Most fucked up subject matter you have or would joke about?

Is there anything that could never be the subject of humor?

  • Comedians can joke about anything. Civilians should leave it to the professionals.

  • Anyone can joke about anything-- You can judge the result but no topic is off-limits.

  • There are some subjects and situations that nobody should joke about.


Results are only viewable after voting.

Rembrandt Brown

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23:48-25:37


99% of us are not comedians but the issue of humor and boundaries is universal.

For instance, I think this was a good joke for 2015:

Breaking News: Two children found inside freezer in east Detroit apartment
So cold in the D...

But not everyone did:
You are the biggest piece of shit faggot on here. Can't wait til you get banned and have to pay another ten dollars to come back. Faggot white devil cac
Come on, man. That's not right. :hmm:
These are kids!

Would I make that joke at the kids' funeral? Probably not. But I'm not so sure that making an impersonal joke online about it makes someone a big piece of shit, let alone the biggest.

To take a thread from this weekend: "Father fatally punched 5-year-old boy, upset that he ate his Father’s Day cake." What a remarkably fucked up situation. Obviously terrible. But I guarantee the premise could be used to craft a good joke.
 

23:48-25:37


99% of us are not comedians but the issue of humor and boundaries is universal.

For instance, I think this was a good joke for 2015:

Breaking News: Two children found inside freezer in east Detroit apartment

But not everyone did:



Would I make that joke at the kids' funeral? Probably not. But I'm not so sure that making an impersonal joke online about it makes someone a big piece of shit, let alone the biggest.

To take a thread from this weekend: "Father fatally punched 5-year-old boy, upset that he ate his Father’s Day cake." What a remarkably fucked up situation. Obviously terrible. But I guarantee the premise could be used to craft a good joke.

The measure of a mans Character is not what he does when he can be seen...( like at a funeral)...its what he does when he can't be seen..(like making jokes about dead babies on the internet)..
 
The measure of a mans Character is not what he does when he can be seen...( like at a funeral)...its what he does when he can't be seen..(like making jokes about dead babies on the internet)..

Touché.

The joke quoted in the OP is not about dead babies, though! The subject of the joke was the application of the song title. The song was constantly used to mock Detroit and that's the only reason it works.

You really think internet jokes are a reflection of character, though? I think the difference is that making the joke at a funeral has a high likelihood of being hurtful, whereas making it online is just ephemeral and for sport.
 
What I always say is this: "You can make a joke about anything, but the laugh better be greater than the offense generated."

Basically, people can be offended by anything. Even mundane stuff. But the average joke offsets that for most of the people.

When you start to drift into controversial/hot-button topics is when it starts to get tricky. If you're going to drop a Holocaust or dead baby or whatever joke, then that joke better be witty, catchy, or outright funny enough to offset the potential offense that someone might feel. Location, audience, and delivery can all be contributing factors, but in this day and age, you have to know that your stuff is going to get out to other places through social media and might face scrutiny you weren't planning on dealing with.

So at the end of the day, yeah, you can joke about almost anything, but it's very often not worth the risk to push some boundaries.
 
What I always say is this: "You can make a joke about anything, but the laugh better be greater than the offense generated."

Basically, people can be offended by anything. Even mundane stuff. But the average joke offsets that for most of the people.

When you start to drift into controversial/hot-button topics is when it starts to get tricky. If you're going to drop a Holocaust or dead baby or whatever joke, then that joke better be witty, catchy, or outright funny enough to offset the potential offense that someone might feel. Location, audience, and delivery can all be contributing factors, but in this day and age, you have to know that your stuff is going to get out to other places through social media and might face scrutiny you weren't planning on dealing with.

So at the end of the day, yeah, you can joke about almost anything, but it's very often not worth the risk to push some boundaries.
This was my thinking when I was writing morning show material, and believe me, me and the other writer went some places!
 
I think some things should be off limits. That being said, I did write a joke that ended up getting a guy fired from his radio gig.

This was my thinking when I was writing morning show material, and believe me, me and the other writer went some places!

I am game to read any specific examples you are willing to share. Your first post in particular is begging for a "Go on..."
 
I am game to read any specific examples you are willing to share. Your first post in particular is begging for a "Go on..."
I used to write material for Randy Blake and A.J. Cannon when 680 The Fan first started. When Randy ended up doing drive-time radio @ Z93, he called me and asked for some material. I faxed (yeah, this was back in the day!) him some jokes, and at the VERY bottom was a joke circled with the words in all caps: "DO NOT USE!!!!" Well, I'm at my desk one day listening to his show, and he plays "Tears In Heaven" by Eric Clapton. After the song, he starts to back announce the songs he'd just played, and when he got to the Clapton song, he said, "If you'll recall, Clapton's career was stalling out, so he threw his son out of a window and wrote a song about it to revive his career." I was literally staring at my radio like :eek2::eek2::eek2:. They went to a commercial, and when they came back, there was a different dude behind the mic. Yeah, that was the "DO NOT USE!" joke.
 
