe that stuff, this is not the place to make jokes like that because it is likely to make people angry and/or lower their estimation of you.

No, but don't you see? This turns the whole idea of having policy about anything into a game of politeness and keeping the peace. That's basically telling people, we don't care what your politics are or how you think really, we just want you to pretend, to make a calculation about what your limits are, but otherwise, feel free to be sexist or homophobic or whatever. It's a recipe for fake, shitty interactions where everyone's polite to everyone else just because we're supposedly a 'community'. Thus vacating the whole meaning of the word.

If someone wants to be sexist, or tell off-colour jokes, I'd rather have the argument with them. And then they can say whether they're telling the joke, or whatever it is, from a position of 'insiderness' or whether they're just plain fucktards. It doesn't take long to tell either way, as this thread so perfectly illustrates.

14:17 / 13.02.07

I don't know what the emoticon for 'thumbs up' is, Disco, but if I knew it it would give it to you plus a thousand for that last statement. That's pretty much exactly how I feel about the board and certain interactions within it for some time now, but have not been able to articulate it (due to stupidness).

I don't know what knowing this is worth though, but it sure is worth knowing. Thanks!

Less searchable M0rd4nt

14:26 / 13.02.07

Hey, you know who I really miss? Pin. Why couldn't all the former Barbeteens have turned out like Pin?

14:29 / 13.02.07

Man goes to the zoo.

On arriving, he's disappointed as there's only one animal; a dog.

It was a shitzu.

*posted in the hope that if this thread is nuked from orbit, this joke will go with it *

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:45 / 13.02.07

I'd back up what Disco said by pointing out to Tom that this argument about whether we object to things people say on the basis of "offence", or because of a more robust, engaged and politicised objection to the content of what they are actually saying, has been debated several times on the board. The idea that "we have no issue with them exercising their ability to make these comments except that it's rude and anti-social" is one that I find quite frightening in its level of depoliticisation and its privileging instead of a set of supposedly (but not at all) ideology-free social mores, for the reasons Disco has outlined. I'll try to dig out the relevent links when I have more time and have had more sleep.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:46 / 13.02.07

I don't really want to but I have to - John, does that mean that you disagree now with your own decision not to call women slags on Barbelith, because people on Barbelith are more sensitive than people in the real world?

Disco: My model for this is generally:

1) Ideally, person is not a dick.
2) Failing that, person _is_ a dick, but is socially able enough not to show it on Barbelith and eventually comes to change dickish mind by exposure to other people's responses on Barbelith. Ceases to be dick.
3) Failing that, person is a dick and shows dickery, is first reasoned with and then, failing that, smacked across the room as many times as it takes for them to start thinking that this may not be the way to think or act. Becomes a better person through boot to head.
4) and 5) Person is a dick and is either banned or mocked away from Barbelith without ever examining own dickery, or person is a dick but conceals it successfully to such an extent that nobody on Barbelith ever knows that he or she is a dick for the length of their stay.

14:47 / 13.02.07

Don't PIN* your hopes on it MC, but we might call him back via the Southampton grapevine. Let's leave treats out and see if that works...

*see what I did there! Teh joke! hahaha!

14:49 / 13.02.07

I am 5) nobody on Barbelith ever knows that he or she is a dick for the length of their stay.

14:59 / 13.02.07

I'll get my coat.

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:04 / 13.02.07

I weed on it. With my dick.

15:33 / 13.02.07

And there's your cure!

16:19 / 13.02.07

Well hello Haus, we're having this conversation again are we?

does that mean that you disagree now with your own decision not to call women slags on Barbelith, because people on Barbelith are more sensitive than people in the real world?

No. I was thinking about this the other day funnily enough (because of the recent links to it in the Feminism 101 thread), and I think I have actually excised that word from my conscious (or at least spoken) vocabulary, even when talking.

I think my problem is that I do have some pretty vulgar unexamined or reflexive speech patterns, I think attributable to my very working-class upbringing and fondness for being puerile. I swear a lot, unnecessarily. My partner of seven years and I call each other all sorts of horrible names as terms of endearment. When talking to my very best friends, very few subjects are off-limits as targets for awful, childish jokes and lurid bullshit stories. It's just a part of who I am in certain areas of my life, and I make no apologies for it.

When I started on Barbelith I was dumb, I fully admit it. I failed to recognize the 'culture' of the board for a few months, and put on the page some rather silly examples of my unexamined speech. As I was quite rightly bollocked/censured for what I said and my various defensive reactions to criticism from other board members, I was forced to think about the issues concerned such as racism/homophobia/sexism much more and also think about my language and what it means.

So yes, I do moderate my language when I'm on Barbelith. But being on Barbelith has also moderated my thoughts on these matters as well. It's made me much less judgmental, more likely to vocally disagree with people when they're being bigoted and has opened my mind to concepts I didn't even know about when I wrote what you insist on bringing up every few months. So when I'm saying something, it's not that I'm lying, but the language is generally much more considered and thought-about than it would be if I was simply saying something that meant the same.

Also, was this directed at me? - Feigned idiocy concealing actual idiocy. If so a) that's not very nice and b) I am actually not as smart as most people on here. Fact.

ONLY NICE THINGS

16:40 / 13.02.07

DUDE!

