Your thoughts on humor when it comes to offensive/ traumatic things?

[seliph]

To be honest, nobody is going to be able to convince me rape culture in America doesn't exist when only a few years back during the Steubenville rape case - after the boys in the question had gone around and undressed, violated, and photographed the girl without her permission, there were countless people complaining about how people were "ruining these boys' future" while completely disregarding the girl.

The bolded text. That's rape culture in a nutshell.

Didn't that girl end up killing herself too? Or was that something different

 

[That Zephyr Guy]

Didn't that girl end up killing herself too? Or was that something different

No that's the one.

Edit: Wait I'm an idiot I misread this. It was a different one.

 

[Buttonsy]

I think humor is a great coping mechanism, but I think that something actually has to happen to you for you to need to cope with it.

I don't think people should make jokes about mental illnesses they've never had, traumatic events they've never faced. I would never judge someone for how they choose to cope with their traumatic experiences as long as it doesn't hurt others, but I think it goes way too far when you get totally mentally healthy people making jokes about being so OCD or about how "psychotic" other people are despite not having OCD or a psychotic disorder, or about child abuse when they haven't experienced it, gay jokes when they aren't gay, or the list goes on.

There is a difference between using humor to cope with things you've actually experienced, and turning other peoples lives and experiences into jokes.

A big example is that I hear a lot of white people make racist jokes, and you really can't claim that a white person is using racist jokes to cope with societies anti-blackness. Or that a man making a misogynistic joke is trying to cope with misogyny.

So I agree that using humor as a coping mechanism is okay, but you have to actually be able to justify it as a coping mechanism and not just being offensive for offensiveness sake.

 

[LethalLulu]

I think humor is a great coping mechanism, but I think that something actually has to happen to you for you to need to cope with it.

I don't think people should make jokes about mental illnesses they've never had, traumatic events they've never faced. I would never judge someone for how they choose to cope with their traumatic experiences as long as it doesn't hurt others, but I think it goes way too far when you get totally mentally healthy people making jokes about being so OCD or about how "psychotic" other people are despite not having OCD or a psychotic disorder, or about child abuse when they haven't experienced it, gay jokes when they aren't gay, or the list goes on.

There is a difference between using humor to cope with things you've actually experienced, and using other peoples real life traumatic experiences as humor.

From a personal perspective, I hate that. One pet peeve of mine is things like people saying they're crazy when they haven't experienced psychosis, or anything like that. Also the idea of making mental illness "trendy", like detailed in this video:

Spoiler: Video

Sorry for the long video, but it has a handful of good points.

Certain things should not be said simply because it desensitizes it. Like saying jokingly to your friend "I'm gonna kill myself lol" because some stupid thing happened. I absolutely hate suicide being used in such a light context like this. It's not a joke, and should be taken seriously in every context. Even if one of my friends uses it as humor to cope, I still get extremely worried, and always talk to them about it.

 

[Buttonsy]

From a personal perspective, I hate that. One pet peeve of mine is things like people saying they're crazy when they haven't experienced psychosis, or anything like that. Also the idea of making mental illness "trendy", like detailed in this video:

Spoiler: Video

Sorry for the long video, but it has a handful of good points.

Certain things should not be said simply because it desensitizes it. Like saying jokingly to your friend "I'm gonna kill myself lol" because some stupid thing happened. I absolutely hate suicide being used in such a light context like this. It's not a joke, and should be taken seriously in every context. Even if one of my friends uses it as humor to cope, I still get extremely worried, and always talk to them about it.

Just watched the video. I've seen it in my recommendations a few times but this is the first time I sat down to watch it.

I honestly have really mixed feelings on the "mental illness fashion trend", as a pretty severely mentally ill and developmentally disabled person myself.

I guess my big problem is that most of these items aren't actually marketed to mentally ill people. They are marketed to people who want to use mental illness to be edgy, but not actually mentally ill people. The kind of people who say they are OCD because they like to clean things or depressed because their plans got canceled or whatnot.

But as a mentally ill person, I also feel like, growing up with mental illnesses, it feels like everything is taken seriously, and when you are a kid, you don't want to be serious. I've actually considered buying one of those social anxiety necklaces, as someone who does have such social anxiety that I often get close to crying if I have to order food at a restaurant or answer literally any question that's not a yes or no question. Because mental illness means that even childhood has to become a serious thing not to be joked about, and I dislike that. I have a very pretty patch that says Autistic on it in cursive, which I bought because I am actually Autistic. But I also feel like, if a popular company made something like that, rather than the tiny Etsy store I bought it from, it would become trendy for non-Autistic people to wear those all the time, to make jokes like "I'm so awkward, I'm pratically Autistic" or something. And that's where my real issue is: I don't feel ashamed about being Autistic and mentally ill, and so I don't feel the need to hide it, and I would be okay wearing a shirt that talks about how I'm Autistic or have social anxiety/depression/eating problems/etc, but these types of items are obviously marketed as being for non-mentally ill people, not the people who actually have these mental illnesses.

IDK, some thoughts I had.

 

[LethalLulu]

Just watched the video. I've seen it in my recommendations a few times but this is the first time I sat down to watch it.

