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When is a joke not a joke?

  
  

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Ganesh
00:57 / 11.02.06
This is pissing me off, and this. I want to detail this situation here, because it's spread over a couple of Conversation threads already, and I think it overlaps with some of the discussion we've been having here. I'm also somewhat irritated that Dead Megatron, having deleted the Lame Jokes and Puns post which caused me to react, is now manipulatively (ab)using the Miserable thread to whine about my (supposed over)reaction to that post. I now feel I need to justify my lack of a 'sense of humour about myself' by reconstructing the exchange here, and explaining why I didn't find DM's humour humorous.

So.

DM started by quoting a metaphor from Our Lady's post here about gay people 'managing to achieve escape velocity from planet hetero', and remarked that there are all sooorts of jokes he could be making here - but, this being Barbelith, he restricted himself to two gems:

The bigger the rocket...

and

And, I would like to nominate Saturn as the "gayest planet" of the Solar System. All those colouful rings are such a give-away...

Classic rib-ticklers, both. But seriously... I pointed out here, here and here that those 'jokes' are so piss-poor that they're unrecognisable as actual jokes. This apparently makes me "Thought Police" - but those are pitifully weak non-jokes. Let me explain why.

Joke no.1:

The bigger the rocket...

This is, I'm assuming, a reference to the 'escape velocity' of Our Lady's comment, the core of the joke being, presumably, that gay people like good big cocks up their arses - so the bigger the cock/rocket, the better to achieve 'escape velocity from planet hetero'.

That is what the joke's about, isn't it? I'm not missing a fiendishly clever subtext?

All right. So it's based on a combination of a weak premise (rockets are a bit like cocks) and a tired old cliche (gay people - men, one assumes - all like a big cock up their arse). I don't think these components actually come together to make a joke, and, weirdly, this actually offends me slightly more than the crass stereotyping.

Joke no.2:

And, I would like to nominate Saturn as the "gayest planet" of the Solar System. All those colouful rings are such a give-away...

This is, if anything, even weaker. Searching for the logic behind this one, I assumed "rings" was another titter-ye-not reference to anal penetration (since this was established, with Joke no.1, to be a defining feature of Teh Gays). Not so: apparently it's a pun about "planets in drag". (A pun? Where?)

Okayyy... so the basis for this being a joke is that a (male?) planet having "colourful rings" is a bit like said planet being dressed up like a drag queen - and that this would make it the "gayest planet" because... I dunno, because drag queens = very very gay? Or gay = drag queens? Or gay men dress as women?

This just doesn't hang together at all. It's a series of stretched, slightly peculiar associations strung around a core of, again, cliche. If anything, this is even creakier than the first joke: I'm not sure that anyone, since the 1960s (or, at a push, 1970s), has equated gay people with drag.

These comments annoyed me on two levels: they were based on flimsy, paper-thin (and borderline-homophobic) stereotypes (presumably gay men all like cock up their arses and gay men look "colourful" and therefore like women); and they didn't actually work as jokes. There's no sharpness of wit or observation there. They're just insufficiently funny to be considered jokes, even "lame" ones.

(I know there are some here who dislike the easy substitution of 'black' for 'gay' in terms of making analogies, but it works fairly well here. I could have made similarly insipid 'black jokes' based on the solar system: "Jupiter's the 'blackest planet' because it's REALLY BIG" or "Pluto's the 'blackest' because it's got the most rhythmic orbit" or whatever. Does this help illustrate the problem?)

DM, does this go any way toward explaining my pissed-offness with (what I see as) your rather pathetic 'gay jokes', now deleted? It's not about me wanting you to 'praise my sexuality at all times', but I don't feel that it's acceptable for you to post this kind of contemptible, borderline-homophobic crap and get away scot free, even in your own thread.

(Now, having got that out of my system, I'm going to go and delete my immediate snarky response to your "people who apparently think the only issue in the planet is their own sexuality" post in the Miserable thread.)
 
