Joke Taboos January 8, 2014 6:59 PM Subscribe

Can Mefites explain why MetaFilter as a whole seems to consider e.g. Chris Christie fat jokes morally unacceptable but Rob Ford crack cocaine jokes are funny fun times? I'm somehow guessing a "imagine all the donuts Chris Christie is gonna eat when he wins the Presidency" wouldn't be considered Mefi-funny, but I don't see what underlying moral principle is at work here.
posted by crayz to Etiquette/Policy at 6:59 PM (253 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite

Well as a part-time comedian I can explain: Chris Christie is just fat. Rob Ford is a drug-addicted maniac fascist liar. The funny part there isn't the drugs. Also fat jokes are boring. HTH
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:02 PM on January 8, 2014 [21 favorites]

FWIW Rob Ford fat jokes are kind of frowned upon also.
posted by payoto at 7:06 PM on January 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

Chris Christie seems to be a food-addicted asshole bully who "asserts a physical dominance over" others. Seems fair play.
posted by crayz at 7:06 PM on January 8, 2014

I don't know that Metafilter as a whole dislikes fat jokes. But I wish it did.
posted by box at 7:07 PM on January 8, 2014 [29 favorites]

Could you please mention that you made a joke in that thread that basically seemed to be making fun of the people who asked that people not make fat jokes and we deleted that comment and now you seem to be here not 15 minutes later?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:08 PM on January 8, 2014 [102 favorites]

Canadians are inherently funny.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:08 PM on January 8, 2014 [10 favorites]

Rob Ford fat jokes are kind of frowned upon also.

To clarify, my question was about obesity vs. drug addiction jokes, not Christie vs. Ford jokes
posted by crayz at 7:09 PM on January 8, 2014

It seems kind of like one of the comments you linked to was from one person, and the other comment was from a different person entirely. This may help to explain the apparent inconsistency. Thanks and have a good night!
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 7:10 PM on January 8, 2014 [20 favorites]

It's unacceptable that a mayor smokes crack. It really is, and the fact that Ford smokes crack and binge drinks indicates that he does not make good decisions and is therefore unfit for office.

Chris Christie is obese. There are a lot of obese people.

I'm fat and I don't really care if you call me fat, but I do cringe at the fat jokes in both Christie and Rob Ford threads.

It's like you take off your critical thinking cap and just go back to junior high school or something. Not really funny.

The fat jokes also point out why some people love Rob Ford, by the way. Because it all looks like a bunch of bullying of a guy who does not fit in.
posted by KokuRyu at 7:11 PM on January 8, 2014 [27 favorites]

By the way all, I made a joke in that thread that was making fun of the incongruity between MeFis tolerance of fat vs. drug jokes and the moderators deleted that comment and I seem to be here not 15 minutes later.
posted by crayz at 7:11 PM on January 8, 2014 [27 favorites]

Rob Ford's crack smoking was the scandal. It is one of many reasons he is a shitty mayor.

Chris Christie's weight is irrelevant.

It's not complicated.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:12 PM on January 8, 2014 [58 favorites]

There are more people on MeFi who are abose than people who smoke crack. Abosity is personal. Crack is abstract and far away.
posted by Nomyte at 7:13 PM on January 8, 2014 [7 favorites]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around how obesity and crack addiction are even remotely comparable.
posted by sparklemotion at 7:14 PM on January 8, 2014 [31 favorites]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around how obesity and crack addiction are even remotely comparable.

They're both the result of genetically-influenced ongoing personal choices about what to put in your body which have deleterious physical and mental effects?
posted by crayz at 7:17 PM on January 8, 2014 [9 favorites]

Can Mefites explain why MetaFilter as a whole seems to consider e.g. Chris Christie fat jokes morally unacceptable but Rob Ford crack cocaine jokes are funny fun times?

Castigating an elected official for their behaviour while on the public payroll is a far cry from fat-shaming. If you can't see that I am kind of surprised.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:18 PM on January 8, 2014 [19 favorites]

Taking drugs is illegal and a moral issue. A person's appearance is not a moral issue. You cannot assume that a person engages in specific behaviours that you might consider immoral just because of their appearance. Sure, it might be statistically more common for fat people to overeat and not exercise* than it is for skinny people to do so (although even that gets debated), but making jokes based on that is as awful as making jokes about someone being a criminal because they are black, just because the prison population is mostly black.

And the reason why morality is relevant is because making fun of the bad guys is less frowned on than making fun of the good guys.

---
* and many people would say it's not your business whether others eat well and exercise anyway.
posted by lollusc at 7:19 PM on January 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

They're both the result of genetically-influenced ongoing personal choices about what to put in your body which have deleterious physical and mental effects?

That sounds more like an argument for not making fun of addiction than it does like an argument for making fun of fat people.
posted by box at 7:19 PM on January 8, 2014 [27 favorites]

Chocolate Pickle: "Canadians are inherently funny."

What about New Jerseyans?
posted by octothorpe at 7:19 PM on January 8, 2014

(I'm not saying Chris Christie is one of the good guys either, of course. But making jokes about his appearance suggests that is the reason you think he is bad, which is the problem)
posted by lollusc at 7:23 PM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Here we go again.
posted by zarq at 7:25 PM on January 8, 2014

If that's what you think, then why did you make two nasty comments about Christie's weight?

Err? Unless I'm missing something, one comment was an analogy to a Ford crack joke, which was for the purpose of making a point, and the other was a fairly objective description of Christie. Was "food-addicted" the problem? Because that seems descriptive. Is food addiction not something we believe in on MetaFilter? But drug addiction yes? Or is it that Rob Ford is a drug addict because we have evidence that he's used drugs at least a couple times, but Christie we just have no information either way.
posted by crayz at 7:26 PM on January 8, 2014

Was "food-addicted" the problem? Because that seems descriptive.

you may be unaware but there are many causes of obesity
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:27 PM on January 8, 2014 [14 favorites]

You seem to have some unconventional definitions of 'addiction', crayz.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:27 PM on January 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

Also, everyone is addicted to food, in that if you stop consuming it, you will go through severe withdrawal and then die.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 7:28 PM on January 8, 2014 [59 favorites]

Also, everyone is addicted to food, in that if you stop consuming it, you will go through severe withdrawal and then die.

How can something required for life be addictive?
posted by crayz at 7:29 PM on January 8, 2014

Hell, I food up, like, 3 times a day! I can't go more than a few hours without my food hit! It's practically the first thing I do in the morning. Every morning!
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:29 PM on January 8, 2014 [35 favorites]

LEGALIZE IT
posted by tonycpsu at 7:30 PM on January 8, 2014 [33 favorites]

Here we go again.

Not really. Most people were being totally reasonable in this Christie thread, a thread which was not centrally about Christie's weight. A few people started making food/fat jokes, a few people asked them to stop, crayz made a meta-joke which we deleted, and here we are. This thread is mostly fine. The other one was not.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:31 PM on January 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

I think addiction jokes are pretty shitty, so I don't really make them I guess? But weight, unlike documented drug use, is not a behaviour, although it intersects with behaviour - it's a physical trait. One by which people make assumptions about a person's behaviour, and then attribute moral value judgments to those assumed behaviours. Marking people out for stigma and ridicule because of the way they look, and their presumed behaviours, is just as shitty as making fun of someone's addiction, even though they are not equivalent.

The food addiction hypothesis is somewhat controversial, yes. Food is an a priori requirement for survival in a way that no drug is. A lot of the "food addiction" phenomena described, both in research and anecdotally, have already been described and understood quite well in the eating disorders literature. Why the concept of "food addiction" would be reified and privileged over that of "eating disorders" is probably a mostly political argument.
posted by Ouisch at 7:32 PM on January 8, 2014 [7 favorites]

Also, having been to multiple countries where approximately 0% of the population is anywhere near as obese as Christie, I have a tough time squaring that with the argument that we just have no idea regarding the causality here.
posted by crayz at 7:34 PM on January 8, 2014

Yeah, so as a fat person, I'll be leaving now because I deal with stigma and stereotyping every day and I really don't need an extra dose of it in this weird thread. Enjoy yourself.
posted by Ouisch at 7:36 PM on January 8, 2014 [21 favorites]

They're both the result of genetically-influenced ongoing personal choices about what to put in your body which have deleterious physical and mental effects?

Do you even know what crack cocaine is, or is it something you have heard about through "rap music" or something?
posted by KokuRyu at 7:36 PM on January 8, 2014 [11 favorites]

the idea that we just have no idea regarding the causality here

Again, there are many possible causalities. I was already chubby, but I'm on medication that has packed on about 15 pounds I had gotten rid of. plz to be showing me my food addiction kthx

The point being, you don't know if Christie has a genetic condition, is on weight-retaining medication, has some other kind of medical issue, has a poor metabolism, or just eats too much of the wrong stuff.

You are conflating the moral judgement heaped on an elected official who has been proven to be a liar, a bully, and an addict (the last one not being a moral failing, but a failure in judgement. One prefers one's elected officials to show good judgement), and because there are maybe possibly some surface resemblances, and moral judgement because someone is fat.

The thing is, one of those criticisms is valid. Why? Because Christie's weight has no bearing on his ability to do his job. Rob Ford's poor judgement, however, has an enormous bearing.

One is behaviour, over which one has choices, one is appearance, over which in many ways one does not. How do you not understand the difference?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:39 PM on January 8, 2014 [12 favorites]

I'm confused - are you arguing that we should be deleting crack addict jokes or that we *shouldn't* be deleting fat jokes? Sarcasm is a bad technique with which to make this sort of point.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 7:39 PM on January 8, 2014 [19 favorites]

Also, having been to multiple countries where approximately 0% of the population is anywhere near as obese as Christie

Oh, you're one of those guys. Can't you go back to ranting about fat American women on some mail order bride site instead? Don't you have anything better to do with your life than complain about how unfair it is that people won't like you if you make fat jokes?
posted by cairdeas at 7:42 PM on January 8, 2014 [66 favorites]

Do you even know what crack cocaine is, or is it something you have heard about through "rap music" or something?

Yes, I have used cocaine on about 5 occasions and crack cocaine is a smokable form which does not differ appreciably in its effects (more their intensity and duration) or dependency issues. It's a stimulant drug of which I am not a fan, but I have known many social cocaine users who suffer far fewer physical/mental effects than people who are morbidly obese, which is now strongly implicated in causing early-onset dementia/Alzheimer's. Both are choices.

