It never ceases to amaze and annoy me how difficult it seems for people to take a joke these days.
The second anyone opens their mouth people are there to judge it, dissect it and explain what is wrong with what the person just said.
This is mostly an internet thing of course. In real life situations, no one would dare start an argument. No no.. those kind of things are handled via tweets and facebook comments.
When people are hiding behind the shield that is their profile picture / avatar they get very brave and feel the need to assert their beliefs and ideals into any situation where they have a window to do so.
People love telling others their opinions on things.
I can get that. Of course I can.
Why the hell would I have a blog if I didn't to some degree feel the need to do that very thing?
Having said that, why do people feel the need to turn everything into a thing?
This whole rant was triggered earlier today when I made a joke about how men complain that when they have a really bad cold, it somehow surpasses the level of discomfort women feel during child-birth.
I'm not gonna re-post the whole damn thing here , since it was just a silly joke and was meant to be taken as one. Also, it was not that funny.
I can say that the point was that men who do this are just trying to big themselves up and need to stop whining.
Of course, people leaped on this and starting poking at it.
Surprise, surprise… just guys. Some of them just pointing out obvious logic gaps, some just not quite getting what I meant and one self-proclaimed mens rights activist ( yeah.. like we need those).
This was meant as a silly comment but turned into to this huge thing that actually went on for a few hours.
So this huge thing came out of a harmless bit of fun. This is not the first time this has happened to me.
Sometimes a joke is just a joke and should be treated as such. The reason why? A lot of jokes don't really work if you poke at them too much, so leave them alone!
But again, this is largely an internet thing.
You wouldn't hear this in a bar anywhere:
Man 1: So, a horse walks into a bar, orders a beer and says…
Man 2: Hang on! How did the horse learn to talk?!
Man 2: Ok, so he didn't talk he just pointed at stuff. Anyway he's sitting there drinking his beer and..
Man 2: Horses really shouldn't drink alcohol you know...
It wouldn't happen! It's just a dumb joke.
If I however were to doll it up, use a narrative that no longer obliviously makes it joke and posted it facebook, I can imagine a few people poking at it.
I can fully understand and admire trying to champion your beliefs but when we're rapidly getting to the level where we very well could find ourselves discussing the ethics of enabling the alcohol abuse of horses...
So the moral? Well, since I can't see this problem stopping any time soon it would be:
Be funny but not clever unless you want a debate on your hands.
And with that, I will leave you for this time.
Slightly feverishly yours,
Beard