 
Tryphena Absent
01:16 / 11.02.06
Are you sure this is a Policy thread? I'm not sure DM is a troll and while ignorant I'm not certain that his comments were deliberately provocative rather than biased. Moreover I'm not certain this type of thread is a trend we want to start in this forum.
 
 
Ganesh
01:23 / 11.02.06
Nina, if I were convinced DM were a troll, I wouldn't have started this thread. I'm working on the assumption that he genuinely doesn't understand why those 'jokes' pissed me off, and attempting to explain why. I initially posted a much less measured, 'unpacked' response in the Miserable thread, before deciding this was the better option.

I think it's relevant in Policy because the "it's a JOKE!!!1!!" defence is being used more and more, and it may actually be useful in a more general sense to explain why some 'jokes' are borderline-offensive. I'll understand if you want to move it to the same forum as the thread which prompted it (as was presumably the case with this 'right to reply' thread.)
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
01:28 / 11.02.06
I think the issue is more that DM seems intent on representing himself as the victim of "Barbelithian self-righteousness", PC, censorship - that kind of thing... which is not a wildly healthy attitude.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
02:11 / 11.02.06
I don't mean this as a criticism of the content of your post as I don't think it's off mark but I'm still uncertain that this is a Policy thread.

I think a thread geared toward an individual who is not primarily a subject of board policy probably doesn't sit well here. Were this thread wider in breadth that would be fine but it quite specifically isn't, it's focused on an individual.

You have a perfect right to be angry and Dead Megatron's post should never have been deleted. I am curious about who passed that request actually (I hope to god it wasn't me because I'm generally very careful about deletions). That is a policy issue and probably does deserve a thread here.

I chose to put my bias and politics thread in Switchboard because I felt it didn't have a place here- it was a defense based around politics rather than a board Policy issue. Basically I think this probably does belong in conversation because it isn't broadly directed.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
02:12 / 11.02.06
(Will sleep on moving the topic and come back to it tomorrow)
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
02:15 / 11.02.06
I was one of the people who agreed it- I thought about it for a while, then figured that if it had been requested to be deleted by someone else on the grounds of containing offensive content it would probably have been agreed to...

...afterwards I wasn't quite sure I'd make the right decision. To be honest, I'm surprised other people agreed it, as I kind of figured I shouldn't have done with hindsight.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
06:31 / 11.02.06
Well, there's nowhere else that a thread like this should go. So I don't see why not here.

I suppose that, with the deleting of threads I never saw and the posts in other threads I didn't see myself, my main concern was the concept of DM 'starting a joke thread so he didn't need to clog up other threads'. I actually found that more annoying than any of his interjections on those threads, ignoring them and working round as I did.

This seems like a mix of fratboy 'humour' and someone expressing themself in a language that is not their own.

I don't know the providence of this, but if accurate would suggest high levels of prejudice in Brazil.

The recent IPPM (Institute of Market Research of São Paulo) survey made it clear that homosexuality is one of the areas of human sexuality most marked by prejudice. Over half, 51.5 percent, of Paulistanos, 57.1 percent of Cariocas, and 56.3 percent of those in other cities oppose homosexuality. On the other hand, a small number of those interviewed, only 13.5 percent, 8.7 percent, and 9.4 percent respectively in these same areas, consider homosexuality normal conduct.
 
 
Ganesh
06:44 / 11.02.06
Nina: what. thefuck. ever. I don't particularly mind where this thread goes. Having recently had the whole 'if you have a problem with a poster, take it to the Policy' discussion in the Barbannoy thread, I took it to the Policy. I don't particularly mind if you move it to the Conversation, though.

In DM's case, he moved to delete his original comments, making me think he could see the problem with that kind of 'joke'. The fact that he subsequently went into St Sebastiane mode in the Miserable thread made me think otherwise. I guess I'd like to be having a discussion about the degree to which this sort of thing is acceptable rather than where on the board I should be having that discussion.