I'm confused - are you arguing that we should be deleting crack addict jokes or that we *shouldn't* be deleting fat jokes?

I think MeFi should relax about most jokes as long as they're funny, but some consistency would at least make sense.
posted by crayz at 7:48 PM on January 8, 2014

crayz seems to have lost appetite for the fight he provoked, and has probably buggered off to one of the imaginary countries he uses to support his internet arguments
posted by KokuRyu at 7:49 PM on January 8, 2014 [6 favorites]

seems

This is the most important word in any sentence it appears in.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:49 PM on January 8, 2014 [14 favorites]

Oops, looks like you're back from Oompa Loompa land. And you say you have smoked crack. Anything else you have done? Tracked down a Yeti? Boarded a flying saucer?
posted by KokuRyu at 7:50 PM on January 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

please be defining the word "funny" in general, and then delineate how the definition is different from needlessly being mean?

(and "I don't intend it to be mean" is not a valid answer to part 2)
posted by edgeways at 7:52 PM on January 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

I think MeFi should relax about most jokes as long as they're funny, but some consistency would at least make sense.

Metafilter is run based on the standards of the existing community, and those standards seem to be, at this point, that fat jokes aren't particularly funny and are in fact often offensive. The same standards don't seem to apply to Rob-Ford-smokes-crack jokes. You are welcome to disagree and flag accordingly.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 7:53 PM on January 8, 2014 [18 favorites]

crack cocaine is a smokable form which does not differ appreciably in its effects (more their intensity and duration) or dependency issues.

Uhhhhh... yes. Yes it does differ. Considerably.

I think MeFi should relax about most jokes as long as they're funny, but some consistency would at least make sense.

There is consistency:

OKAY: mocking someone for things which directly impact their ability to do their job

NOT OKAY: mocking someone for things which have nothing to do with that ability
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:53 PM on January 8, 2014 [13 favorites]

Yes, I have used cocaine on about 5 occasions and crack cocaine is a smokable form which does not differ appreciably in its effects (more their intensity and duration) or dependency issues.

You are very wrong about this. It might be worth checking the other myriad assumptions you have made.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:56 PM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Indeed. He says he's done cocaine, and that crack is no different. Which as I understand it is proof that he knows not a fucking thing about crack.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:56 PM on January 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

Metafilter is run based on the standards of the existing community, and those standards seem to be, at this point, that fat jokes aren't particularly funny and are in fact often offensive. The same standards don't seem to apply to Rob-Ford-smokes-crack jokes.

Yes, that was my observation as well. I felt it worth raising the question of why. Given how personally everyone is taking it, I am guessing one of the two types of jokes hits closer to home.

Uhhhhh... yes. Yes it does differ. Considerably.

Or not
posted by crayz at 7:56 PM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Given how personally everyone is taking it, I am guessing one of the two types of jokes hits closer to home.

What the actual fuck?

Are you not reading anything we're writing here?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:57 PM on January 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

Chris Christie seems to be a food-addicted asshole bully who "asserts a physical dominance over" others. Seems fair play.

Why? Because he's the "wrong" kind of fat person, and therefore it's cool to make fat jokes about him? Come on. Use your brain.
posted by rtha at 7:59 PM on January 8, 2014 [10 favorites]

I think there's certainly an argument to be made that the stigma of crack, specifically, has racist and classist roots and that people making jokes should take this into account. That doesn't make a sitting mayor doing illegal drugs and being otherwise wacky comparable to a sitting governor being, like a significant percentage of his constituency and indeed the country, overweight.

Claiming that two unrelated things should be moderated the same way is an argument that never makes any sense to me at all, especially here.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 8:00 PM on January 8, 2014 [25 favorites]

Are you not reading anything we're writing here?

He's reading it fine. Implying people don't like your fat jokes because they must be fat is just Trollery 101.
posted by cairdeas at 8:02 PM on January 8, 2014 [21 favorites]

I think MeFi should relax about most jokes as long as they're funny, but some consistency would at least make sense.

"Funny" is one the most subjective and hard to agree on standards out there. I mean, my extended family can't even agree on if "Duck Soup" is funny. Heck, I can't even agree with myself if some things are funny from day to day.

If you want consistency, you're going to have to look at something other than funny.
posted by Gygesringtone at 8:02 PM on January 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

Both are choices.

Whether Christie is obese by choice or not is irrelevant. People don't like fat jokes because they are basically ad hominem attacks.

I felt it worth raising the question of why.

OK but then you should actually stick around and consider the discussion that follows; people are trying to give their perspectives on the question you raised and it really seems like you are not listening in good faith.
posted by payoto at 8:03 PM on January 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

I am guessing one of the two types of jokes hits closer to home.

Ad hominem! I feel like we need Fallacy Man to step in here.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 8:03 PM on January 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

I think there's certainly an argument to be made that the stigma of crack ...

Well, this is my basic point that the underlying action/effects differ far less than the perspective - that the foreignness of crack and the familiarity of obesity makes one good for jokes and the other a topic where people take the utmost offense. This thread seems to be proving that point, what with the yetis and "what the actual fuck"s and all.
posted by crayz at 8:04 PM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Can't you go back to ranting about fat American women on some mail order bride site instead?

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, cairdeas has a conversation.

Also, while we're piling on crayz for saying "addicted to food," I'm sure everyone here believes that "disordered eating" is a real medical entity.

I don't know if I'm with crayz or not in general, but I'm with his idea: either both kinds of hurf-durf jokes are moral, or neither one is. Not "we only make these jokes at bad people's expense," not "we have a double standard because of how our community norms are." Either in or out. Rob Ford may be a bad person on many metrics, but not because of what he does to his own body, or how much he eats, or what he looks like, or whatever else.
posted by Nomyte at 8:06 PM on January 8, 2014 [15 favorites]

that the foreignness of crack and the familiarity of obesity makes one good for jokes and the other a topic where people take the utmost offense.

Except, again, not.

Rob Ford's drug use directly impacts his ability to do the job for which he was elected. It is behaviour.

Chris Cristie's weight is irrelevant to his job.

Do you understand this distinction?

hat with the yetis and "what the actual fuck"s and all.

Dude, in the midst of a thread where people are telling you why fat jokes are frowned upon, you essentially said "Well you're just sensitive because you're fat."

I mean A+ for trollery but come the fuck on.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:08 PM on January 8, 2014 [26 favorites]

Rob Ford may be a bad person on many metrics, but not because of what he does to his own body

What Rob Ford does to his own body on the taxpayer's time is absolutely relevant. In a more general sense, his addiction issues and subsequent awful attempts at coverups speak to poor judgement. Which, again, is somewhat relevant to his position as an elected official.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:10 PM on January 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

Rob Ford's drug use directly impacts his ability to do the job for which he was elected. It is behaviour.

Last comment: has Rob Ford ever tried to carry out his duties as mayor while high?
posted by Nomyte at 8:11 PM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think MeFi should relax about most jokes as long as they're funny, but some consistency would at least make sense.

We already do this. Crack smoking mayors in Canada are funny. Fat people are not funny.

The consistency comes from both of those things being always true.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 8:12 PM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Last comment: has Rob Ford ever tried to carry out his duties as mayor while high?

Mayoral duties, like those of a police officer or fireman, do not follow a set schedule. If a person cannot accept that, they should not take the job.
posted by Quonab at 8:13 PM on January 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

I don't know if I'm with crayz or not in general, but I'm with his idea: either both kinds of hurf-durf jokes are moral, or neither one is.

crayz is arguing that the behavior (crack-smoking) of one person is the same as the physical appearance (fat) of another person, and so both kinds of jokes are okay because they are about the same thing. I submit that they are not.

crayz further seems to think that because Christie is an asshole (I and many others agree), his fatness is somehow relevant and so it's okay to make fun of that, to which I say: what.
posted by rtha at 8:13 PM on January 8, 2014 [19 favorites]

Last comment: has Rob Ford ever tried to carry out his duties as mayor while high?

We have no idea, and we will have no idea, but the likelihood is high. He has been drunk on duty, that is without question. He also used employees funded from the public purse to cover up his crack usage.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:14 PM on January 8, 2014 [6 favorites]

Last comment: has Rob Ford ever tried to carry out his duties as mayor while high?

Yeah. And he has done all of other degrading things while on the job as well.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:14 PM on January 8, 2014

Rob Ford's drug use directly impacts his ability to do the job for which he was elected.

You do admit that morbid obesity has an enormous range of serious health effects which directly and negatively impact one's physical and mental life and effect one's ability to carry out a great many tasks?
posted by crayz at 8:16 PM on January 8, 2014

You do admit that morbid obesity has an enormous range of serious health effects which directly and negatively impact one's physical and mental life and effect one's ability to carry out a great many tasks?

Are you claiming that fat people are less competent than thinner people? That appears to be what you are saying.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 8:18 PM on January 8, 2014 [25 favorites]

Why are you trying so hard to justify telling fat jokes?

They're frowned on here. That kind of seems to be the end of the story.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:19 PM on January 8, 2014 [6 favorites]

Dude, in the midst of a thread where people are telling you why fat jokes are frowned upon, you essentially said "Well you're just sensitive because you're fat."

Oh shit I'm really sorry, I didn't realize all those offensive personal attacks that were posted before I made that comment were made by time travelers offended by my future comment who then traveled back in time to attack me. You are correct, I started this whole thing.
posted by crayz at 8:19 PM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Also, while we're piling on crayz for saying "addicted to food," I'm sure everyone here believes that "disordered eating" is a real medical entity.

Obesity is not always about being "addicted to food." It's a syndrome. There are other causes, such as metabolic disorder, illness, hormonal imbalance, genetics, diet (not exactly overeating, but eating the wrong food), side effects from medication, and even changes in gut flora.

As for Rob Ford, he certainly can choose to step down because he is a crack addict. But he chooses not to do so. Smoking crack has put him in all sorts of unsavoury situations, dealing with gangsters, thieves, and, allegedly, murderers.

At Kentucky Fried Chicken you're spending, what? Twenty bucks for a bucket. Smoke crack and you are offering $20,000 to buy back the tape.

Is that someone you want running your city?
posted by KokuRyu at 8:20 PM on January 8, 2014 [6 favorites]

You do admit that morbid obesity has an enormous range of serious health effects which directly and negatively impact one's physical and mental life and effect one's ability to carry out a great many tasks?

