Not funny. | MetaTalk

No, I believe the entitlement would be the people insisting that their cute little joke is more important than other people's a) comfort with sensitive subject matter and b) conversational interest, to the point that they will completely derail a conversation to talk about how their jokes were zomg totally legitimate even after they've already been called out.

From my perspective, you're simply so confident in the entitlement that you're defending that you can't even really imagine that I'm questioning it or even labeling it an entitlement.

Of course people's comfort is entitled to deference at the expense of others' jokes. Of course "serious" conversational interests are entitled to deference by frivolous ones.

The light of reason illuminates it, laying it bare in the mind of every man, or something?
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 9:20 PM on April 16 [1 favorite]

I'd rather people said they didn't like the joking than see them try and silence it. But thats just me. I didn't find anything funny about the post it made me feel very sad, but I smiled at the attempts at humor, it lightened the load, not because it was dissmisive but because ... what can you say in the face of human nature?

On preview I'm sorry to hear the post was deleted.
posted by nola at 9:22 PM on April 16

this is what I said in the original thread:

I don't need to click the link, I unfortunately already know about this. Sometimes, you hear or read about things that absolutely pull the breath right out of your chest, make you feel like screaming 'till your voice is gone. For me, FGM and this are two of those things. I'm tearing (TEERing not TAREing) up just allowing my consciousness to approach the borders of these thoughts; if I go too much further in to this post, I'll have a meltdown.

Ignorance isn't bliss.

And I still feel the same way. I understand the joking, but I can't see it as anything other than a coping mechanism. I mean, no-one could ever really make an honest joke about something like that, right?

right?
posted by exlotuseater at 9:23 PM on April 16

What offended me most about the thread was Ubu's comment that sometimes humour is the "only possible reaction to atrocity". No, it's never the only possible reaction. If it is, then there's something wrong with you.

Gallows humour is one thing. Defending it as necessary and appropriate is something altogether different.

Jessamyn is right in that "breast ironing" isn't a great topic starter, but people shitting on the thread with gallows humour and the defense of gallows humour also doomed it.
posted by crossoverman at 9:25 PM on April 16

the 'mother' in the first video who is so cocksure and defiant about doing this to her daughters...she does remind me of a few mefis.
Q"What if someone told you what you are doing is wrong?"
A"I would tell them to go away. I would not agree. I will only do things my own way."
posted by dawson at 9:25 PM on April 16

All you're doing, though, is articulating an entitlement on the part of the "omg serious" crowd.

The "omg serious" crowd and the "please don't be an asshole at every opportunity just because you dislike exercising self-control when a boob joke occurs to you" crowd can get kind of indistinguishable when you're on the other side of the fence from them, is part of the problem here. Just because you can make a joke doesn't mean you ought to, and that's pretty much what fucked that thread; dismissing this as somehow being primarily a failing of the "omg serious" crowd is kind of a crappy, ass-backwards way to approach the situation.

Using "oh but it's an atrocity so I had to make a joke about mammaries" as an excuse for driveby one-liners is pretty much an insult to the value of humor as a legitimate coping device. Just don't comment if all you can come up with is a stupid joke.
posted by cortex at 9:26 PM on April 16 [42 favorites]

From my perspective, you're simply so confident in the entitlement that you're defending that you can't even really imagine that I'm questioning it or even labeling it an entitlement.

You may also wish to consider that no one, in this particular case, cares what your perspective on "entitlement" is.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:27 PM on April 16 [4 favorites]

The thread should not have been deleted: the derails should have been deleted and their authors given a little timeout.
posted by Rumple at 9:30 PM on April 16 [17 favorites]

Wait, where's UbuRoivas? It seems like he ought to be in here making his standard claim that he was being "ironic" and Americans just don't get irony, and that's why people were offended rather than amused by his joke.

It never seems to occur to him that the reason people aren't amused isn't because they don't understand that he's joking, but instead because he's not actually very funny.
posted by dersins at 9:36 PM on April 16

Question for the mods: for posts like this, where the topic is decent but the comments have turned into a mess, is it appropriate to flag the whole thread (even if there's nothing wrong with the post) or should we go through and flag individual offensive comments?
posted by fermezporte at 9:42 PM on April 16

The fact that people here think that a torturous act of barbarism perpetrated against women to "protect" them from further acts of pain and violence is fodder for comedy makes me despair that anything for women anywhere will ever get better when this is the environment we live in.

