Hi, so in case you can't tell my ever-so-creative blog name, this blog is dedicated to Gravity Falls and other related stuff! :) This includes all the other cartoons I'm into (Wander Over Yonder, Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Wordgirl, Animaniacs and other shows that I'm probably forgetting) Please note that you are on my Wordpress site, and everything I post is imported from tumblr, so if something has transfered strangle, that's why. Reblogged posts (which are not mine!) will have giant quotation marks in front of the text, along with the username of original tumblr user who posted it in red text.
This is something I’ve been meaning to talk about, and I may do a full blog post at some point, but here’s a capsule version:
The Benign Violation Theory of humor, which is probably the best one out there, suggests that something is perceived as funny when it is simultaneously perceived as violating how the world “should” work and as benign. Something like the “gun” meme, for example, is funny because it violates our sense of how a joke should progress, and at the same time it’s harmless.
Racist/sexist/etc shock humor violates our sense of how the world work–in either a “that’s not true!” or “you’re not allowed to say that!” way–and therefore whether you find it funny is based on whether you find it benign, which is to say either you think it’s harmless or you don’t care about the people it harms. (This is the root of the punch up/kick down distinction–jokes that punch up are funnier than jokes that kick down because the people they target are less vulnerable and therefore less likely to experience harm.)
So yes, science agrees that if you think racist jokes are funny, the reason is that you don’t care about the feelings of the people the joke is about. There’s a word for that.
This is something I’ve been meaning to talk about, and I may do a full blog post at some point, but here’s a capsule version:
The Benign Violation Theory of humor, which is probably the best one out there, suggests that something is perceived as funny when it is simultaneously perceived as violating how the world “should” work and as benign. Something like the “gun” meme, for example, is funny because it violates our sense of how a joke should progress, and at the same time it’s harmless.
Racist/sexist/etc shock humor violates our sense of how the world work–in either a “that’s not true!” or “you’re not allowed to say that!” way–and therefore whether you find it funny is based on whether you find it benign, which is to say either you think it’s harmless or you don’t care about the people it harms. (This is the root of the punch up/kick down distinction–jokes that punch up are funnier than jokes that kick down because the people they target are less vulnerable and therefore less likely to experience harm.)
So yes, science agrees that if you think racist jokes are funny, the reason is that you don’t care about the feelings of the people the joke is about. There’s a word for that.
History isn’t one straight line progressing towards a liberal society.
Look how much Americans attitudes have changed between 1980 and today. 1980 was the first time most very religious people voted, they abstained before that at the behest of their churches. Now they dictate policy at every election.
In my family photo album there are pictures from the 20s of a woman called ‘uncle bob’. She dressed in men’s clothing, and had a ‘companion’. This was a rough industrial town, they were working class, nobody cared. It was her business.
This is why politics is important – the moment you think everything is better today than it was in the past, you let other people take control of the direction society goes in – with you sitting back presuming we’re going forwards.
History isn’t one straight line progressing towards a liberal society.
Look how much Americans attitudes have changed between 1980 and today. 1980 was the first time most very religious people voted, they abstained before that at the behest of their churches. Now they dictate policy at every election.
In my family photo album there are pictures from the 20s of a woman called ‘uncle bob’. She dressed in men’s clothing, and had a ‘companion’. This was a rough industrial town, they were working class, nobody cared. It was her business.
This is why politics is important – the moment you think everything is better today than it was in the past, you let other people take control of the direction society goes in – with you sitting back presuming we’re going forwards.
Gravity Falls and Other Related Stuff 