Stop this. This is not the thread to grind this axe.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:20 PM on January 8, 2014 [23 favorites]

What the hell are you talking about?

I'm not talking about other people. I'm talking about your behaviour in this thread. To wit:

Dude, in the midst of a thread where people are telling you why fat jokes are frowned upon, you essentially said "Well you're just sensitive because you're fat."

Do you not understand why that is problematic at best?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:21 PM on January 8, 2014

Stop this. This is not the thread to grind this axe.

For some reason, when I picture jessamyn saying this, she is in the mines of Moria, bellowing it at a Balrog.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 8:21 PM on January 8, 2014 [32 favorites]

YOU SHALL NOT AXE
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:23 PM on January 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

She will return later as Jessamyn the White.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:23 PM on January 8, 2014 [13 favorites]

YOU... SHALL NOT... "FAT ASS"!!!
posted by softlord at 8:23 PM on January 8, 2014 [5 favorites]

You do admit that morbid obesity has an enormous range of serious health effects which directly and negatively impact one's physical and mental life and effect one's ability to carry out a great many tasks?

This is some bullshit right here. Stop trying to find excuses why you should get to make fat jokes here. You don't.
posted by rtha at 8:25 PM on January 8, 2014 [21 favorites]

Is there evidence that Ford is, in fact, an "addict" and not just a massively irresponsible sometime-user? If I believed Ford was an actual addict, I think I'd feel less OK about making fun of his lapses.
posted by tyllwin at 8:27 PM on January 8, 2014 [9 favorites]

She will return later as Jessamyn the White.

Carrying the elf-forged sword Bandring, also known as the ~~Foe~~ Ban Hammer. It glows in the presence of spam.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 8:27 PM on January 8, 2014 [26 favorites]

Is there evidence that Ford is, in fact, an "addict" and not just a massively irresponsible sometime-user?

To booze, yeah it seems pretty incontrovertible. Crack, who knows.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:28 PM on January 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

well i see 2014 is off to a wonderful start
posted by elizardbits at 8:33 PM on January 8, 2014 [32 favorites]

And I'm all out of popcorn.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 8:36 PM on January 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

I have maple syrup lollipops which are an acceptable popcorn substitute
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:38 PM on January 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

I have met Chris on several (4?) occasions and I know well several of his childhood/lifelong friends from Livingston. He makes fat jokes himself for whatever that is worth. He did when I was hanging out with him. He is also very concerned about his weight and is taking steps to address it including having a band placed on his stomach. He is very concerned about the burden his weight and health place on his family.

I doubt any of that is relevant to the discussion above, but I thought I would add it for the record.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:40 PM on January 8, 2014 [9 favorites]

Not really. Most people were being totally reasonable in this Christie thread, a thread which was not centrally about Christie's weight. A few people started making food/fat jokes, a few people asked them to stop, crayz made a meta-joke which we deleted, and here we are. This thread is mostly fine. The other one was not.

From your perspective as a mod, I'm sure they do look dissimilar. And there's nothing wrong with that.

But from my perspective as a user of this site, they're not much different except by degrees. Several people took advantage of the fact that Chris Christie, (an obese and controversial person,) was in the news again, and decided to show off what ignoramuses they were about people who are overweight and obesity in general while trotting out tired old tropes about all fat people lacking self-control, etc. It's sad, really. Fat shaming is one of the last acceptable prejudices in modern society.

Feel free to disagree with me here, but I think the problem is not the degree to which the jokes and ignorance are perpetuated. Rather, it's that they're being made at all, out of ignorance or nastiness. And when called out on it, the subject of this post's predictably defensive reaction is to ignore explanations and double down on a "silenced all my life / the moderation here is inconsistent" stance. Just like Mr. "Sinewy Man Beauty" in the other thread.

I appreciate that Team Mod clamped down in the thread. I flagged crayz's comment myself. But once again, we're having the same discussion, except with another member (or members) of the site. Depressing.
posted by zarq at 8:41 PM on January 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

The difference between Chris Christie and Rob Ford is that Chris Christie never stood up in front of the nation and claimed he wasn't fat.

If Christie were asked about his weight and repeatedly denied he was overweight, that might be a legitimate topic for humor. But, like, he's fat, he knows it, he had surgery for it, and he has repeatedly and comprehensively addressed questions about his weight's impact on his health and ability to govern.

If your point is just that fat people are stupid and should be mocked, well, you suck. But if you really want to know why Rob Ford using crack deserves mockery but Christie's weight doesn't, that's a big part of it.

I don't see jokes about regular-Joe crack users on metafilter, so the actual issue here can't be crack jokes vs. fat jokes; it either must be that you don't understand the difference between these two politicians, or that you're just disgruntled when people think your jokes aren't funny.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:44 PM on January 8, 2014 [58 favorites]

or that you're just disgruntled when people think your jokes aren't funny.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:48 PM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

'Phat' jokes are still ok though, ya?
posted by mazola at 8:48 PM on January 8, 2014

crayz: "Well, this is my basic point that the underlying action/effects differ far less than the perspective - that the foreignness of crack and the familiarity of obesity makes one good for jokes and the other a topic where people take the utmost offense. This thread seems to be proving that point, what with the yetis and "what the actual fuck"s and all."

The thread seems to be proving the point that most people think that you are drawing some rather odd conclusions from the discussions that are happening.
posted by desuetude at 8:48 PM on January 8, 2014

you're just disgruntled when people think your jokes aren't funny.

Seems like an odd conclusion given that I didn't make any fat jokes, but don't let me stop your rationalizations.
posted by crayz at 8:53 PM on January 8, 2014

Seems like an odd conclusion given that I didn't make any fat jokes

Would those be the fat jokes that the mods deleted, or the attempt to insult all of us by calling us fat?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:54 PM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Would those be the fat jokes that the mods deleted

The only joke I made was already quoted in this thread, so thanks for playing the "question whose answer is no" game.
posted by crayz at 8:57 PM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

The only joke I made

Seems like an odd conclusion given that I didn't make any fat jokes

Hmm.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:59 PM on January 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

Actually I'm outta here, this was obviously a show in you being annoyed that you're not allowed to make jokes about peoples' weight, and your desperate attempts to justify why you should be allowed to. You didn't actually want a discussion here. More fool me for falling for it.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:00 PM on January 8, 2014 [7 favorites]

Maybe your feelings were hurt because you, like Rob Ford, are a recreational crack user? I can see why your nose might be out of joint. Making fun of addiction is not right at all, but we're not making fun of Ford because he is an addict; he deserves our scorn because of his lack of judgement and his ongoing criminal efforts to subvert democracy.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:01 PM on January 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

Maybe your feelings were hurt because you, like Rob Ford, are a recreational crack user? I can see why your nose might be out of joint.

Finally, another joke about drug use - this is something Metafilter can really put it's weight behind!
posted by crayz at 9:04 PM on January 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

crayz: this is something Metafilter can really put it's weight behind!

Go away.
posted by tzikeh at 9:05 PM on January 8, 2014 [51 favorites]

fwiw - my comment about twinkies was not a fat joke at christie's expense (which would be ridiculous of me to make with the width of my thighs) - i was merely stating what those in "utah and ohio" know about him - which is a pretty well publicized joke about his size and twinkies. after i saw fat jokes pop up i had wished for a do over on my comment.
posted by nadawi at 9:06 PM on January 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

You didn't actually want a discussion here.

Yeah this is pretty clear to me from the way crayz is lurking but only posts when he feels he has a gotcha that is only tangentially related to anything.
posted by payoto at 9:07 PM on January 8, 2014 [5 favorites]

If you want to see the underlying "moral principle," all you have to do is respectfully ask and listen. This is a pretty thoughtful community and many people will bend over backwards to explain themselves. If you want to play "oh I'm a matryr in a sea of hypocrites -- GOTCHA!" then just keep on making an ass out of yourself.
posted by leopard at 9:09 PM on January 8, 2014 [6 favorites]

crayz is acting exactly like they always do - there is nothing new here.
posted by nadawi at 9:09 PM on January 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

This really does seem to be going nowhere fast so I suggest the mods close it up.
posted by Rumple at 9:10 PM on January 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

Finally, another joke about drug use - this is something Metafilter can really put it's weight behind!

Congrats. You win the award for biggest tool of the day.

Can we close this up now?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:10 PM on January 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

Can we close this up now?

Please.
posted by zarq at 9:11 PM on January 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

Finally, another joke about drug use

Wait, what? I was speaking in good faith here. I don't see any joke. You smoke crack. You don't like it when people make jokes about smoking crack because it hurts your feelings.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:11 PM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I don't know. I'm kind of intrigued by the concept of crack-addicted civil servants, because there's damn little on the planet with as much ingenuity and dedication as a crackhead looking for a fresh rock. We could scientifically use these principles to get amazing things done.

"No, Mayor, you can't have another hit until you balance the budget without cutting essential services and solving our homelessness problem."

Fifteen minutes of furious math later you might just have the most beautifully balanced budget of any city in the US.
posted by loquacious at 9:12 PM on January 8, 2014 [26 favorites]

The joke crayz made was:

Can we chill with the Rob Ford crack cocaine jokes? Some of us are genetically susceptible to dopaminergic drugs and otherwise totally healthy, and I am just sick of the stigma! Now where's my crack spoon?

Which the mods took to be making fun of people who objected to fat jokes, apparently, and deleted. Some people are more susceptible to addictive substances, though. Which, ironically, may be linked to not eating enough.

I think the pile-on here is more about people getting their shots in because of personal issues with crayz than answering the question. We are okay with making fun of addiction and not with obesity. Why? The Toronto mayor being a sucky mayor who lies about his drug use explains why people don't like him and want to make jokes about him, but not specifically why making fun of his addiction (if he has one) is okay.

Crayz, short answer: a lot of people are overweight and wrongly stigmatized and tired of it. Some of them are Mefites.Other Mefites just don't like you. Now that you've made this thread they can all take out their frustration on you.
posted by misha at 9:16 PM on January 8, 2014 [19 favorites]

hal_c_on, just don't. You're not helping even a little bit.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 9:16 PM on January 8, 2014 [9 favorites]

I wasn't aware that you shove a pipe up your nose to smoke crack. Perhaps crayz is just trolling then and is not interested, as I was finally, in understanding a different perspective.

I should thank crayz because he prompted me to look up the origin of the phrase.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:18 PM on January 8, 2014

Both are choices.

