On the "Grinding Buttons and Pushing Axes" panel, briefly

[mrissa]

We forgot to discuss an important time when extremely overt message is fine:

When it's really funny.

This is the same principle as when we were sitting in the college cafeteria howling with laughter (on dozens of occasions), and somebody would manage to gasp out, "That's really mean." And somebody else would say, "Yah, but it's funny." And on we'd go.

Really funny doesn't excuse everything. But on the flip side, really funny doesn't have room for everything within it, either. A simple-minded "you suck you suck you suck" is hardly ever really funny.

Okay, back to it.

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

This sounds like part of what you're thinking of is the "I was only joking!" defense. Which I find quite annoying, and do not accept. I find some hurtful things funny, but if I make (or laugh at, at least publicly) those, I have to own the hurt.

I *can* find something funny and be offended by it at the same time. I think it tells me something about values when I hit those occasions.