I’m in Australia, lately we have been dealing with the Queensland floods. Probably out largest natural disaster in almost 40 years. I’m not sure if Americans understand how much of our country is flooded right now but it’s a ridiculous amount.
Anyway, I made a joke about the floods on my Facebook and Twitter, some people joined in on the joke and others just said “too soon!”.
My joke wasn’t about missing or dead or displaced people. I have family members who were displaced because of this tragedy.
The joke I made was just a reference to the footage of wild waters throwing cars around like they were toys, and i believe the line was “Well it looks like [water park’s] expansion is going ahead nicely.”
My Mum told me that these jokes are ok if you’ve been personally affected. and you’re using the humour to deal with it, but i disagree. If something is funny, it is funny.
For instance, I am gay, and when I came out to one of my best friends (and the funniest person I know) he said “So no more making gay jokes?” and I replied with “Only if they’re funny”.
The point I’m trying to make is that, people have a natural tendency to shy away from topics because they think “ohh you can’t laugh at that!” before even looking at the humour.
Why is it wrong to tell x-joke today with the right audience, but it’s ok to tell it in a year?
People have this ability to think “Oh [event] happened yesterday, that joke isn’t funny today…now it is!”
And if something isn’t funny, it isn’t funny, and frankly your joke seems pretty weak to me. I’m not offended by it because this flood really has nothing to do with my life or that of anyone I’ve ever even met, but it doesn’t strike me as being funny either. There’s no reason other than shock value for anyone to find it particularly amusing, and if you’re going to make a joke that rests on the shock value involved in making fun of a recent disaster then you should expect that some people are going to find it offensive. Or to put it another way, if people are telling you “too soon!” then your joke wasn’t actually funny – not to them, at least. Someone else might find it very funny, but different people have different tastes so it should be no surprise that the same joke gets a different reaction with a different audience.
In a year or two this joke would seem less shocking, and therefore be less likely to offend. Of course, it’s also less likely to amuse in a year or two, because without the shock value this joke doesn’t have much going for it. I mean, if you told the same joke about a photo from the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 then you’d be lucky to get a polite chuckle.
There is no such thing as “too soon” for humor - most good comedians read the news religiously to keep topical and up to date.
The fine line is to make sure the joke is really funny, especially when dealing with any sort of topic that has even a hint of a serious (loss of life) aspect.
Watch any American late night talk show host’s monologues. Rarely will they even mention some horrible bit of news (wars, murders, natural disasters), let alone joke about it.
When Katrina hit New Orleans, nobody made a joke of it for a long time.
Then, of course, they had a field day with Bush jokes, FEMA jokes, etc. - but only after the shock and horror had turned into the political mudslinging.
In comedy clubs or in more private situations, people can say what they want - and it depends on the audience if they will find the dark humor funny. I have even heard a fiew great zingers at funerals.
It’s the audience and the situation, not the joke. At a comedy show people expect to hear jokes, including ones they may consider tasteless. At a funeral, it’s a lot tougher to gauge the crowd.
Right. I didn’t even know it was raining in Australia, so I’m certainly not offended by **The Jay’s **joke. On the other hand, it’s genuinely not funny.
It’s got to be funny AND you have to know your audience. If you put a tasteless joke on Facebook and Twitter you can’t predict who will see your joke and therefore you fail the “know your audience” part of the equation. The solution is to save your more tasteless jokes for private situations with people you know will get it.
Personally I think your joke wasn’t particularly tasteless but it also wasn’t very funny either. IMO it is the style of joke that is better used as a throw away line in person so you can gauge your reaction and move the conversation on if you don’t get the laughs.
Right; even a tasteless “way too soon” joke can be funny, but it needs to incorporate something a little more “on-point” than “gosh it’s wet!” The water-park expansion is actually a pretty good start, at least for people nearby, but even without the associated disaster, it’s no more than a yuk-yuk. I would have gone with a Noah joke, or maybe “Somebody tell Screen Queensland that Evan Almighty came out in 2007!”
I dunno, without all the build up and explanation of the OP, I can see getting a chuckle out of that. I live for off the cuff, “too soon” jokes though. I’m all for tasteless humor (as long as it’s funny; stupid jokes are stupid).
Sick jokes about a disaster usually start appearing within a week or two. They’re often part of the coping mechanism. But that sort of joke is best shared one-on-one with someone you know; the more people who see it, the more likely someone will be offended.
I recall hearing and retelling space shuttle Challenger jokes within a day of the accident (I was 21, but admittedly still pretty immature). I remember watching and rewatching the video of the accident, and just being numb. (They showed it over and over for about a week, then had about a 3-year moratorium.)
Examples:
Why do they have Sprite in NASA’s soda machines?
Because they couldn’t get 7 UP.
What color were Christa McAuliffe’s eyes?
Blue. One blew this way <— and one blew that way -->
What does the acronym NASA stand for?
Need another seven astronauts.
I think the jokes helped me deal with the shock of what really happened. Then, when they showed the videos of it again the last week of December 1989 (end of the 80s coverage), I appropriately cried, knowing what it meant.
I went through the flood, and I observed that if the person was involved, it was perfectly fine.
I drove past a park, and i told my mum and her boyfriend. hey look! small family park (yes, it’s actually called that. we can’t decide if it’s meant for a small family, or named after a family with the surname small) is now, small family water park. totally fine.
A girl on facebook mentioned that our mayor promised a new swim centre, and it’s come early. it was fine.
A guy, who lives outside of the area, said something about boating down queen street. he got his guts ripped out. (not literally.)
A mate of mine (In Queensland) e-mailed me that the water outside was waste deep and rising, and that his wife just stood silently staring through the window, hour after hour.
He said that if she kept doing it he’d let her in after a few more hours.
IME, there’s no such thing as a “too soon” joke. We’ve joked about a suicide attempt and family member deaths on the same day as those events and they were still funny.