As a stand-up comedian, I should be promoting my comedy through social media because that’s how I can get a larger audience. Despite that, it still took me a long time to post snippets of my shows because I knew they could potentially offend, since they are bits and pieces presented without context.
True enough, even the most innocuous jokes, which were overwhelmingly accepted as funny, got their fair share of criticism simply because a few people got triggered by them.
I remember one bit I shared about notaries public, which earned the enmity of one lawyer who felt I was one of the reasons people do not respect the legal profession. Suddenly, I seemed to be the cause, which, of course, is absurd because it is not I, but the unscrupulous lawyers out there, who give lawyering a bad name.
And there lies the rub. The proverbial rise of echo chambers and the dumbing down of society due to how algorithms share information have made people violently resistant to opposing views. This is why even comedy can become the enemy.
Gone are the days when most people could actually laugh at jokes, sit down to discuss issues, and agree to disagree if they could not meet halfway.
The only saving grace, though, is that in reality, the reasonable ones still far outweigh those who do not know any better. They just appear to be the minority because they are not as loud and aggressive.
On Facebook, for instance, the usual suspects who dominate engagements are bound by one common characteristic — they are mostly ignorant, if not outright stupid.
This is why I decided to still post my videos. I realized these are for those who dig comedy, understand the nature of jokes and the need to champion free speech, and are willing to receive and process available information, albeit contrary to what they believe in or even stand for.
Those who easily get offended are, as I said, the usual suspects anyway. Whatever you say or do, they can always find a reason to get incensed. So why even bother?