Tuesday, April 18, 2006

The Fine Art of Making Fun of People

One should always tread carefully when making fun of phenomenons and occurrences, choosing topics that do not offend anyone present since people tend to see an assault on their opinion as a direct attack on their ego. Hence the term ‘to make fun of people’ when you, de facto, are making fun of the things they like.

It would not be smart of me to ridicule all the emo kids of the Blogger and LiveJournal communities by e.g. posting a picture like this:

Nor would it be very wise on my part to ironically muse over the fancy words and expressions my esteemed brother, Mr. J.R. Libel, uses in his educational treatises. It would be safer to instead thank Wikipedia for its existence and help with the understanding of said treatises (thank you, Wikipedia).

Ridiculing in general is a good way to establish common ground in budding relationships or reestablish standpoints already existing ones, but mistakes can prove to be fatal. Talk to a nu metal fan and casually remark that Linkin Park, Slipknot, Limp Bizkit etc. are… Well, let’s not go there. We all already know that nu metal is a blight upon the musical carpet of this world, just like boy bands, Christian metal and MTV.

Ahem. It truly is a delicate thing to not insult potential readers but I’m just separating the grain from the chaff here. Now that we have gotten rid of the unwanted part of the Internet we can continue: If one is successful in bashing a topic everyone listening dislikes laughter will emerge to the joy of everyone involved. And the chance of getting laid increases significantly.

It takes skill to not step on anybody’s toes in large groups so ridiculing is best left for a small circle of listeners, but one should always be mindful of signs that your peers disagree. If someone is looking uncomfortable it’s best to navigate to a safer topic. Like religion, for example. Or one could just get new friends with more sensible views, a better sense of humor and a bit more distance to themselves.

3 Comments:

Blogger LizFwiz had the audacity to say...

Finally, someone who knows how to slit their wrists correctly. You should post this in the ER so when the fools come in that have crossed the street, they can go up the road before loggin in to triage.

03:54  
Blogger J.R. Libel had the audacity to say...

It would certainly not. :)
When doing such things one must walk on a razor's edge (pun intended).
And by the way: You as well as I know that this would turn into a contest on who uses the fanciest words. Nice post though *cough*

08:55  
Blogger J.P. Reed had the audacity to say...

That's a splendid idea, lizfwiz. There are lots of tax money to be saved by proper education.

Yes, honored brother, I guess we both knew that from the start.
And I thank thee for the compliment.

15:21  

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