I think this little episode does have broader implications than simply me being pissed off with one poster: how far does the frequently employed "it's a JOKE!!!1!!" defence stretch? Haus asked a similar question about a particular poster's flippant here (yes! in the Policy!). As far as I'm concerned, this is similarly flippant homophobia - albeit probably the 'unexamined' rather than 'intentional' variety.
 
 
Ganesh
06:53 / 11.02.06
... my main concern was the concept of DM 'starting a joke thread so he didn't need to clog up other threads'.

I don't have a particular problem with that idea, in principle. I objected to those particular 'jokes', though, for reasons I've detailed above. Mind you, the whole concept rather feeds into the idea that one is not responsible for the nature of merry quippery that naturally pours from one's keyboard, and can only attempt to contain it in one thread - rather than, y'know, trying not to post crappo "fratboy 'humour'" here at all.

I'm slightly uncomfortable drawing conclusions about DM's attitude to homosexuality based on his nationality alone. I think that probably is focussing too much on the individual rather than the subject. I suppose it might contextualise some of this but I don't think it explains or excuses further hohohomo japery on the board generally.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
07:51 / 11.02.06
I wasn't expecting himj actually to do it, I confess - I thought that the pointlessness of the idea would make him look at what he was posting (i.e. that it hd so little relevane that it could be dropped into a hole and have no impact on the thread).

However.

a) Think this belongs in the Policy if Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch do.
b) Think that DM's victim complex is getting worrisome. Basically, it's about entitlement. He seems to feel at the moment that he is basically entitled to post whatever he likes in his own thread. This is, as far as I can tell, not the case. It's possible that he has gotten the hang of it, and as of 15:20 on 10.2.06 (Barbelith time) he undertook never to make another gay joke on Barbelith. I'd rather he understood why his jokes were unacceptable, but not making any is a solution as well. Although unless he can apply the same principles to everything else, we may find this recurring...
 
 
Lurid Archive
14:41 / 11.02.06
I think this thread probably does belong here, since I've always thought that serious examination of issues on the board, even if limited in scope and the number of posters involved, is what we do here. This would be more of a case study than a discussion of general principles, but you really need both to shape policy.

Having said that, I'm not entirely clear about what you are looking for here, Ganesh. Having read DMs "jokes" I entirely agree that they were offensive. I think a case could have been made for their deletion by convo mods and the fact that they were deleted by DM doesn't seem like *such* a mistake, although I understand it leaves people with posts objecting to an absent joke. I interpret that as DM conceding the point (though not to the extent of feeling the objection was justified, perhaps) rather than trying to pretend it never happened.

I *think* that there is general agreement that DM was in the wrong, and that his attempts to paint Ganesh as humourless are, at best, petty sniping and, at worst, an attempt to justify and maybe continue with the homophobia. Apart from DM himself, I don't think that there is serious disagreement with this assessment. So, are you asking whether we are all on the same page, Ganesh? Or are you asking something more?
 
 
Ganesh
15:01 / 11.02.06
Lurid, my aims in recreating the original post are a) explaining in detail why those 'jokes' are unfunny and borderline-offensive, b) demonstrating the flow of discussion for those who didn't see the original post before it was deleted, and c) flagging up another example of the "it was a JOKE!!!1!!" defence, which seemed to me not dissimilar to the 'gypsies smell of cabbage and if you don't agree you're a humourless PC facist' example.

Now, a) could well have been achieved via a PM, if b) were not also an issue. Because DM deleted the original post then complained fairly extensively in the Miserable thread about my (over)reaction, I was concerned that those who hadn't read the Lame Jokes thread would only be aware of my response. It's difficult to be "on the same page" if part of the text is missing.

I'll readily admit that my main motive here is anger at being misrepresented. c) is secondary, something of an afterthought.
 
 
Ganesh
15:07 / 11.02.06
And, as I say, it's in the Policy because one of the points iterated in the recent Barbannoy debacle was that problems with a specific poster were the province of Policy. Although this is largely my problem with DM's 'gay jokes', I think the example touches on broader Policy issues - such as how far the 'joke1!' defence can be stretched, and the question of whether it's acceptable to delete one's own post which caused a negative reaction then go on to complain at length about that negative reaction elsewhere.
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
15:13 / 11.02.06
DM seems to desire the attention he gets by saying unpopular things.

