meghnad 🔗 Profile picture
Jul 16, 2020 17 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Why do some people get upset and resort to death threats when comedians crack jokes about certain subjects?

A lazy opinion #thread.
Comedy is about finding humor in places where it's least expected.

A joke is basically a twisted form of tricking your brain into thinking about something, letting it process the information and come to a conclusion about how ridiculous the whole thing is.
When someone cracks a joke, there is a lead up to the punchline which lays out the scenario. The storyteller ensures the audience is glued to it till the last moment.

Then, there is a well timed punchline.

The person is caught off guard, forced to THINK and then LAUGH.
In a split second, without warning, beliefs are challenged by the performer. These routines are *supposed to* make the audience uncomfortable first and then see the humor in it.

That's the premise.

Now, there are two kinds of people who react to jokes in very different ways:
(1)

Person hears joke.

Person gets increasingly uncomfortable as situation builds up.

Person hears punchline.

Person processes it.

Person's discomfort vanishes and the release is in the form of a laugh.

Person goes, "Yeah that was funny" and moves on.
2)

Person hears joke.

Person gets increasingly uncomfortable.

Person hears punchline.

Person processes it.

Person's discomfort vanishes and the release is in the form of anger.

Person goes, "It wasn't funny! Why are OTHER people laughing?" and doesn't move on.
Person (2) feels worse because he/she sees that there are so many People (1) who are laughing at something that made (2)... angry.

Anger builds up. And builds up. And anger needs an outlet.

Where is the outlet?

Lo and behold, the comedian is right there up on stage.
Person (2) can either go up to the comedian after the show and give him/her a piece of their mind. But that would involve interactions with People (1). Which is not ideal because there were a LOT of those.

So Person (2) goes for the next best option.

INTERNET BASED #OUTRAGE!
Person (2) is confident that he is not alone in this feeling of anger. Person (2) already has a network of similar minded angry people, who he/she is *sure* will get pissed at this comedian.

So yeah, video gets shared with this angry bunch and collective hatemongering begins.
After #outrage by (2) begins, Comedian and People (1) are ultra-confused.

They're like, "But that was funny! WTF is happening? Everybody in the audience laughed!"

Sure they did.

But the stage of the internet is a weird place. People find solidarity in the strangest of things.
Angry people like (2) can choose to be angry alone and let it die in a day or two. Or they can express that anger and let it multiply online.

The validation (2) gets from other angry people online -- something he didn't get during the show -- is like a drug.
#Outrage is a sweet sweet drug which is based on replication and intensification.

Person (2) himself might just share a video saying, "Didn't find this funny! I'm angry!😡"

But there will be 10 People (2) who will share it like, "THIS PERSON DESERVES TO DIE! HOW DARE SHE!😡🇮🇳"
5 other People (2) will make a video sitting in their cars and cursing away, "I AM GOING TO KILL THIS PERSON! YOU BETTER WATCH OUT M&@#&(@. THIS IS HER NAME! AND WE (2) PEOPLE ARE PISSED! 😡🇮🇳🕉️"

100 other People (2) will see the video and it will all snowball into insanity.
Out of all of these People (2) there will be that one person who actually has some power.

He/she will express his anger and that's it, authorities get involved, FIRs get filed, news channels amplify that shit and the actual point of the performance of COMEDY, gets lost.
Moral of the thread #1: If you are Person (1) who laughed and moved on after hearing an uncomfortable joke, don't be surprised that there is ALWAYS a Person (2) in the audience who is angry.

And the #outrage is coming soon on an SM platform near you.
Moral of the thread #2: If you are a comedian, keep away from SM when #outrage begins. Don't read the comments, play board-games and hang out with friends for a few weeks.

People (2) will move on to the next thing they need to get angry about for their personal validation.
Moral of the thread #3: If you are Person (2).... don't be a dick.

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LOSS MAKING COMPANIES MADE DONATIONS

33 loss-making firms donated electoral bonds worth ₹582 crore. At least 45 companies that donated electoral bonds to the ruling BJP have suspect funding sources.

How is it that a company that is not making any profit is able to donate crores to a political party?

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was going through the ethics committee report on Mahua Moitra's expulsion and found that stuff like THIS is being used as "evidence".

See no. 6. It's a question about allowing free and efficient trade between India & Bangladesh.

The reason given is Hiranandani has invested in Bangladesh so he wants free movement. 🤯

This evidence was given by Jai Anant Dehadrai to the committee and there are a lot more hastily scanned instances in the report of this.
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The ruling party (BJP) has received more than 5000 cr in donations through electoral bonds. The permissible limit for spending on elections in Lok Sabha is about 1 crore per candidate.

If BJP fields candidates in all constituencies, it will be max 545 crore that can be spent overall on Lok Sabha elections.

BJP has already received more than 10x of the permissible spending limit through electoral bonds in these 5 years. How is this allowed?

(I'm paraphrasing an argument made by Prashant Bhushan in SC)
The govt claimed during demonetization that they want to reduce the use of cash and turn India into a cashless society. But that doesn't seem to apply to political parties.

Parties and candidates standing for elections spend more than the permissible amount, but in cash or via proxies. The EC has admitted that it can't catch such candidates because they spend in cash.

If you want to reduce cash in politics and elections, just make a simple amendment saying 'cash spending by candidates during elections amounts to corruption'.

Instead of doing that, they have brought electoral bonds to donate to parties anonymously.

(I'm paraphrasing Prashant Bhushan's arguments in SC)
There is nothing in the Electoral Bonds scheme which says that the donation money is to be used only for election purposes. Political parties can spend their money any way they like.

Example: Party can use it to build swanky HQs, give advertisement to media houses in order to push their ideology, can be used to buy land, it can be used for anything.

The money coming through electoral bond is not tied to or restricted to only election expenses.

(I'm paraphrasing an argument made by Kapil Sibal in SC)
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