Tag Archive: humor

May 05 2013

[blogathon] Top Five Celebrities I’m DTF

Jon Stewart on Congress.

This is the fifth post in my SSA blogathon, and another reader request (as if I’d ever write it otherwise, haha). Don’t forget to donate! I don’t follow celebrity news/gossip much, so I knew this would be a bit difficult. However, once I searched deep within my heart I realized that there are indeed at …

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May 01 2013

Does Sexist Humor Matter? A Review of the Research

[Content note: sexual assault] When people call out sexist humor, they’re often informed that “it’s just a joke.” While some seem to believe that humor inhabits a special dimension of the universe in which things don’t “really mean” anything, psychologists tend to disagree. There are many, many reasons sexist humor matters. It hurts people, first …

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Apr 01 2013

Where Feminism Fails: The Ongoing Need for Men’s Rights Activism

So, this might be kind of awkward given my past writing and activism, but it’s time for me to come clean: I’ve decided to become a Men’s Rights Activist. I’ve realized that feminism’s biggest failure–much more important, in fact, than its historical disregard for women of color, poor women, and trans* people–is that it does …

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Nov 30 2012

HoboJacket’s Casual Classism: Ethical Humor and Objectifying the Homeless

Elite college students being snobby and idiotic isn’t really newsworthy, but a group of MIT students went above and beyond the standard this past week. The students thought it’d be funny to give local homeless people jackets from Caltech, MIT’s rival, in order to “show the true value of a Caltech degree.” And then, to …

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Oct 15 2012

Guess What: Rape’s Not Funny When the Victim is a Man, Either

I know Jezebel is low-hanging fruit, but I can’t resist picking apart their new “Sexytime Dilemmas” column and its endorsement of sexual assault, which apparently is okay when the target is a man. One of the letter-writers wants to know how to get a guy to try anal play. Jezebel’s “sexpert” responds (TW for sexual …

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Jul 11 2012

In Case You Haven't Heard, Rape Isn't Funny

Some comedian I’ve never even heard of before–but now have–is under fire right now for a “joke” he made in one of his shows. I use the word “joke” (just as I will use the word “humor”) broadly here. In the words of a woman who attended a show by comedian Daniel Tosh, this is …

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Jan 07 2012

"Shit Girls Say" Isn't Funny

Or, perhaps, it’s only funny if you don’t consider the context. Check it out: This is the first episode of the wildly popular web series Shit Girls Say, which draws its humor from portraying stereotypical (white) (middle-/upper class) women in quick bursts of cliched speech. And I can definitely see how many people, even many …

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Sep 30 2011

Mental Illness Is Not a Punchline

Damn, I’m certainly on a crusade against humor these days. That was sarcasm, by the way. I love humor. I just think it should be deployed carefully. A few days ago in my Psychology of Personality class, the following happened: Some people were having their own conversations while the professor was trying to give a …

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Sep 23 2011

On People Who Think They're so Damn Funny

[Snark Warning] Like many depressives, I have a love-hate relationship with humor. A well-crafted joke, anecdote, or cartoon can cheer me up during the worst times, but because of the various cognitive deficits associated with depression, I have a lot of trouble processing humor when it’s directed at me or my life. Enter another thing …

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