Man, I got some shit my homies and I have made a classic. That shit is up there with Dave Chappell’s Blind Black White supremacist skit from his show.

It’s so offensive and funny. I haven’t been able to tell anyone outside very few people that gets me and my humor.
 

23:48-25:37


99% of us are not comedians but the issue of humor and boundaries is universal.

For instance, I think this was a good joke for 2015:

Breaking News: Two children found inside freezer in east Detroit apartment

But not everyone did:



Would I make that joke at the kids' funeral? Probably not. But I'm not so sure that making an impersonal joke online about it makes someone a big piece of shit, let alone the biggest.

To take a thread from this weekend: "Father fatally punched 5-year-old boy, upset that he ate his Father’s Day cake." What a remarkably fucked up situation. Obviously terrible. But I guarantee the premise could be used to craft a good joke.


Touché.

The joke quoted in the OP is not about dead babies, though! The subject of the joke was the application of the song title. The song was constantly used to mock Detroit and that's the only reason it works.

You really think internet jokes are a reflection of character, though? I think the difference is that making the joke at a funeral has a high likelihood of being hurtful, whereas making it online is just ephemeral and for sport.

Anything can be joked about, the audience will determine if the joke is funny or mean spirited and not funny.

The joke you quoted is not funny. If the majority of the audience cringed/complained instead of laughed, then the joke was in poor taste.

And to my knowledge, I don’t remember many laughing at the “Joke” when it was made.
 
Don't joke about the photoshop color picker.......

maxresdefault.jpg
 
Anything can be joked about, the audience will determine if the joke is funny or mean spirited and not funny.

The joke you quoted is not funny. If the majority of the audience cringed/complained instead of laughed, then the joke was in poor taste.

And to my knowledge, I don’t remember many laughing at the “Joke” when it was made.

One audience may cringe at what another applauds or laughs at. A joke's quality cannot be definitively judged by one person's or one audience's reaction.
 
The joke quoted in the OP is not about dead babies, though! The subject of the joke was the application of the song title. The song was constantly used to mock Detroit and that's the only reason it works.

This thread was created the day before Dave Chappelle's Sticks & Stones was released.

The special has generated debate about the concept of "punching down" and it occurs to me that the "So Cold In The D" joke was resented because it was misjudged as "punching down" at dead babies. Even judged properly, though, jokes about Detroit as a shithole are still punching down.

where did this idea that comedy is only supposed to punch up come from, these mathufuckas never learned to laugh at themselves
fuck them and their sympathizers.

This is a good mainstream example. It wasn't the subject matter being off-limits that caused controversy, but the target. Why R. Kelly is an okay target but Blue Ivy is not illustrates the idea behind "punching up" vs "punching down."

Twitter slams Amy Poehler for R. Kelly/Blue Ivy abuse joke

Recently, Hulu’s new Amy Poehler-produced series “Difficult People” has come under fire for a joke that star Julie Klausner makes in the first episode, in which her misanthrope-comedienne character gets in trouble for an offensive joke she posted online. The joke? “I can’t wait for Blue Ivy to be old enough so R. Kelly can piss on her.”

In a predictable case of art imitating life, people on Twitter have taken umbrage at the insensitive remark, with many calling out the show’s producer Amy Poehler. While Poehler did not write or deliver the offending joke, in an interview with EW, Klausner explained that Poehler “could not have been more hands-on” in developing the show and that she “did not only give notes on every script, she gave notes on every draft of every outline.”

"Is Blue Ivy old enough for R. Kelly?" @smrtgrls, how do you have a site dedicated to girls, and OK that line?

— Cynthia F. (@cynfinite) August 17, 2015

I understand comedy is supposed to be without limits, blah-blah-blah, but what is the humor in a pedophile pissing on a toddler?

— Michael Arceneaux (@youngsinick) August 17, 2015


That said, Blue Ivy is not fodder for your bullshit. She is a tiny toddler what the fuck Amy Poehler.

— QueenOfBrassKnuckles (@MarinaTronin) August 17, 2015

Amy Poehler would've never let this joke fly about a three year old White girl. NEVER

— Miss Ann Dri (@OHTheMaryD) August 17, 2015

I really love Amy Poehler. Like truly with my whole Grinch heart, but that joke she ok'd for her show about Blue Ivy is just tasteless

— Nola Darling (@WESTCOASTSUMA) August 17, 2015

A joke about R. Kelly assaulting Blue Ivy is not a joke targeting him. It's making light of what he did and punching down at his victims

— .black (@JamilahLemieux) August 17, 2015


It can be tough to determine where exactly a joke falls on the spectrum between tasteless and unforgivable, and in Poehler and Klausner’s defense, this line isn’t introduced as something for the audience to laugh at, but as an example of the character’s crude, foot-in-mouth humor (which she gets chastised and punished for throughout the entire episode).