As a fat man, I can assure you that given the choice between a body that runs to fat and one that doesn't, I would choose the one that doesn't.

Doubling down on an "I'm a dickhead troll" schtick, though: that really does look like a choice to me.
posted by flabdablet at 9:27 PM on January 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

Folks, if this is going to turn into a free-for-all ad hominem fest, I'm happy to close it. Is there anything else actually relating to policy or community standards to discuss?
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 9:27 PM on January 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

we could talk about jamon iberico if u want
posted by elizardbits at 9:29 PM on January 8, 2014 [6 favorites]

Is it addictive?
posted by Nomyte at 9:30 PM on January 8, 2014

I think the pile-on here is more about people getting their shots in because of personal issues with crayz than answering the question.

No. crayz wants to be able to make fat jokes, or at least to not see fat jokes deleted. We know this because he has objected to crack-smoking jokes *not* being deleted, and he sees these as being equivalent. He hasn't said that both kinds of jokes should be not-okay. He's said that because crack-smoking jokes haven't been deleted, then fat jokes shouldn't either. This is a bullshit argument.
posted by rtha at 9:30 PM on January 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

Also fat jokes are boring.

Maybe, but they certainly are easier to make when the subject is a bully and all-around ugly human being worthy of just about all derision he receives. I understand the taboo, but I could see making an exception for this one.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:30 PM on January 8, 2014

+1 for close
posted by JohnnyGunn at 9:31 PM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

+1 for close
posted by Wordshore at 10:00 PM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I don't know if he wants both deleted or neither, but either way his argument rests on the suggestion that there is an inappropriate double standard. If he can't go there in regards to the arguments for why political crack use is different, then there isn't any point to continuing, yeah.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:04 PM on January 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

"I didn't realize all those offensive personal attacks that were posted before I made that comment were made by time travelers offended by my future comment who then traveled back in time to attack me."

Offensive personal attacks? I thought your whole gripe was that that people shouldn't complain about insulting jokes if someone thinks they're funny. But if the jokes are directed at you they become "offensive personal attacks" now? Where's the consistency in that? Or are your feelings just special?
posted by cairdeas at 10:13 PM on January 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

The mayor (for now) of the truly amazing city of Toronto, where I've lived my entire life; is a lying, hypocritical, arrogant, asshole bully.
Metafilter is awesome.
This is me blowing kisses to Metafilter: mwah.
posted by chococat at 10:24 PM on January 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

Fuck up as a public figure, and all bets are off.

Personal attacks against mefites for those same reasons...uncool.

You can't really make fun of someone for having a trait without some collateral damage to other people with that trait. Stick to mocking the fuck up.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:27 PM on January 8, 2014 [13 favorites]

Can we chill with the Rob Ford crack cocaine jokes? Some of us are genetically susceptible to dopaminergic drugs and otherwise totally healthy, and I am just sick of the stigma! Now where's my crack spoon?

Wow, it's almost as if you have a tedious axe to grind about obesity, which you insist on whipping out in every thread that is even marginally related.
posted by en forme de poire at 10:29 PM on January 8, 2014 [8 favorites]

it's almost as if

OT: This phrase is starting to be a pet peeve of mine. "I think you have a tedious axe to grind..." sounds so much better to my ear.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:01 PM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I don't see what underlying moral principle is at work here.

I don't think there is one. Consider the number of folks willing to pile on you for not even making a fat joke.

I tend to think that if a community is going to be sensitive enough to discourage fat jokes, it should probably be sensitive enough to discourage drug abuse jokes, too, if for no other reason than sensitivity. But community dynamics are a weird thing. Fairness may never be accomplished.

That being said, MF is probably sensitive to a fault.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:15 PM on January 8, 2014 [9 favorites]

I don't hold with making fun of people for their drug use. Rob Ford is a major figure in Eastern Canadian politics who excused his crack smoking by saying he was blackout drunk - the whooshing sound as the point went right over his head was audible from my desk in Australia.

He's Canada's Boss Tweed, and his arrogance is what's at stake here - we're making fun not of a guy with a drug or alcohol problem, but of a guy who thinks he's so electable he can get away with anything. He thinks he's untouchable, beyond "dead girl/live boy" territory. We're mocking his arrogance, and the crack use is just a shorthand.
posted by gingerest at 11:15 PM on January 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

"I think you have a tedious axe to grind..."

Sure, that works.
posted by en forme de poire at 11:47 PM on January 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

Mean people suck.
posted by Golden Eternity at 11:51 PM on January 8, 2014 [7 favorites]

The fat jokes are stupid because I wouldn't say them out loud - say at a party. I also wouldn't make a joke about someone being a crack-head (or a junkie) for the same reason.

There's a presumption of superiority in both jokes (I stand here, with you, and we look down on that group over there and their whacky antics), where the subject of the joke is already powerless (to a greater or lesser extent) and that's kind of just shitty and lame.

Now picking on people with divergent political views, we are all on the same level. (Except, of course that the 'other' in this case are all fucking morons, amIrite?) Actually, over the last couple years I've started to think the 'other' are not firing on all cylinders and those jokes are less fun.

I never thought about the distinction before, why these jokes make me wince and those, laugh. So thanks this has been yet another proof that I'm getting old and soft, oh the fucking indignity.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:22 AM on January 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

So when I call Ford a fat lying mayor a or Blagojevich a lying, thieving lawyer...am I being offensive to fat people or lawyers? Offensive in that the reasonable person sees it as a fat joke or a lawyer joke.

When you imply someone is a liar because they are fat, or a thief because they are a lawyer, then yes. It's no different then calling someone 'just another lazy Mexican' - you are implying that all Mexicans are lazy. You are condemning the subject not for their actions but for one of their attributes, and by extension you condemn all that share that attribute.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 1:11 AM on January 9, 2014 [9 favorites]

Seriously, if you mainly just want to have a fight here, please reconsider. If you think Mefites aren't reasonable, why are you asking "sincerely" about anything? We've left the thread open this long in case people want to weigh in about this and discuss productively. It's not an invitation to randomly insult people.
posted by taz (staff) at 1:36 AM on January 9, 2014

I've not been comfortable with the crack stuff with Ford for reasons that are difficult to articulate, but have something to do with contrasting the tone of this commentary with that regarding Marion Barry.

And I'm sort of split, ambivalent, on how on one hand I'm pretty tired of the double-standards and inconsistencies about what intoxicants people use in their private lives, with politicians I don't really care unless it's affecting their public service (in which case, I'm more concerned about Ford's alcohol use) and, on the other hand, the simple practical truth that doing crack is going to be perceived as being way beyond the pale, right or wrong, and what that tells you about a politician who does it, anyway. So, I don't know. The one thing that is indisputable is that Ford is a trainwreck of a mayor and, generally, deserves both mockery and some pity.

All in all, I'm not happy about joking about Ford doing crack and I'm even more uncomfortable with mocking him as "an addict". And I'm definitely opposed to fat jokes. (Also: news flash! Lots of us who don't like fat jokes aren't fat. For fuck's sake. Bonus: I'm opposed to racism and I'm white. Wow!)

One big hint that perhaps you ought to re-examine your life choices is when you find yourself spending time and energy arguing that people are being unfair in preventing you from being even more mocking and cruel than you already are.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:38 AM on January 9, 2014 [39 favorites]

Given how personally everyone is taking it, I am guessing one of the two types of jokes hits closer to home.

As a lifelong rail-thin person who has never used illegal drugs, I'd just like to take a moment to say that I personally find your behavior in this thread to be quite terrible and trollish. Perhaps you might eventually give this feedback some thoughtful consideration, since it comes from someone who (from your perspective) likely has no axe to grind on this particular topic.
posted by davejay at 1:40 AM on January 9, 2014 [9 favorites]

I think this thread could have gone a lot differently if you had been more clear in articulating your problem and what would a resolution would look like

If you had said "I think the drug jokes about Ford are inappropriate considering fat jokes about Christie are offensive, and I would like them to stop", you would have had a pretty open ear.

If you had said, "There seems to be a discrepancy between the way we joke about drug addiction in Ford vs obesity in Christie, could I get a sense of how the community and mods feel about it?" You would have had a different response.

And finally, if you had said (and I think this might be closest to your feelings), "I'm a bit confused: after seeing jokes about drugs in Ford threads, why are fat jokes being deleted in the Christie thread?" People probably would have taken the time to explain in a civil manner (mind you, I feel you've burnt up a lot of credibility on site so maybe a BND would help...).

Heck some people took the time anyway. But rather, you came in with a bitterly sarcastic attitude and seemed to to act like you'd caught the website out in some great hypocrisy. It makes me think you just wanted to get a rise out of people/vent, because this is not how to have a dialogue with others you spend time with/respect in order to effect change.

Personally, I think you have a point in that I think crack jokes about Ford are also tasteless - regardless of his buffoonish stature - and that there is a huge subset of the userbase that is a) roughly 1/17th as funny as they think they are, especially when they are attempting to ape earlier, bad, jokes and b) seemingly lie in wait for threads where they can wheel out their fatigued and ossified non-sequiturs because the targets are perceived to be "safe".

Broadly, I wish people would resist making (usually poor) fun of things that can be quite serious in real life except in jokey posts that have not been deleted and concurrently stop shitting up early threads with consumptive one-liners. It's so egotistical, and the competitive element is pathetically obvious when you see a ragged phalanx of them as others join the hunt for favourites.
posted by smoke at 2:20 AM on January 9, 2014 [27 favorites]

If you'd started and ended with "I don't think the addiction jokes are appropriate," crayz, you would have had all kinds of people in your camp, and maybe they wouldn't have stopped but we probably would have just all nodded and agreed that addiction is complicated and that making jokes about it is a problematic thing. But, one, I agree that at least at this point I haven't heard anything actually suggesting that Rob Ford is an addict, just an abuser... and, two, everything about how you phrased this turned it into "fat jokes should be okay" instead of "addiction jokes shouldn't."

Because I totally agree that the addiction jokes are borderline at best--I think it's totally fair game to say that using illegal drugs on a regular basis during your tenure makes you a bad public official, but among other things there are racial implications to our public image of crack cocaine users, and substance abuse is often tied to mental health problems, and yeah. But I, too, am left with the feeling that all of this was because you're resentful that Metafilter is the sort of place that cares about being sensitive to such things, not about the particular treatment of substance-abuse-related humor.

The tendency of the population of Metafilter, on the whole, to try to figure out a social norm where people maintain some fundamental decency is exactly why I like it here.