I know I'm not the poster child for barbe-friendliness at the moment, but reading through a few threads in the conversation, DM seems to pick the losing horse in any race he comes across. I think he genuinely likes defending things that, at least here, has no defense.

Whether it is some kind of internet masochism, or he sits at his desk laughing at the page long posts explaining to him why he is wrong, I couldn't tell you. I don’t think he is maliciously trolling the boards, but I don’t think he is really adding much, at least in the conversation, I haven't dug through other fora to see what he has posted there.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:19 / 11.02.06
I interpret that as DM conceding the point (though not to the extent of feeling the objection was justified, perhaps) rather than trying to pretend it never happened.

I think that works if DM didn't then pop up elsewhere, complaining that people were being humourless, oppressing him and generally being the aforementioned PC facists. Hopefully this is no longer an issue, however, after some discussion.
 
 
eddie thirteen
15:37 / 11.02.06
...the question of whether it's acceptable to delete one's own post which caused a negative reaction then go on to complain at length about that negative reaction elsewhere.

Unacceptable. Deleting your own posts should only be done, I think, if you feel you've said the wrong thing. And not because what you said pissed someone off and it's an argument you don't want to have. No. I'm talking about posts you look at later that make you moan, "Oh, sweet baby Jesus," and hit your head on the desk. In the time I've been here (two-plus years), I have moved to have one -- one -- of my posts deleted, and I hesitate to even recount why; suffice it to say, I think demonic possession is the only explanation for why I wrote it to begin with. Deleting your own post because it made someone else mad, and then bitching incessantly about the person who forced your hand (when that person doesn't have the power to force you to do much of anything, really) is passive-aggressive bullshit.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
15:42 / 11.02.06
I'd like to add that when I agreed the deletion I didn't know DM was still gonna keep going on about it- from the submitted mod request it smelt like contrition. I should probably smoke less.
 
 
Ganesh
15:47 / 11.02.06
I would also reiterate that I actually don't - at this point - think DM is merely being a troll. I'm working on the assumption that explaining in full why I don't think much of his 'gay jokes' will help him modify his posting style and not attract this sort of flak in the future. If not attracting flak is his aim, which I'm hoping is the case.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
15:53 / 11.02.06
Sounds like a worthwhile project. Have you alerted him to this thread, 'nesh?
 
 
Ganesh
15:58 / 11.02.06
Yep.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
16:22 / 11.02.06
What about:

Dear Santa,

I know I am Jewish, but would it have killed you to make one tiny pitstop in the first 11 years of my life? And what about the Muslims? Maybe if Gaza was littered with presents every Dec 25th it wouldn't be littered with bodies on the 26th,

Elijah


...from this thread?
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
16:32 / 11.02.06
I am not sure what you mean by posting that. Do you beleive it to be in poor taste? Do you find it offensive? Did it attack anyone for their beleifs?

I am suprised that you didn't pick this one out as offensive, from the same thread, if you were looking for offensive "humor"

Dear God,

Please make Uncle Danny stop licking my woo-woo.

Love Bobby
 
 
Lurid Archive
16:36 / 11.02.06
Nesh, rereading my post I think I came across as more critical than I meant. I honestly don't think there is much room for confusion here - I read the thread only after the deletion and had no problem understanding it - but I'm not saying you shouldn't have started this thread and I agree that this is the right place for it. I was mostly looking for clarification, which you've given.

Trying to get DM to rethink certain views in this way is a worthy aim and better than the mock threats of violence, by a very wide margin.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
17:04 / 11.02.06
I am not sure what you mean by posting that.

It may well be of interest to people reading this thread.

Do you beleive it to be in poor taste?

Possibly, but that's immaterial.

Do you find it offensive?