Then again, this particular joke does make light of some pretty atrocious subject matter. Here’s a quote from Jim DeRogatis, the Chicago Sun-Times reporter who broke the R.Kelly story after receiving a video of R. Kelly allegedly having sex with an underage girl back in 2002 (Kelly was acquitted of child pornography charges in 2008).

“I think in the history of rock & roll, rock-music or pop-culture people misbehaving and behaving badly sexually with young women, rare is the amount of evidence compiled against anyone apart from R. Kelly. Dozens of girls — not one, not two, dozens — with harrowing lawsuits. The videotapes — and not just one videotape, numerous video tapes. And not Tommy Lee/Pam Anderson, Kardashian fun video. You watch the video for which he was indicted and there is the disembodied look of the rape victim. He orders her to call him Daddy. He urinates in her mouth and instructs her at great length on how to position herself to receive his ‘gift.’ It’s a rape that you’re watching. So we’re not talking about rock-star misbehavior, which men or women can do. We’re talking about predatory behavior. Their lives were ruined.”

Poehler and Klausner have yet to weigh in.
 
BILL MAHER SHITS ON STAN LEE AFTER HIS DEATH
“Political incorrectness” in the Maher lexicon has never really implied dissent, except in the most superficial sense of the word. Genuine dissent, political, cultural, or otherwise, has to be directed at those in power on behalf of those without it. Rudeness, vulgarity, and performative disdain for the pleasantries expected from patrician pundits on liberal networks may be marketable commodities, but none are remotely transgressive if the performer only punches down. Like Donald Trump, a man also proud of being “politically incorrect,” Maher has always delighted in savaging and demeaning his targets with little consequence or accountability.
 
S hit i had people cracking up at funerals and wakes... The two biggest 1s was my aunt funeral and my childhood friend mothers wake... At my aunt's funeral I had some of my family members and family through marriage in tears... Cause they wanted me to help carry the casket.. I was like oh no you not gonna have me do a blooper and accidentally drop that s hit and have her body rolling down the aisle... Have me blackballed from every family outing forever... Motherfuckers was in tears off that... At my childhood friends mom wake I literally had him and some of my childhood friends literally dying for hours straight.. So much my boy was like Nig I gotta hide my face cause I'm suppose to be in mourning and serious while people feel sorry for me and yet I can't stop laughing... Had him cracking up about old childhood memories like his lesbian dog.. Crazy thing I been kinda the comic relief on other occasions during wake, funeral, memorial
 



“Jerry Seinfeld all of a sudden having a great ‘n—r’ bit would be pretty amazing.”


That’s a good example of how not to do it, and also an example of how Chris didn’t have the balls to tell him that he did it wrong.

Also Chris was wrong about how “Black” he thought Louis was.

All wrong, thanks for the great example of how to do it exactly wrong.
 



“Jerry Seinfeld all of a sudden having a great ‘n—r’ bit would be pretty amazing.”




Chris Rock made those cacs too comfortable using the 'N' word... :mad:


..... personally I don't think that was a clever comedy moment... but hey, if that's how he rocks with those white boys then I'll leave him to it.
 
Chris Rock made those cacs too comfortable using the 'N' word... :mad:


..... personally I don't think that was a clever comedy moment... but hey, if that's how he rocks with those white boys then I'll leave him to it.

It wasn’t clever and the joke was on Chris, and us.
 
Chris Rock made those cacs too comfortable using the 'N' word... :mad:


..... personally I don't think that was a clever comedy moment... but hey, if that's how he rocks with those white boys then I'll leave him to it.
It wasn’t clever and the joke was on Chris, and us.

I agree that it was not clever and that the joke targeted black people.

But, in response to "a good comedian will know how to cleverly deliver a joke about a subject that you may be sensitive about and still make you laugh," I think the concept of "Jerry Seinfeld all of a sudden having a great ‘n—r’ bit" is hilarious.
 
But, in response to "a good comedian will know how to cleverly deliver a joke about a subject that you may be sensitive about and still make you laugh," I think the concept of "Jerry Seinfeld all of a sudden having a great ‘n—r’ bit" is hilarious.

I don’t.
 
I don’t.

As a Seinfeld fan, it's so far from his style that it's absurd.

That's the thing about "I can a joke about anything, it’s all about how you tell the joke"-- No joke is universally considered to be funny. Setting yourself out as the arbiter is pretty hubristic.
 
As a Seinfeld fan, it's so far from his style that it's absurd.

That's the thing about "I can a joke about anything, it’s all about how you tell the joke"-- No joke is universally considered to be funny. Setting yourself out as the arbiter is pretty hubristic.

I don’t think broccoli or macaroni and cheese would taste good in ice cream either. But anything’s possible.
 
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