(And I wandered off to get breakfast and come back and find smoke's basically said the same thing.)
posted by Sequence at 3:01 AM on January 9, 2014 [10 favorites]

One of my more embarrassing moments on this site, looking back, was when I made a few comments telling everyone that obesity is a health issue and we should "constructively criticise" fat people. That was about six and a half years ago though, thankfully I have learned a few things since then.
posted by knapah at 3:37 AM on January 9, 2014 [14 favorites]

The collateral damage is real for me. When a terrible person gets attacked using misogynistic language, or fat jokes, it feels like a reminder that I am always reducible to that, the minute I screw up, or the minute someone doesn't like me.

And I can totally see that current or former drug users might reasonably feel the same way. Although I do see a difference in the two situations, just in the respect that using crack and lying about it was the Rob Ford scandal, and Christie's weight isn't news.
posted by Jeanne at 3:40 AM on January 9, 2014 [21 favorites]

I think MeFi should relax about most jokes as long as they're funny, but some consistency would at least make sense.

Oh, well then, there's the problem, crayz. Your joke wasn't actually funny.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:31 AM on January 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

Crack spoon?

Crack spork!
posted by Wolof at 4:39 AM on January 9, 2014 [6 favorites]

I crack jokes, not spoons.
posted by Too-Ticky at 5:36 AM on January 9, 2014

this is something Metafilter can really put ~~it's~~ its weight behind!

sorry, that was making me twitch waaaay too much
posted by spinturtle at 5:51 AM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yes, I have used cocaine on about 5 occasions

Was one of those occasions when you started this rant?

(Q: Why does Rob Ford get brain freeze in the winter?

A: Because he keeps trying to snort up all the snow.)
posted by octobersurprise at 5:53 AM on January 9, 2014

Yeah no, this isn't the spot for more Ford, addiction, weight, or other offensive jokes either.
posted by taz (staff) at 6:00 AM on January 9, 2014 [11 favorites]

Can we chill with the Rob Ford crack cocaine jokes? Some of us are genetically susceptible to dopaminergic drugs and otherwise totally healthy, and I am just sick of the stigma! Now where's my crack spoon?

Yech. What a disgusting, bad faith comment.
posted by mediareport at 6:44 AM on January 9, 2014 [12 favorites]

Late to the thread, but, now that I have reacged the end, I see that crayz has had a platform, various people have rebutted that platform, there doesn't seem to be anything left to say, and the jokes are starting to come out, which is likely to cause a new flare-up. Can we close this up before anyone gets hurt?
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:51 AM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

...this isn't the spot...

…okay then maybe someone could come up with something really definitive, joke-wise or otherwise, to convince the OP how the idea of "MetaFilter as a whole" seeming to have one or another preference is just silly? Maybe flapjax has some stinging and hide-tanning lyrics ready.

There may occasionally be some thread-local opinion-landslides, one might even be able to show some statistically relevant site-covering biases, sure. But first it's always the single object under consideration that triggers a bunch of individual responses. If a joke leads to some "hey, not cool" responses, this simply is because the joke wasn't cool to some. If another joke gets fewer "hey not cool" reactions, maybe fewer people who potentially would find it not cool have read it, and it is even more important for the individual who finds this a problem to post a "hey not cool" response.

Anyway, quit arguing like we're a bunch of clones.
posted by Namlit at 6:57 AM on January 9, 2014

"MetaFilter as a whole" doesnt imply every single Mefite.

Anyway, its silly to tie someones sense of individuality to your love of fat jokes.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:10 AM on January 9, 2014

GenjiandProust: "Late to the thread, but, now that I have reacged the end, I see that crayz has had a platform, various people have rebutted that platform, there doesn't seem to be anything left to say, and the jokes are starting to come out, which is likely to cause a new flare-up. Can we close this up before anyone gets hurt?"

I dunno... I think, what with this being a site viewed all over the world, and how accepting we all try to be of other people's cultures and opinions, that we should maybe make it a policy that all metatalk threads stay open for at least 24hrs? Gives everyone a chance to weigh in, not just the people who happen to be in the same time zone as the poster.

Might also help quell a little of the "silenced all my life" complaints?
posted by Grither at 7:11 AM on January 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

Anyway, quit arguing like we're a bunch of clones.

We're not? Oh, wait... you said clones.

/me walks away, muttering "...clones, clones, not clowns... "
posted by Too-Ticky at 7:12 AM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

We've left the thread open this long in case people want to weigh in about this

Too soon.
posted by Reggie Knoble at 7:40 AM on January 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

I dunno... I think, what with this being a site viewed all over the world, and how accepting we all try to be of other people's cultures and opinions, that we should maybe make it a policy that all metatalk threads stay open for at least 24hrs? Gives everyone a chance to weigh in, not just the people who happen to be in the same time zone as the poster.

I appreciate that, but it's also a window for bad behavior and ill feeling to get out of hand, which is kind of too bad. It also, to a degree, encourages piling on, which also adds to the "silenced all my life" narrative.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:50 AM on January 9, 2014

It also, to a degree, encourages piling on, which also adds to the "silenced all my life" narrative.

I disagree. Poor shitty behaviour is what leads to this sort of thing starting. Aggressively poor shitty behaviour, as seen here, is what leads to piling on. And rightfully so.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:52 AM on January 9, 2014

Offensive jokes are, by design, supposed to be offensive. That's part of the fun of them, when they strike a chord. A shocked laugh is still a laugh.

But if you're telling a joke, the main aim is to make people laugh. If they don't laugh then your joke sucks (to the people who didn't laugh, obviously. There's always someone who'll laugh at a waggled finger).

Fat jokes mostly don't make me laugh because yes, I'm a fatty boombah and it's not much fun (although it's not a bloody tragedy either) but also because once the fat jokes start it's always sooo relentless. It's never just one, it's always a barrage of them.

What I find most annoying is the insinuation that if a joke isn't appreciated by the crowd then it's not because the joke sucked but because the teller's expression is being stomped on.

People aren't being hypocrites when they don't laugh at everything.

Also, read the room if you're going to tell jokes. It's important.
posted by h00py at 8:01 AM on January 9, 2014 [8 favorites]

The end.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:04 AM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

What I find most annoying is the insinuation that if a joke isn't appreciated by the crowd then it's not because the joke sucked but because the teller's expression is being stomped on.

And I hate when something was obviously meant to be a joke and people get all, "Now we must be righteous and shame this poor teller of unfunny tales for he is a bad person and needs to be told as such so that we may claim our place of moral superiority!" Sometimes a joke doesn't land because you misread the room.

I know I much prefer to hang around people that try for the jokes and fail than to hang around the people who won't try because they fear failure or because they think the joke will be inappropriate.

I remember when my mother was dying I kept making jokes (partly as a defense mechanism). People asked me, "How can you joke at a time like this?" My answer: Will being serious change things? When you are dying would you rather be surrounded with people trying to have a bit of fun or people who are black holes for fun? I know I want to go out with a smile if possible.

I've also worked around people that made gay jokes that made me uncomfortable. Same with sexists and racist crap. But everything is contextual to me. I hate the idea of blanket bans. Fat/appearance or addiction jokes are totally going to depend on the subject and circumstances. Same as the bigotry jokes.

These are lines everyone draws differently.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:59 AM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

I hate the idea of blanket bans too.
posted by h00py at 9:04 AM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

*cue dad joke*
*cue offended dad*
*cue offended aunt whose jokes are as bad but are ignored because she's a woman*
*cue shotgun sound effect*
posted by h00py at 9:07 AM on January 9, 2014

Is there a Snuggy exemption to the blanket ban?
posted by Drinky Die at 9:13 AM on January 9, 2014

Go to bed, Linda
posted by h00py at 9:13 AM on January 9, 2014

I've also worked around people that made gay jokes that made me uncomfortable. Same with sexists and racist crap. But everything is contextual to me. I hate the idea of blanket bans. Fat/appearance or addiction jokes are totally going to depend on the subject and circumstances. Same as the bigotry jokes.

Not really. Bigoted jokes are pretty much only okay when the person telling them is the recipient of said jokes. You can make fun at your own expense.

NB: I say this as someone who has a fondness for transgressive humour. I am fully aware of how problematic and sometimes outright wrong some of the jokes I tell are, and I suppose that's what you may be talking about with regards to context and reading your crowd; I do occasional work under a chef who is from Grenada, and you would not believe the insane race-based jokes we make. But they're coming from an understanding between us that in a sense we are laughing at the attitudes behind the joke. One of his favourites is "Hey how do you like that, whitey? Black man's in charge for a change!" which is, in its own way, tragically funny in that "ha ha oh wait there's a big thing here to unpack" way. Anyway I guess if that's what you mean by context I can kind of be on board with you but motivations matter, so much. crayz's motivations here are basically HURF DURF BUTTER EATER, which is not okay. And sometimes it's better to have a blanket ban because otherwise every hurf durf idiot is going to be some special snowflake who should get to make fat jokes because Reasons.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:16 AM on January 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

I remember when my mother was dying I kept making jokes (partly as a defense mechanism). People asked me, "How can you joke at a time like this?" My answer: Will being serious change things? When you are dying would you rather be surrounded with people trying to have a bit of fun or people who are black holes for fun? I know I want to go out with a smile if possible.

Well and this is challenging right? Because jokes are one of those things that don't exist in a vacuum, you have a teller and a receiver. For a joke to work, both people need to sort of agree that hey, that was funny. So in your circumstance, it's not so much that you shouldn't be telling jokes, hey people cope in different ways, but if people are telling you that you're doing it wrong, you are maybe picking the wrong audience. You're not going to go telling jokes to yourself, jokes by definition involve someone else. So while we have very few categories of "Don't do that, ever" jokes here on MeFi, we do have a few categories of "jokes that rarely go well here" because of the audience, because of the difficulties of textual communication, because people aren't as funny as they think they are, who knows.

