The interesting thing about making fun of people is the amount of peripheral or contextual information that's necessary. I'm not really a fan of Louis C.K. But if you watch his stand-up, you can see him say the nastiest things without it seeming so nasty. He says these things while smiling or laughing. Of course, he's not a wild-type subject because you know he's a comedian tuned to his audience.
But I can also confess that my dad was a master at deadpan cruelty. Not only were we (his family, but mostly my mom) his victims, but I would watch him, in bars [*] and at the Wurstfest, shred someone completely without them having any clue what was happening. The smarter ones would notice that, while he was "ribbing" them, he would watch them extra closely. So, they learned to recognize when they were the butt of the joke by watching him as he told his "story". At his funeral, they would wax poetic about the "twinkle in his eye" when he was telling a joke. Of course, this behavior tended to slough off the people who were just smart enough, yet just insecure enough to recognize when they were the butt of a joke, but not able to recognize it as a joke. That said, my dad was a bully of the first order. If you were too insecure to _take_ the joke, then you were a wimp and a coward. He used his abilities to engineer swaths of people so that they behaved as he wanted them to behave. And the ones that didn't play along were ridiculed and pushed out of the clique. Luckily, he couldn't do that to me. ;-) [*] I was practically reared in a bar called Lloyd's. Lloyd was a one-armed bartender who taught me how to open a beer with one hand at the age of about 8. Oh, and Lloyd had also had a laryngectomy and while not opening beers with his one arm, had to hold a wand to his throat in order to speak. Steve Smith wrote at 01/18/2013 11:43 AM: > OK... so as an example of insider/outsider behaviour, my cartoons > starring Doug are a form of ribbing that has the same quality as > practical jokes. I feel I know Doug well enough on and off list to > know what he would find rude or hurtful and what he would not, so I am > comfortable poking a little fun at him. For example, I know that > Doug's self identity includes that of being a Skeptic (Zhiangzi > reference) and of being tenacious (as stated). > > I also know Stephen well enough to do this, but he wisely (or out of > boredom with us!) stays out of the fray here, so he is relatively > safe. I'm getting to know others well enough that I think I could > parody some of you with impunity and possibly with appreciation by the > recipients as well as the audience. > > Glen and I have not finished our back-n-forth about technology, but deep > in that conversation is another subconversation about insider/outsider > and language... -- glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