I honestly have really mixed feelings on the "mental illness fashion trend", as a pretty severely mentally ill and developmentally disabled person myself.

I guess my big problem is that most of these items aren't actually marketed to mentally ill people. They are marketed to people who want to use mental illness to be edgy, but not actually mentally ill people. The kind of people who say they are OCD because they like to clean things or depressed because their plans got canceled or whatnot.

But as a mentally ill person, I also feel like, growing up with mental illnesses, it feels like everything is taken seriously, and when you are a kid, you don't want to be serious. I've actually considered buying one of those social anxiety necklaces, as someone who does have such social anxiety that I often get close to crying if I have to order food at a restaurant or answer literally any question that's not a yes or no question. Because mental illness means that even childhood has to become a serious thing not to be joked about, and I dislike that. I have a very pretty patch that says Autistic on it in cursive, which I bought because I am actually Autistic. But I also feel like, if a popular company made something like that, rather than the tiny Etsy store I bought it from, it would become trendy for non-Autistic people to wear those all the time, to make jokes like "I'm so awkward, I'm pratically Autistic" or something. And that's where my real issue is: I don't feel ashamed about being Autistic and mentally ill, and so I don't feel the need to hide it, and I would be okay wearing a shirt that talks about how I'm Autistic or have social anxiety/depression/eating problems/etc, but these types of items are obviously marketed as being for non-mentally ill people, not the people who actually have these mental illnesses.

IDK, some thoughts I had.

"They are marketed to people who want to use mental illness to be edgy, but not actually mentally ill people."
That's the issue. I hate that mentality. It's not cool, and it's not funny.
I can't stand it when people say "oh I have OCD because of some minor thing", and other things. I actually had a friend who had OCD, but a huge portion of the time her illness wasn't taken seriously because "oh it's just another girl just SAYING she has it" or "it's nothing, it just means she's a clean freak". It promotes the wrong thing when misinformation gets spread.

I can understand that, and that's how you cope, which is totally fine. I cope with my depression with humor, for example. Humor and video games are two of my biggest coping mechanisms. Video games actually help a lot with delusions and reality problems. I don't feel ashamed about my mental illness either, and that's good that you're not. It's just the issue that mental illness is not taken seriously by a number of people because of misinformation being spread around, and desensitization to the seriousness of them.

 

[Red Cat]

I think when someone says something that comes off as offensive to some people, we usually give way too much credit to that person for being racist, sexist, etc. We try to analyze the far-reaching effects of someone's stupid joke as if everyone listens to it and is influenced by it. Usually when someone says a joke that's offensive, it's not like that person was thinking really hard about a joke that would hurt people or encourage people to commit crimes against others. Usually, it's the opposite: that person wasn't really thinking at all and just said something off the top of his or her head because that person was trying to be funny and couldn't think of a real joke; so that person fishes for some dumb stereotype in an effort to make a punch-line. If someone makes a bad joke about a sensitive issue, that person is not an evil genius; (s)he is just an idiot.

 

[radical6]

I cope by making jokes of my abuse because its funny lol
Obviously I wouldnt make rape/molestion/CSA jokes in front of strangers but I do it with my friends because to me i've gotten over it and its just a funny thing in the past for me now, nothing more.

I also have like, 9 suicide attempts under my belt so suicide jokes are funny to me too.

 

[visibleghost]

I think humor is a great coping mechanism, but I think that something actually has to happen to you for you to need to cope with it.

I don't think people should make jokes about mental illnesses they've never had, traumatic events they've never faced. I would never judge someone for how they choose to cope with their traumatic experiences as long as it doesn't hurt others, but I think it goes way too far when you get totally mentally healthy people making jokes about being so OCD or about how "psychotic" other people are despite not having OCD or a psychotic disorder, or about child abuse when they haven't experienced it, gay jokes when they aren't gay, or the list goes on.

There is a difference between using humor to cope with things you've actually experienced, and turning other peoples lives and experiences into jokes.

A big example is that I hear a lot of white people make racist jokes, and you really can't claim that a white person is using racist jokes to cope with societies anti-blackness. Or that a man making a misogynistic joke is trying to cope with misogyny.

So I agree that using humor as a coping mechanism is okay, but you have to actually be able to justify it as a coping mechanism and not just being offensive for offensiveness sake.

i completely agree! and in my opinion, when ppl say "oh i'm so totally autistic" when they're allistic is just offensive and ableist, and doesn't help actually autistic ppl. but autistic ppl get to joke like that because well, for us it's coping, but for them it's mocking autistic people.

 

[Alienfish]

i completely agree! and in my opinion, when ppl say "oh i'm so totally autistic" when they're allistic is just offensive and ableist, and doesn't help actually autistic ppl. but autistic ppl get to joke like that because well, for us it's coping, but for them it's mocking autistic people.

Yeah or jokingly blaming their actions on whatever disease when they don't really have it or something. Some of us actually do stuff sometimes because we don't function that good socially :/

 

[Sanaki]

well I tend to laugh at some things I shouldn't but I do know where the line is on such things

rape jokes aren't funny to me

while I'm white and find white jokes funny.