I have a partner who occasionally can retreat into jokey jokesterism when things are difficult. That works for him and it's fine. However it doesn't work for US occasionally and it's totally okay for me to say "Hey now is not the time for jokes for me" and have that be okay. Implicit in the joke-telling scenario is "I am telling a joke to YOU" if you tell me that hey that wasn't a good joke (bad timing, not funny, you suck at jokes, whatever) then there's a disconnect and it's not just because the other person is humorless. A few people piping up on MeFi to ask "hey could we tone down the fat jokes in here?" is the system working as expected. People doubling down and antagonizing those people in response, is not. This MeTa is the system, sort of, working as expected. We expect people to be making a good faith attempt to communicate with others and this does sometimes mean that your jokes in obit threads are curtailed because a large chunk of people don't tend to think they're funny.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:16 AM on January 9, 2014 [16 favorites]

I remember when my mother was dying I kept making jokes

Me too! But if someone else whose mother was not dying was making the jokes to me? Fuck. No.
posted by rtha at 9:20 AM on January 9, 2014 [22 favorites]

Me too! But if someone else whose mother was not dying was making the jokes to me? Fuck. No.

This. Right here.

I can make gay jokes all day long because guess what, I'm an ass pirate and I'm okay with it and I'm poking fun at myself.

Some straight dude making the same jokes? Not so much.

I have a partner who occasionally can retreat into jokey jokesterism when things are difficult. That works for him and it's fine. However it doesn't work for US occasionally and it's totally okay for me to say "Hey now is not the time for jokes for me" and have that be okay.

I am your partner. Humour in stressful situations is one of my coping mechanisms. It's been really, really hard to learn how terribly, awfully, sometimes-friendship-destroyingly badly that can be taken.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:27 AM on January 9, 2014 [6 favorites]

I can make gay jokes all day long because guess what, I'm an ass pirate and I'm okay with it and I'm poking fun at myself

Well just because you're not a very good pirate doesn't mean you can insult gay people. I mean, I'm an ass at my job too, but I don't go around blaming gay folks.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 9:46 AM on January 9, 2014 [59 favorites]

Also you're probably not even that bad at piracy. I've met a lot of pirates and some of them were really, really ass. So you are probably are fairly average as pirates go - you shouldn't feel so bad about it.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 9:50 AM on January 9, 2014 [37 favorites]

VOTE #1 QUIDNUNC KID
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:52 AM on January 9, 2014 [24 favorites]

EARLY AND OFTEN!
posted by rtha at 9:54 AM on January 9, 2014 [11 favorites]

yeah i dunno i figure the quidnunc kid is a pretty laid back dude and doesn't mind if we vote late
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:55 AM on January 9, 2014 [10 favorites]

Then again, I am an 18th century British naval captain, so perhaps I have a particularly critical view of the profession of piracy in general. I mean, most of you guys are all ass to me. All that rum-drinking, the parrots, the "Ahoy, Matey!" bonhomie - honestly I can't see the attraction myself.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 9:55 AM on January 9, 2014 [6 favorites]

There is the gold, of course. I do see the attraction there.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 9:55 AM on January 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

And the below-decks sodomy - we can all enjoy that.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 9:56 AM on January 9, 2014 [5 favorites]

I'm just here for the lash.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:58 AM on January 9, 2014 [19 favorites]

Rum is good, too.
posted by rtha at 9:59 AM on January 9, 2014 [7 favorites]

What if I just want a martini, some light ass-play, and a good paddling?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:02 AM on January 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

You have to own the plank.
posted by ogooglebar at 10:02 AM on January 9, 2014

When jokes don't land, they sail.
Let's take some calls...Caller go ahead...
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:03 AM on January 9, 2014

What if I just want a martini, some light ass-play, and a good paddling?

There's a yacht rock vs. piracy joke in there somewhere. Someone else find it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:03 AM on January 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

What if I just want a martini, some light ass-play, and a good paddling?

Show up at my place on Saturday night.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:04 AM on January 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

If you were a good paddler you probably wouldn't be such an ass pirate.

This is Dateline NBC. Stay tuned.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:04 AM on January 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

Once again it all comes down to booty.
posted by The Whelk at 10:33 AM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

On the topic of untimely jokes, I was in a reflexive "your mom joke" phase when I was in my late teens (does it count as a "phase" if I'm still in it 15 years later?) and after my paternal grandmother died, I was spending a lot of time with my unbelievably jokey, but unbelievably grief-stricken dad.

One day he said something about our dishwasher being "totally hosed" and before I could stop myself, I blurted out, "yeah well I totally hosed your mommmmmmmicrowave" and he looked at me and I looked at him and he smiled and said "yeah, it's been fucked since last night" and my jaw dropped, and he continued, "something must have blown inside it" and I kind of sat down on the couch, wide-eyed, completely owned

My dad is some kind of fucking wizard

Also:
One big hint that perhaps you ought to re-examine your life choices is when you find yourself spending time and energy arguing that people are being unfair in preventing you from being even more mocking and cruel than you already are.

Ivan this is maybe the best thing I've ever read on Meta*. I hope you don't mind if I quote it in places, with attribution of course.
posted by jake at 10:43 AM on January 9, 2014 [35 favorites]

wooo, this discussion is sailing south fast!

(bring some of the rum back for me, I need it. Weather here is again like Bree at the beginning of the last Hobbit movie).
posted by Namlit at 10:45 AM on January 9, 2014

Once again it all comes down to booty.

And therefrom out, in due course. #teampoopdeck
posted by bleep-blop at 10:49 AM on January 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

Once again it all comes down to booty.

'Cause mutiny on the Bounty is what we're all about

I'm gonna board your ship and turn it on out
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:52 AM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Well just because you're not a very good pirate doesn't mean you can insult gay people.

You could just vary piracy with a little burglary.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:06 AM on January 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm Irish-American (now confirmed by DNA evidence!) and used to make quite a few drunken Irishman jokes, but they just stopped being funny to me after a while, because they were lazy and predictable and I can do better.

There's nothing inherently funny about Christie being fat, just as there is nothing inherently funny about Rob Ford using drugs. Making a fat joke about Christie presupposes that fat is funny, everybody agrees fat is funny, the fact that Christie is overweight is funny because of that, and no more work needs to be done. And that's a joke that only works if there is some sort of cruel consensus, some sort of giggling awfulness that just mocks differences and doesn't think anything else is required.

You want to make a fat joke regarding Christie? There's actually a lot of work to do if you want to make an actual joke and not simply prod people where they are meanest in order to get them to enjoy a bullying sort of humor. You have to establish why it is funny that he's overweight, and why it's uniquely funny to him, and why it's meaningful in a discussion about his (or his staff's) malfeasance.

Same with Ford. That link may be easier to make, because his drug use may have impacted his work, but it's still a tough joke to make well and an easy joke to make meanly. And, even still, even if brilliantly made, these sorts of jokes are going to intersect with unfair stereotypes and ugly prejudices, and even if it's a brilliant joke it's still going to have a whiff of the bully to it.

There's more than enough of this sort of stuff online if you like it, but it's sort of refreshing to be in a place that values humor enough to have higher standards for it.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:06 AM on January 9, 2014 [10 favorites]

Unless of course, you have been chosen by all gay people to speak on their behalf.

He was. It was the last item on the homosexual agenda.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:08 AM on January 9, 2014 [16 favorites]

there is nothing inherently funny about Rob Ford using drugs.

You know, I can entertain this in the abstract, but nothing I've seen so far has actually convinced me of it.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:13 AM on January 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

By the way, calling them "joke taboos" in your headline frames the discussion unfairly, and suggests you didn't enter this in good faith, or that you don't know the implications of the word taboo. It suggests that we avoid some joke because of some unreasoning superstition, and not because we have actually thought about the subject and decided that some jokes aren't a good fit for some contexts.

I mean, gosh, I guess I have a taboo against hurting strangers with my words in a public forum for no real reason, but I don't think it's because I'm afraid it will offend God.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:17 AM on January 9, 2014 [5 favorites]

You can make fat jokes, gay jokes or crack jokes or whatever, but you have to realize that there are some people who are going to think you are an asshole, regardless of how you self-identify (fat, gay, an imaginary crack user).
posted by KokuRyu at 11:17 AM on January 9, 2014 [13 favorites]

I don't know if I'm with crayz or not in general, but I'm with his idea: either both kinds of hurf-durf jokes are moral, or neither one is.

I think I kind of both agree and disagree with crazy on this. I do agree that the hurf-durf is all of equal moral caliber, but instead of thinking we should lighten up on the hurf-durf, I'd rather see us just not making hurf-durf jokes at all.
posted by corb at 11:18 AM on January 9, 2014

The difference, corb, is that being fat doesn't affect someone's ability to govern, but being drunk, high, and hip-deep in organized crime does.
posted by KathrynT at 11:24 AM on January 9, 2014 [6 favorites]

I do agree that the hurf-durf is all of equal moral caliber, but instead of thinking we should lighten up on the hurf-durf, I'd rather see us just not making hurf-durf jokes at all.

I think I could learn to love this sentence, but I haven't a clue what it means.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:25 AM on January 9, 2014

Bunny Ultramod: "By the way, calling them "joke taboos" in your headline frames the discussion unfairly, and suggests you didn't enter this in good faith, or that you don't know the implications of the word taboo. It suggests that we avoid some joke because of some unreasoning superstition, and not because we have actually thought about the subject and decided that some jokes aren't a good fit for some contexts."

What? No.

A taboo can be a religious custom, yes. But it can also be a social custom with no religious or spiritual implications whatsoever. In many modern human societies there are quite a few taboos that fall into the latter category. The incest taboo is a good example, which Western societies continue to enforce largely for non-religious reasons.
posted by zarq at 11:28 AM on January 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

Imaginary crack is the best kind. You can get your weird little tiny corncob pipe made out of metal and your lighter and fiddle with them all day long, playing with fire or pouring bubble liquid into it for bubbles, and no one gets into trouble until people see your weird little corncob pipe made of metal and assume you are using it for drugs instead of just bubbles. Then there is probably trouble.
posted by winna at 11:28 AM on January 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

Yes it does. Excessive fat produces excess stress hormones like cortisol. There's less stigma with being fat than being a crack head because fat people (myself included) have plenty of plausible reasons for being fat beyond making "bad choices" but the reality is, obesity largely springs up when people have access to crappy food, and make bad decisions. Often because the crappy food is cheaper than the good food, much like crack cocaine is cheaper than marriage counseling and often even marijuana.
posted by lordaych at 11:29 AM on January 9, 2014

I think I could learn to love this sentence, but I haven't a clue what it means.

In short, I have a lot of sympathy for "don't be a dick", but not a lot of sympathy for "What we really need is MORE DICKISHNESS."