Yes, because

Did it attack anyone for their beleifs?

it implies that those crazy Muslims have a crazy killin' day on the 26th of December, and that if only they had Father Christmas the entire mid-east situation would be solved. I don't want someone reading this board to think that that's acceptable here.
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
17:15 / 11.02.06
I did not intend for it to single out "those crazy Muslims" as the only ones killing people in Gaza. Looking at it I can see that it is poorly phrased, as is much of what I post here. Should I edit it to say And what about the Muslims and Israelis? to clarify, or would fixing it be counter to the debate up thread?

I still, for the record, find the post making a joke about sexual abuse at the hands of a family member to be highly offensive.
 
 
Shrug
17:22 / 11.02.06
Frankly both posts make me want to scrub my mind with brillo pads and lye.
Wit-free (check), pap (check), offensive (check).
 
 
alas
17:48 / 11.02.06
Although I realize the Conversation is often read as jokey by default, I actually read the idea of a dead letter office as having the tragic overtones identified by Melville...

Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men? Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letters and assorting them for the flames? For by the cart-load they are annually burned. Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring:--the bank-note sent in swiftest charity:--he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities. On errands of life, these letters speed to death.

Ah Bartleby! Ah, humanity!

(One of the great final passages in all of literature, that. N'est pas?)

Because of that more serious "ghost" implied in the title, I didn't read those letters as simple jokes. I wouldn't have posted those myself, and I think the thread might be better without them, but I don't necessarily find them "offensive," and I'm not sure they are "jokes."

So for me they are not exactly in the category of the DM thread as a whole and his other sporadic jokey comments, to which I'm honestly not sure what is the best response. I hope he can learn to be, think, and write better. It may take a variety of approaches: anger from some people so he knows it's dead serious, more sympathetic words from others... I believe in helping people find a dignified way to change their minds, because it is both hard and shaming to have to admit you're wrong. For whatever reason, DM seems to want to be a part of this community. He is having a rather long-ish learning curve for figuring out how we work.

Like others, I suppose I cut him a little slack due to the second language issue, and because there's seemingly an even bigger cultural divide than for many of the rest of us. But mainly I haven't responded to him, because I'm just sincerely not sure where to begin.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
19:44 / 11.02.06
Mock threats of violence

They were, pretty clearly, only 'mock' though. I severely doubt that anyone's being kept up late at night as a result of the offending posts, any more than they would have been if someone had accused them of having small brayne, which goes on all the time round here.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
19:47 / 11.02.06
(It reads snippier than it was meant to, teh last post.)
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
20:57 / 11.02.06
I do sometimes feel a bit squicky about threats of HARM when they are poster-on-poster, even when blatantly non reality-based. Talking about harming famous and unreachable people is a bit different somehow, more absurd and less discomforting.

I dunno. Maybe I'm just casting around for an excuse not to stop talking about cutting politicians' faces off.
 
 
Dead Megatron
21:22 / 11.02.06
Sorry to come to this thread so late, I was far from any computer this last day and a half

In DM's case, he moved to delete his original comments, making me think he could see the problem with that kind of 'joke'. The fact that he subsequently went into St Sebastiane mode in the Miserable thread made me think otherwise. I guess I'd like to be having a discussion about the degree to which this sort of thing is acceptable rather than where on the board I should be having that discussion.

I went "St Sebastiane mode" (whatever that means) before deleting the post (yeah, it was me). In fact, it was after "venting" a little (I did feel victim of "barbelithian self-righteousness" for a moment) and having a very constructive talk with Good Gracious Meme I cooled down and realized the error of my ways and thus moved to delete the post. I was not ill-intented at the joke-posting moment, I was just "un-aprecciative" of the possibility it would be offensive at all. I have a couple of gay friends who share my dark sense of humour, and they often joke about themselves in the same terms, but I should've realized that they, like me, are an exception who are prone to insensitive sense of humour. Hence, the deleting and the apologising (which I now repeat one last time: sorry, people). I hope you don't take that bad, bad moment of mine as a standart of what I am. I can be better.

