Take any episode of MTV’s Ridiculousness or ABC’s America’s Funniest Home Videos— clip, after clip after clip of people falling, slipping, hitting, crushing, bruising, banging— you get the picture— and people think it’s funny, so shows like these are fed daily to the eyes and minds of those who consume them-- and after a while, this type of behavior, however harmful it may be, can become accepted.
Why might these videos even come off as funny in the first place? I mean, inherently people getting hurt comes off as not cool. On the other hand, though, there’s something funny to be said about the demise, downfall and destruction of anyone who isn’t us, especially if we can share this humor with others, hence putting it out there on network television. Somehow, seeing other people suffering in temporary ways is funny to us simply for the fact that it wasn’t us.
For this reason (and many others) there is a connection between violence and humor. Unfortunately, though, this connection often times surpasses what any sensible person would consider funny or even slightly humorous.
Sometimes though, humor can be used as violence, even if it’s not physical violence like the people snapping limps attempting skateboard tricks way outside their ability level on Ridiculousness, there’s plenty of examples where humor could be used as a vessel for carrying out acts of hate.
As it’s laid out in the Heer tweets and subsequent opinion article connected to the thread, trolling has in large part been an element of violence, especially online. In the case of the Christchurch, NZ massacre, the gunman’s online manifesto and shout out to PewDiePie before the attack adds insult to injury in the fact that someone could do something so heinous and link it to a fun-loving (yet a troll himself) YouTuber.
If there is really no connection between PewDiePie and the gunman, then his shout out to the internet personality would come off similar to screaming “This one is for Barney”
when shooting up a nursing home. There’s no correlation, but since one of the subjects is supposed to be interpreted as funny and loving, then the act is so horrendous that the ultimate troll situation has been created, leading people to believe there may be a connection between humor and violence that exists outside of the video of a baby hitting their dad in the head with a plastic baseball bat that we as humans are bound to laugh or at least giggle at.
While the Christchurch example is just one attempt of humor and violence being tied together, the same happens on a daily basis online.
Every day I go Twitter and see a ton of tweets shaming sexes. I believe we live an age where double standards are commonplace across social media.
For instance, the Tweet above is similar to the types of tweets I see every day. Something I see often is Tweets where women shame men, when if the inverse were to happen would spark such controversy.
As far as I’m concerned though, women are given a break time and time again for the hate-inducing speech a lot of them use on a daily basis. While these types of tweets may come off as funny, they also induce a sense of opposition and hate towards men that could quickly lead to violence. After all, speech too can be used as a weapon, and after seeing enough tweets like this, it can begin to break down one’s self esteem and leave someone to believe they are part of a greater issue that they may not be a part of at all—this in itself is extremely harmful.
If enough people believe PewDiePie has a connection to a mass shooting on a religious group, then people are liable to believe men are inherently out to destroy women's lives and women must tweet "Men ain't shit" in order to spread awareness.