It's a ranty one. Just to warn you.
Okay, so I was going to stay away from politics for awhile but I have to post something that has been bugging me for a week and I just can't hold it in anymore. It's all about bias and how it colors your world and in particular how you are ruining things by letting it do so. Or in particular one thing. Which I will get to in a second.
Bias is really interesting to me. I'm always fascinated to see how it plays out in life. Reading yet another book right now that talks about how we make judgements based on biases that we might not even realize we have. I've read a lot of books like this. I've read a lot of articles about this. I find it incredibly interesting. I also really try to be aware of them when I am talking to people about their beliefs. The more strongly biased they are in one direction or the other the less likely you are going to be successful in changing an opinion.
I also know that I have my own biases that color my thoughts and I know that I have some I'm not even aware of. And when I become aware that I have already made a judgement about something I try to figure out if it's valid or if it's strictly my own bias. As you all know there are some things that you are never going to change my mind on. I'm strongly biased in one direction. But there are other things that I am willing to look at other ideas and ways of thinking and shift. I lean left in my politics but I am much more centrist than a lot of my other left leaning friends. And much more centrist than a lot of my right leaning friends. And because of this I feel I am in a pretty good position to tell people to stop a certain behavior that is driving me crazy. Just stop it. STOP IT.
What is it? Ruining a joke. Political jokes to be specific. I want to point out something that should be obvious but isn't. You cannot just substitute one president or prominent political figure for another and expect the joke to work. Presidents and other figures have personas. Those personas work within a joke. Last week in my feed was a joke that was popular in the Bush era with Bush as the punchline and I saw it again yesterday from someone else. It's a clever joke all about word play. I'll link it here and another version here. Now this joke is making the rounds again but with Obama substituted for Bush. And it doesn't work. Let me tell you why and it has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with personas and the story.
When you think of Weapons of Mass Destruction whose presidency do you think of? Bush or Obama? When you think of a President who would have to count on their fingers for a math problem who do you think of Bush or Obama? See? It doesn't work to drop in Obama. You can dislike the man and his policies but being a bit on the lighter side academically isn't part of his persona. It would be like if Mitt Romney had won the election and someone sent out this joke, "The Presidential luncheon took longer than planned as President Romney realized that Speaker Boehner had more croutons on his salad than Representative Pelosi and wouldn't move forward until they were redistributed equally." Doesn't work for Romney because that's not his persona, it's Obama's.
And it works with all jokes. My brother sent me one today (the tipping point for the rant) that I originally read years ago as stupid things people ask airline employees. It was funny, even if you doubted the veracity of some of them. But being from New Mexico I can absolutely vouch for the general lack of geographical awareness of some of our fellow Americans. (It's the GIANT state between Texas and Arizona) But the version he sent me had been changed so every stupid thing was now supposedly said by a prominent Democrat in Congress. I get it, it's fun to make fun of politicians but now the joke doesn't work. It goes from being slightly unbelievable to completely unbelievable From being a general oh my gosh, some people! To a specific, THOSE people. And it stops being funny. Because it doesn't work. It wouldn't work if you changed them all to Republicans either. I can't stand Newt Gingrich's politics, or smugness, or religious hypocrisy but I also know he's extremely smart. A Gingrich joke has to focus on multiple marriages or overconfidence, not on a lack of IQ, or it doesn't work.
So let's all try to agree, when making jokes try very very hard to set your bias aside and make sure the joke works before you send it out.
For instance:
Jokes about chasing women: Clinton
Jokes about marrying women: Gingrich
Jokes about binders of women: Romney
Jokes about living with a lot of women: Obama
Jokes about misspelling women: Bush the Younger
My name is Denise Mastenbrook and I approve this message.
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