Having promised not to do that kind of derogatory joke, I hope you'll find good use for the joke thread. I still like it.

I am NOT a troll. I felt really bad about what I've caused.

there
 
 
Ganesh
21:35 / 11.02.06
Okay, DM. I came back to the board much later, and found your original post deleted but the 'humourless Thought Police' ones in the Miserable thread intact - and making your sense of injustice (at me criticising your 'gay jokes' unfunny) very clear. "St Sebastiane mode" refers to what I see as your placing yourself squarely in the victim role: your life is hard, you have to brighten your day by making 'gay jokes', humourless PC facists won't even allow you that small pleasure, but instead ruin your thread, etc., etc. That's what pissed me off.

I'm delighted to hear that you have gay friends and, furthermore, that those gay friends would split their sides laughing at humour that weak. I also have friends from a variety of 'minority groups' and sometimes when we're together we too laugh at stuff that's a) not especially funny, and b) borderline-offensive. I wouldn't post that stuff here, though, and I'd advise you not to either.
 
 
Dead Megatron
22:42 / 11.02.06
btw, Our Lady, that link you've find is from a survey that's now 10 years old, and our society has changed a lot in the past decade. Brazil maybe the most rapidly changing society in the world. A Brazilian anthropologist once said we're the only people in the wolrd that's stil in its formation process. A little over a hundred years ago, we were the last openly slaver society of the planet - the 19th century Apartheid society, for comparison - but now, despite still being as racist as the planet at large, we value our black culture heritage much more than our european's, I'll tell you that)

Regardless of that, let me point a few bulshits in the text:

Brazil being a typically Latin and machismo society, males enjoy a superior, almost demigod status

Hah, I wish. Advantagous position, sure, but demigods? c'mon...

This is reinforced by the economic dependence of women. Only about 18 percent of the women are employed outside the home; the majority devote their time to caring for their house and children.

This is inaccurate. Many, if not most Brazilians work without registration or without paying taxes ("informal economy", we call it), so the working force is hardly well represented in statistics. Everybody works, after all, we are a developing nation, and every buck helps.

The majority of Caesarean section deliveries are accompanied by sterilization of the woman through tubal ligation.

This is such a huge bulshit, it falls in the same category as my now infamous joke, really.

The predominance of Christian religions has set the stage for the war against abortion, which is officially condemned as a crime. However, in most cities abortion occurs underground. For similar reasons, sexual education in the public schools is generally nonexistent.

Sexual education in the public schools is nonexistent because our public school system sucks big time. Period.

Sexual intercourse is generally initiated between the ages of 12 and 17 for men and 17 to 20 for women, again confirming a more permissive standard for men than for women.

Initiation more often than not occurs roughly at the same age, actually (12 to 17). I'm yet to see a girl over 17 who's still a virgin.

it is clear that a careful examination of the cultural context in Brazil inevitably leads to the conclusion that the health problem posed by AIDS and facing Brazilian society is potentially far more widespread and serious that has thus far been acknowledged.... Brazil is facing an epidemic disease that is potentially as devastating as the other serious public health problems that already exist there, and a combination of prejudice, short-sighted planning, and economic instability has left Brazilian society almost entirely unprepared to confront it. (Parker 1987, 169)

Actually, that never came to pass. Yes, we have AIDS and HIV-positives in here (see my first post in the Miserable thread for an example) but drug treatment os free ansd, massive awareness campaigning over the last 15 years avoided Africa-level pandemy. In fact, it was us who first decided to stop giving a damn to drug copyrigth and produce AZT and other drugs by ourselves, instead of paying obscene price to drug companies, a policy that's now being discussed world-wide.

The parts about other-than-heterosexual behaviour are pretty much right, but keep in mind our Gay Movement has done a lot (I mean, a lot) in the past decade.

that's it
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
07:28 / 12.02.06
Well, I did say I didn't know the providence of the link and so probably shouldn't have linked to it without sorting that out, but thanks for addressing it DM.
 
  

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