In Over Your Head

The Consequences of Advice Dog

Watch the video below before you read this. Or don’t, whatever. At least look here.

First of all, disclosure: A lot of people find this meme funny. Despite its kind of offensive nature, I think I’m becoming one of them, and so are a lot of people (look at the Youtube comments). My question is whether that’s good and, if not, what to do about it.

We’re watching things online more and more, with no social consequences from laughing, by yourself, at something that a lot of people find offensive. But what happens when we do it so much that we start to think it’s funny to other people, and start talking about it aloud?

Are we alienating ourselves from normal people by interacting online with those with strong, extreme opinions? What does this do to us as people?

Or is it the opposite? Should we let ourselves be pulled into whatever tribe we most connect with, and forget about mainstream opinion? After all, we might be happier, right?

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4 responses to “The Consequences of Advice Dog”

  1. Davezilla Avatar
    Davezilla

    Every generation has its “gross jokes” phase. When I was a feisty, young upstart (late 70s) it was dead baby jokes. In the 80s, it was leprosy jokes. Even back in the 1950s, after cannibal killer Ed Gein was arrested, his town in Wisconsin made a rash a cannibalism jokes.

    The idea is, some things are so awful in life, so hard to comprehend, that the only way to deal with them is to make grim jokes and laugh at them.

    Reply
  2. Gab Goldenberg Avatar
    Gab Goldenberg

    That was pretty funny, until it started getting repetitive around 2:30. Then it got funny again towards the end.

    The reason it’s funny, though, is what matters. Specifically because as sane people, we know that this advocates entirely antisocial, unacceptable behaviour. Our paradigm and basic assumption is to behave properly, and this offers the unexpected, in advocating all these nutty behaviours.

    Kinda like ‘series’ jokes:

    Britain’s given us a number of wonderful things that lift the human spirit. Soccer, Shakespeare, the Spice Girls…

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  3. David Avatar
    David

    Are we alienating ourselves from normal people – we can’t. Normal is whatever we become as a group. A different way to ask the question is – are we alienating ourselves from humanity? That answer is yes. Isolating ourselves from the diversity of the world turns us into myopic moonbats who are able to see our own, and our tribes, perspective. With no diverse input to challenge us we digress into the world of Jeffrey Goines. Remember, McMurphy was a positive influence until Nurse Ratched removed the diversity of his opinion.

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  4. John Arleth Avatar
    John Arleth

    I respect the right to publish, say or write almost anything. I suspect that people laugh at some of it or abhor a lot of it but confrontation manifests itself best when backed up by a lot of other gauche people – like the screamers at Town Hall Meetings.

    Will they get their way?, perhaps. Will children die of Swine flu because they can’t go to the Dr.? Yes. Is that right? To me, no. But, the majority wins.

    Final answer, Regis, If raping babies is funny, or peeing on them is funny, be scared, very scared.

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