..on a side note, I meant to say crayz, but my autocorrect changed it to crazy. It wasn't intentional.
posted by corb at 11:30 AM on January 9, 2014

Many obese people are absolutely affected by it, it does raise your stress level especially if it's around your waist, and there's a reason that so many "high achieving" or "high stress" fat people enjoy other vices quite a bit. I'm pushing 280 right now and I literally do have to replace my eating vices with other vices and slowly fight the vices systematically to the death to get anywhere. Rice cakes and shit won't cut it
posted by lordaych at 11:31 AM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

"Never send to know for whom the hurf durfs; it durfs for thee."
posted by octobersurprise at 11:31 AM on January 9, 2014 [7 favorites]

It was whiskey, buggery, and the lash in the U.S. Navy.

Can someone explain the difference between buggery and sodomy? I don't think I would go for either, but I like to be informed.
posted by Dr Dracator at 11:33 AM on January 9, 2014

Buggery is specifically buttsex. Sodomy also covers handjobs, rimjobs, and plain old-fashioned oral.
posted by KathrynT at 11:35 AM on January 9, 2014 [5 favorites]

Unless of course, you have been chosen by all gay people to speak on their behalf.

I will happily make gay jokes (chosen as I was on the Lesbian Ticket), but I do not make them regardless of context and audience, and if someone says hey, that's kind of ouch, actually, I will not double-down and insist that it's my right to make jokes when I know they think it's kind of ouch and they're *right here.* I will especially not justify doing this because some other person over there is making jokes that other people find ouchy.
posted by rtha at 11:35 AM on January 9, 2014 [10 favorites]

In other words, you get more bang for your buck out of sodomy. Shame it isn't "whiskey, sodomy, and cake," I'd sign right up. Never been real fond of the lash.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:38 AM on January 9, 2014

Put it this way: people who become morbidly obese (I fall into the "severely" category) are typically in a dire situation because of many reasons, and it takes a sympathetic approach to some extent to make them actually want to re-integrate with a society that judges them and make all of the sacrifices it takes to get down to a healthy level. It's a painful process. The overeating and "convenience choices" / failure to plan that lead them to this place are often coping mechanisms for the greater life they're trying to build and the attendant pain and suffering that goes into doing so.

People who smoke so much crack everyone knows about it are in a similar situation, but the stigma is so intense that usually they are far further down the line, way more in "fuck this shit" territory, not using crack as a coping mechanism but as an end in and of itself. Hell, plenty of pot heads function this way too, but there's far less stigma. The stigma is attached to race and class more than anything else. People can preach about how crack is so much more powerful than coke, but they are clueless, they don't know that people inject coke, they don't know that people smoke it on top of blunts and such without turning it into a freebase and get just as high because they're willing to waste a certain amount. They just sit there in Nancy Reagan land and and decide who gets to be judged.

I tried crack once; high quality marijuana and regular powder cocaine are immensely better IMHO
posted by lordaych at 11:39 AM on January 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

I just presume that "the lash" in this case applies to false eyelashes and mascara, and therefore by extension drag queens and / or showgirls.
posted by KathrynT at 11:39 AM on January 9, 2014 [5 favorites]

Whiskey, sidomy, and cake?

Sometimes I miss hanging out with actors
posted by The Whelk at 11:40 AM on January 9, 2014

The funny thing is, the time I tried crack (ha ha!) I actually was smoking cheap "schwag" terrible marijuana and all the crack did was enable me to stay up an extra few hours smoking cheap "schwag" marijuana, which normally burns you out after awhile and makes your head feel like it's full of butt-silicone-juice that has spread into your every synaptic cleft.

As in "GO TO SLEEP, YOUR BRAIN IS UNHAPPY WITH YOU."

The crack just made it easier to be a "delinquent" in a hotel room after a Christmas Party getting "potted up." I couldn't feel shit often than being alert, so I asked the guy "what gives, where's that once you try crack you'll never stop rush?" and he says "well if you smoke it with weed you probably won't notice it as much." I was like "wut."
posted by lordaych at 11:43 AM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Shame it isn't "whiskey, sodomy, and cake," I'd sign right up.

Have you ever considered the Church of England?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:50 AM on January 9, 2014 [27 favorites]

Also, final thing, the guy who offered me the crack asked me if I'd ever "smoked cocaine." There was a such stigma -- duh, this was my breakthrough moment thought after growing up in a crack neighborhood and going to a school where everyone called each other "crack head" and "crack baby" and yet never seeing it in the open save for the random crackpipes everywhere until I was grown-up, living in a white-bread neighborhood, but working in a bad Martin Scorcese movie ripoff company where half of the employees were high, dealing, fucking in an office, or selling excellent homemade burritos to stave the munchies.

He refused to call it crack, even as I watched him prepare some with baking soda before my eyes. So I tried to get him to admit it was crack by dancing around it for a bit and calling it "freebase cocaine" (not "freebasing" mind you), then I realized I was basically trying to make him feel bad for no reason and the final time I raised his eyebrows was when I pointed out that my weed seemed to be smothering any euphoric rush I was supposed to be getting.

Later on I had access to ridiculously high quality powder and "snowcapping" a bowl of marijuana did bring on an intense rush, but it was of the "whoa, don't fuck around with that too much" pounding chest variety. And it wasn't crack, just Cocaine HCl.
posted by lordaych at 11:51 AM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Buggery is specifically buttsex. Sodomy also covers handjobs, rimjobs, and plain old-fashioned oral.

The More You Know ☆彡
posted by Elementary Penguin at 12:16 PM on January 9, 2014 [25 favorites]

I once heard a talk from a historian who studied the early U.S. navy. He compared it with the British navy of the time. One big difference was corn whiskey rather than rum. It was whiskey, buggery, and the lash in the U.S. Navy.

May I take this opportunity of emphasizing that there is no cannibalism in the British Navy? Absolutely none. And, when I say "none," I mean there is a certain amount, more than we are prepared to admit, but all new ratings are warned that if they wake up in the morning and find any toothmarks at all, anywhere on their bodies, they're to tell me immediately so that I can immediately take every measure to hush the whole thing up. And, finally, necrophilia is right out.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:21 PM on January 9, 2014 [9 favorites]

I couldn't disagree with you more.
Unless of course, you have been chosen by all gay people to speak on their behalf.

You aren't the only gay person in the world, and jokes you make (despite you being gay) about being gay may still be offensive to other gay people.

So yeah, being part of the group does not give you some kind of free pass.

You're welcome to disagree, but rtha said it better:

I will happily make gay jokes (chosen as I was on the Lesbian Ticket), but I do not make them regardless of context and audience

Don't tell me how I'm allowed to live my experience as a queer man, k? If you're queer, maybe we can have a discussion about if and where and when queer jokes are problematic when told by, to, and for queer people. If you are not a queer person, you really have no right whatsoever to tell me what I am and am not allowed to say as a queer person.

Is that clear?

So maybe we need not justify why its ok to make one type of joke and not another.

Maybe you need to understand that a joke about someone's weight which has no bearing on their ability to perform their elected office, and a joke about someone's behaviour which has urgent and immediate bearing on their ability to perform their elected office, are two very different things and, like most things that are different, need to be treated differently.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:25 PM on January 9, 2014

As a sometimes overweight gay guy who has smoked crack, I feel like I should have more to offer to this thread than 'everybody should quit being an asshole' but I guess I'm just too overqualified to give anything more than that.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:36 PM on January 9, 2014 [41 favorites]

Bigoted jokes are pretty much only okay when the person telling them is the recipient of said jokes. You can make fun at your own expense.

The qualifier there is "pretty much." I can't watch Lisa Lampanelli. Her humor makes me wince, but the targets of her humor love her.

Anyway I guess if that's what you mean by context I can kind of be on board with you but motivations matter, so much.

Yeah, this is exactly what I am talking about. I've worked around gay people that tell gay jokes at their own expense, and sometimes they have straight friends that feel free to make such jokes as well, since they have that kind of relationship. It still makes me incredibly uncomfortable. Same thing happens when I am around some of my hispanic or black friends. They make race jokes or use racially charged words I would never use, and I want to crawl away someplace and cringe. A lot of times it's because I have no idea how to act when people are doing this. I end up feeling like some sort of unhip square.

Sometimes it also makes me sad, since occasionally when someone does it I can tell they are aiming the kind of comments they get from others at themselves, sort of a preemptive self-harm (fat people making fat jokes, women making sexist comments about women, etc.).

I also know often this is my damage.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:44 PM on January 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yeah, MCMN, you're right. I was much more of a dick there than hal_c_on deserved.

I'm sorry, hal_c_on. If you could read that comment and just mentally dial it back from a 9 to about a 3? Sorry.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:45 PM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Bigoted jokes are pretty much only okay when the person telling them is the recipient of said jokes. You can make fun at your own expense.

Yeah, sure, look how well that turned out for Dave Chapelle
posted by KokuRyu at 1:05 PM on January 9, 2014

Speaking of hilarious Canadians...
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:07 PM on January 9, 2014

Have you ever considered the Church of England?

I thought we were supposed to close our eyes and think of England.
posted by Melismata at 1:07 PM on January 9, 2014

I thought we were supposed to close our eyes and think of England.

The original ritual formulation, in actuality, was to close one's eyes and drink of England. This is still found to be an efficacious approach to managing the experience of consciousness for people of all nationalities.
posted by clockzero at 1:33 PM on January 9, 2014

To me, there is a big difference between jokes that go:

"Chris Christie is funny because he's fat! Donuts! XXXL Fleeces! LOL"

and

"Rob Ford is acting crazy and using illegal drugs, and he's in public office!"
posted by inertia at 1:34 PM on January 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

It's not RT, it's Russia Today.
posted by KokuRyu at 1:38 PM on January 9, 2014

Speaking of hilarious Canadians...

That says a lot more about the journalistic integrity of Russia Today than anything else. Hellyer is an established crackpot who hasn't had a presence in Canadian politics for 40 years.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:02 PM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

1984 or so, before any one was calling crack crack, people were doing something with cocaine and baking soda using blowtorches and metal pipes. I tried one hit at a party and fell down and set the curtains on fire. They could not get the blowtorch turned off or out of my hands until I regained consciousness and then the hardwood floor was on fire. Good times.

Never did that again.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 2:12 PM on January 9, 2014 [9 favorites]

1984 or so, before any one was calling crack crack, people were doing something with cocaine and baking soda using blowtorches and metal pipes.