Thank you. That's exactly what I was asking, and I appreciate your time in explaining it. You see, that is precisely the sort of thing I am talking about above - if we had all decided that you were just an ass and banned you then, you wouldn't have had a chance to soak up the atmos here, and your whole attitude to language might have changed. Now, personally I still find many of your approaches antithetical to learning - see some of the responses to the comments in this thread - and I think that, like all of us, there are some things to be worked out - there's nothing intrinsically working-class about insulting women -
but there we have it - a demonstration of Barbelith's unique combination of sensitivity, tendresse, jailyard taunts and cock punching helping people to look again at their behaviour.

And, for reference, the comment in Barbannoy referenced Kay, who has precisely refused at every point to look again at his, except perhaps to admire once again how clever and reasonable he was.

16:58 / 13.02.07

Whehey, resolution! I'm glad to be of service.

I'm sorry for derailing the thread a bit up there - this is what I get when I don't modulate my thoughts and actions when I'm on Barbelith, as I did honestly find it very amusing, but probably shouldn't have said so. If it makes any difference, what I found funny was just that guy's pigheaded wrongness, and everyone else's intermittently terse and patient replies which only serve to make him spout out more ridiculous shit. It was like a brilliant farce. As you yourself said:

jokes are not actually funny. They function as ways to bond socially, or to remind people of your existence, or to send communications without content - making them perfecty content for mass emails. Actual humour, however, tends to be emergent rather than pre-cooked.

I came to the fight late and found this 5+ page fight over some crap jokes, in which the antagonist repeatedly and violently shoves their foot in their mouth while the fightier aspects of the community make various shades of 'angry face' at him. For a disconnected, uninvolved party, it was very amusing.

But yes, I didn't need to post anything at all, and I'm sorry for winding people up.

Also, with regards to the Barbannoy comment, don't worry, I was just a bit worried that it was about me because of my 'stupid' comment in the post before yours.

Peace!

17:26 / 13.02.07

I was going to stop responding to this thread but...

jokes are not actually funny

Yes they are. If you think jokes aren't actually funny then that means that you just haven't heard a joke that you like.

They function as ways to bond socially, or to remind people of your existence, or to send communications without content - making them perfecty content for mass emails. Actual humour, however, tends to be emergent rather than pre-cooked.

No, they function as a way to make people laugh. I read a lot of jokes by myself online, for example, because I want to have a laugh. I don't want to bond socially or be reminded of anyone's existance. And jokes are content. Why would anyone (other than spammers) send mass emails without content? People send jokes to other people because they like making their friends happy and so they send jokes to friends that they think will make their friends laugh.

ONLY NICE THINGS

17:49 / 13.02.07

I read a lot of jokes by myself online, for example, because I want to have a laugh.

Either reading of this sentence is entirely complete and perfectly satisfactory.

18:03 / 13.02.07

Eh? I don't quite understand you.

ONLY NICE THINGS

18:09 / 13.02.07

That's OK, dude. It's a joke. You either get it or you don't.

18:35 / 13.02.07

I feel kind of stupid and beside the point for pointing this out, but I feel compelled to do so. I don't know why.

But there's something vexing about "blondes" (or "blonds") in blonde jokes. I agree that the above examples were, well, fairly representative of a kind of sexism. But I've also had female joke-tellers apologize to me (a fair-haired male - was moreso when I still spent lots of time in the sun) before launching into blonde jokes. I'm also nearly sure I've heard blond jokes that were about men. These may be, umm, outliers. Non-standard.

I know I've heard blonde jokes that were also Vandermerwe jokes, though. Depended on who was telling it where.

Anyway, these specific jokes were tied to a specific gender, but the general mode, though, isn't *always* gender-specific.

Oh! Google delivers -- the "Male Blonde Joke" page. I'm not misremembering after all....

Of course, at least one of those jokes is a transformation of another ethnic joke.

ONLY NICE THINGS

18:38 / 13.02.07

Aren't those just Irish jokes retooled for the purposes of a website called "Blondejokes.com", though?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

18:50 / 13.02.07

I've heard some of them, except they were David Beckham jokes.

18:54 / 13.02.07

I want to have a laugh. I don't want to bond socially or be reminded of anyone's existance.

Now c'mon. That's funny as fuck whether you're blond(e) or not.

19:15 / 13.02.07

Aren't those just Irish jokes retooled for the purposes of a website called "Blondejokes.com", though?

I don't think so -- the lunch one I've heard elsewhere as a Polish joke and (I think) as a blond joke.

In fact, I think it might be on this thread somewhere... yep, as an American.

Anyway, it's a pretty standard joke form -- the wise fool (or foolish fool). The tricky part is in how you signify the fool's a fool. Van Der Merwe (or Vandermerwe) jokes were peculiar because the fool was a white Afrikaner and the jokes were told by white Afrikaners. Because it was always this one specific guy, there wasn't as much typing (as in stereo-) as one might expect from that culture. He's just this fairly dense naif who stumbles through situations.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

19:29 / 13.02.07

Didn't the Ancient Greeks have jokes about "egg heads?"

Anyway it is kind of interesting: people still want to tell the Irish (or Polish, as it might be) joke, but they've finally realised that telling Irish/Polish/etc jokes makes one a very visible wanker. Hence the need for another group, one it's okay to laugh at--in this instance, blonde ladies are deemed to be the required universally dimwitted group. I can imagine a prototype of this thread happening a decade or two back, with the Enamon of his day posting "But it's just an Irish/Polish/etc joke!" again and again and again, unable to comprehend why anyone could possibly get upset over something so obviously innocuous.

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