"And then there's this thing called freebasing. It's not free, it costs you your house. It should be called homebasing."--Robin Williams
posted by Melismata at 2:14 PM on January 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

The act of smoking a drug freebase. "Freebase" refers to the non-salt form of a drug. Drugs are usually converted to a water soluble salt so that they can be orally or intranasally consumed. The term "freebase" has nothing at all to do with the purity or potency of a drug.

I'm guessing people with high blood pressure or kidney problems should stay away from drugs.
posted by KokuRyu at 2:34 PM on January 9, 2014

If it *bends*, it's funny.

If it *breaks*, it's not funny.
posted by mazola at 3:03 PM on January 9, 2014

its what?
posted by Namlit at 3:30 PM on January 9, 2014

Control your calorie intake and your need for recreational drugs so you can run instead of waddle or lurch for office?
posted by Cranberry at 4:21 PM on January 9, 2014

X All black people are murderous gangsters
X All gay men are pedophiles
X All fat people are hurf durf butter eaters
√ All people who act like assholes are assholes
posted by double block and bleed at 4:42 PM on January 9, 2014 [5 favorites]

Never did that again.
posted by Mr. Yuck

Sounds about right.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:43 PM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Mazola is talking about penises?
posted by Mr. Yuck at 5:07 PM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think MeFi should relax about most jokes as long as they're funny, but some consistency would at least make sense.

I don't find myself disagreeing with this, in principle. The big problem is, of course, that almost nobody agrees on what is and isn't funny in terms of jokes, and what is and is not fair game for joking about.

Still, we muddle through somehow, and hope that our jocular sallies do not offend, or at least do not offend most.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:08 PM on January 9, 2014

Excessive fat produces excess stress hormones like cortisol.

You've got it wrong. Cortisol isn't a hormone that results in stress, it's a hormone secreted (in part) in response to stress. Moreover, cortisol is secreted by the fasciculata cells of the cortex of the adrenal gland (hence the name) in a process regulated by adrenocorticotropic hormone, in turn regulated by the hypothalamus and anterior pituitary.

In the periphery, steroid hormone secretion is pretty much limited to conversion of dehydroepiandosterone (DHEA) to androgens and estrogens.

There *is* evidence that the mechanisms controlling mineralocorticoids (which control fluid volume and thus blood pressure) and glucocorticoids (which control mobilization of energy stores) respond to changes in circulating fatty acid levels, which are in turn altered by lipid deposition patterns, but it's nowhere near as simple as "fat makes you hormone-mad and unfit to govern."
posted by gingerest at 5:15 PM on January 9, 2014 [21 favorites]

I'm sorry, but I don't understand how anyone could think this is a worthwhile thread or that it was posted in good faith at all. crayz's response after jessamyns first post just strikes me as snarky teenager BS.

What is the point here? Seems like "another boring episode of the X show"

The entire premise of this thread reminds me of arguments i'd get into with some derailing asshole on much crappier websites than this that would go like

Me or someone else: Hey, don't joke about X, that's fucked up and not funny

Them: Well if you're seriously going to tell me not to joke about X why is it ok if people joke about CompletelyUnrelatedY?

Me: But that's completely unrelated and not comparable for X Y and Z reasons!

And then the entire thing is a fuckmess of them basically going BUT IS IT REALLY? JUST ASKING QUESTIONS LOL THINK FOR YOURSELF.

And then they levitate like a yogi and float away on a cloud of their own ass fumes and smug having stuck it to teh man.

Within 5 posts it was pretty case closed as to why these weren't equivalent.
posted by emptythought at 6:21 PM on January 9, 2014 [14 favorites]

Thats all I'm saying. If you speak as a queer man, no doubt there will be some who will be offended by your jokes involving queer men.

Perhaps. But I hope you see how problematic it is for someone who is (presumably) not queer to police actions between queer people?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:22 PM on January 9, 2014

Pretty sure you should go back and review that "lesbian ticket" part again, fffm.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 6:28 PM on January 9, 2014

Pretty sure that was two different people, one of whom is queer, talking.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:37 PM on January 9, 2014

Ugh hit post too soon again why why why

Point being, for a non-queer person to police what queer people say about themselves and to each other is prima facie problematic. Wouldn't you agree?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:37 PM on January 9, 2014

I made this FPP and plenty of people of all sexual orientations said that this queer artist is not making the right jokes.
posted by Nomyte at 6:49 PM on January 9, 2014

Okay. How does that invalidate my point?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:05 PM on January 9, 2014

Can Mefites explain why MetaFilter as a whole seems to consider e.g. Chris Christie fat jokes morally unacceptable but Rob Ford crack cocaine jokes are funny fun times?

This is the only bit of this thread I have read but my immediate reaction is: jokes about fat people generally hinge on the premise that being fat is somehow a moral failing, and in this context, a moral failing on the same level as being a crack-smoking dickbadger.

I once did a sideways-standing high-five with my supervisor from a few jobs back that turned into a half-handshake and resulted in us literally just standing there holdings hands for like four seconds.
posted by turbid dahlia at 7:28 PM on January 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

Pretty sure that fffm and I are in agreement on the whens and hows of queers telling queer jokes. If people are reading us as being opposition, let me say that I do not feel we are.
posted by rtha at 7:33 PM on January 9, 2014

Also, since the Ladies Against Humanity fpp is in my recent activity, I feel like the main point of both these threads is know your audience.
posted by rtha at 8:03 PM on January 9, 2014

I once did a sideways-standing high-five with my supervisor from a few jobs back that turned into a half-handshake and resulted in us literally just standing there holdings hands for like four seconds.

This is awkwardly adorable.
posted by en forme de poire at 8:25 PM on January 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

Pretty sure that fffm and I are in agreement on the whens and hows of queers telling queer jokes.

If your position is "Hey, let us tell our own jokes about ourselves to each other and to other people, and if you are not one of us you might want to check why you think it's okay to tell us what we're allowed to say, and we're cognizant of our audience" then yeah, we're on the same page. Which is to say I'm pretty certain we're on very very much the same page.

(In the same vein, if you decide to make jokes about women I don't really have any right to police you for that.)
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:28 PM on January 9, 2014

I really hate fat jokes, partly for purely selfish reasons.

Once upon a time, I had an eating disorder. Most of the time I think I'm cured, and I mostly am, but my eating disorder still lurks somewhere in me. I experience it as a persistent, nasty voice in my head, a running commentary that tells me that my corporeal existence is shameful and disgusting. It tells me that I humiliate myself every time anyone sees me, just by existing in such a grotesque body. It tells me that my body is the physical manifestation of everything about me that is horrible and unworthy of love. It tells me that if I'm really not lazy and pathetic and gross, I should prove it to myself and everyone else by fixing my body. I don't hear that voice very often these days, but when someone makes a joke at the expense of fat people, sometimes it appears out of nowhere and hisses "they're talking about you." I know that the idea of triggers is probably very trendy and tumblr and SJW, but anti-fat comments really are a trigger for me. It's just kind of a bummer to be reading a discussion of some random political scandal and suddenly be confronted with my nasty eating disorder voice informing me that I'm physically repulsive.

I get that I can't demand that the world be totally modified for my personal comfort, and I don't think that I'll ever convince people that nobody should ever make a fat joke. But if you want to know who they hurt, then I'll offer myself as an example of a person who is hurt by them. And if joking about Rob Ford's crack use triggers similar feelings in people with addiction issues, then I'm personally more than willing to stop making that kind of joke. I'm sure there are many other ways to make fun of Rob Ford.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:36 PM on January 9, 2014 [22 favorites]

I think the missing context from fffm's initial comment was that there are jokes that, e.g., would be really problematic coming from a hetero dude but not as much from a gay dude -- not that it's never problematic for a gay person to make gay jokes.

Farmer Brown she had a dog and Bingo was her name-o.

I know that the idea of triggers is probably very trendy and tumblr and SJW

No, it's just been co-opted into "everything is a trigger" by that crowd. The idea of triggering events is absolutely part of the lingua franca of mental illness. It exists and don't devalue your experience of triggering actions because the Tumblr/SJW crowd will call absolutely fucking anything a trigger without the merest thought.

And if joking about Rob Ford's crack use triggers similar feelings in people with addiction issues, then I'm personally more than willing to stop making that kind of joke. I'm sure there are many other ways to make fun of Rob Ford.

You have an important point there that I, at least, need to think about. I would like to respond to it now but I don't think I would do so as thoughtfully as it deserves, and please forgive me if my Swiss cheese brain doesn't remember to. But I do promise I will think about it.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:46 PM on January 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

Also, one need not admit to being a fatty...its visible.

Orson Welles memorably said, "Gluttony is not a secret vice."
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:12 PM on January 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

I might be misremembering, but I believe Harlan Ellison wrote about Orson Welles on a talk show sitting next to someone who constantly made fat jokes to Welles face. Welles, in response, said it had taken long, long years to come to terms with it, and something much more witty than I can remember about how it would likely take the joke teller as long a time to come to terms with the fact that he wasn't remotely funny, and in fact, was a huge asshole.

Just because it evidently hasn't been said enough for people to understand it, fat people aren't unaware that they are fat. Pointing out to someone that they are, indeed, fat is never, never going to result in the fat person being shocked and suddenly realizing they aren't skinny. They're just going to be made to feel like shit for the nth time that day, and you're going to reconfirm that you're an insensitive asshole. So just fucking stop.
posted by Ghidorah at 9:58 PM on January 9, 2014 [16 favorites]

We're at 270+ comments and have made zero progress but generated lots and lots of ill will. I enjoy a good trainwreck as much as the next rubbernecker, but oughtn't we put this thread out of its misery?
posted by Scientist at 10:33 PM on January 9, 2014

We're at 270+ comments and have made zero progress but generated lots and lots of ill will.

Personally, and I won't speak for anyone else here, I don't feel ill will for anyone (except maybe crayz, but that's pity really), and have learned a few things here. But I don't disagree with your conclusion.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:37 PM on January 9, 2014

In other words, you get more bang for your buck out of sodomy.

YMMV.
posted by Pudhoho at 11:15 PM on January 9, 2014

It's "butt," not "buck." People seem to misremember this expression all the time.
posted by Nomyte at 2:01 AM on January 10, 2014 [7 favorites]

Okeedokes, folks, we've had a lot of requests to close, and I think this has been open long enough for everyone to offer their thoughts on the original question... plus, the mod handbook says to try to close every thread on a good butt joke, so.
posted by taz (staff) at 3:27 AM on January 10, 2014 [12 favorites]

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