The fucking video should be what makes me cry, not the comments. Do you people not have mothers, sister, daughters or empathy?
posted by DarlingBri at 9:44 PM on April 16 [5 favorites]

or should we go through and flag individual offensive comments?

If you find yourself flagging more than three or four comments, maybe drop a flag on the thread instead and drop us a note in the contact form to just summarize what's up. A storm of flags on every single comment kind of makes a mess of the flag queue.
posted by cortex at 9:46 PM on April 16

The "omg serious" crowd and the "please don't be an asshole at every opportunity just because you dislike exercising self-control when a boob joke occurs to you" crowd can get kind of indistinguishable when you're on the other side of the fence from them, is part of the problem here.

It's amusing that you talk about self control, as though the people derailing with indignant responses never had the opportunity to exercise any.

But hey, you're the mod, you can delete anything you want. I just think it's funny when you admit the obvious but oddly taboo truth that so many of the serious users around here are fussy children.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 9:46 PM on April 16 [3 favorites]

It's amusing that you talk about self control, as though the people derailing with indignant responses never had the opportunity to exercise any.

Oh, can it. We've never staked out the position that derails are a one-sided issue, so it's just disingenuous bullshit to try and paint it thus. Self-control on both sides would help here, and it has always been so.

But besides being off the mark as far as our administrative take on this stuff, that's also just about the shittiest excuse for derailing behavior I can imagine, and kind of less than shocking at this point coming from you.
posted by cortex at 9:52 PM on April 16 [6 favorites]

I just think it's funny/It's amusing
the pain of others is humorous to you, I think you can stop stressing that point now. It's pretty clear you are edgy and uber avant-grade and hip to the convention re humor and the majority of us here are just wet socks.
posted by dawson at 9:55 PM on April 16

users around here are fussy children.

So low you stoop!
posted by carsonb at 10:07 PM on April 16

I was just being ironic & Americans just don't get irony and that's why you were offended and not amused by my joke. This is because you don't understand that I'm joking and not because I'm not actually very funny.

As for black humour being the only possible response to atrocity, no, it's not the only response, but it is indeed one avenue. Whether or not it works for you is your pigeon.

Like when a friend of mine had her oldest cat die & everybody was all "oh, how sad; you must feel terrible" & i thought this was just pandering to her desire to wallow in pity & sadness, so I made light of it & said I hoped the cat wasn't in pet hell with the evil Lassie; you know, the one that bit Timmy. She doesn't speak to me anymore, probably because she has no sense of humour.

But yeh, for whatever division there was between the jokers & the "let's all be solemn & serious about this" side, the end result is likely the same: bugger all done for the people actually suffering, and a chance to have a bit of a tiff on a website. Hence the absurdism - perhaps I'm just feeling particularly cynical today, but everybody in the known universe has been decrying female genital mutilation for forever and a day, but are we any closer to eradicating it?

Sorry, but this was just another reminder that the world's simply fucked, so we might as well make bad jokes about it, because getting upset isn't going to do anything other than depress us further, and at least reducing it to pointlessness is calling the truth as it is, instead of imagining that moralistic indignation will get us anywhere.
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:08 PM on April 16

This is very useful knowledge, thank you.
posted by owhydididoit at 10:08 PM on April 16

exlotuseater writes "And I still feel the same way. I understand the joking, but I can't see it as anything other than a coping mechanism. I mean, no-one could ever really make an honest joke about something like that, right?"

I'm still trying to figure out what "honest joke" means. Anyway, I can appreciate gallows humor, but the trick with it is that it has to be done artfully and/or to the right audience. I'm of the opinion that there are no sacred cows, but finding the humor in tragedy can be a little delicate sometimes. For example, it would be very difficult to make a joke in response to a post on this site about some extreme example of human rights abuses without derailing the thread into arguments and expressions of outrage, particularly if the joke is early in the thread. It may provoke unnecessary reactions, and people may get too worked up over it, but I think you sorta have to take that into account.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:10 PM on April 16

I don't know how you resolve this issue, but I just want to say that it's a shame that this topic couldn't be linked to or discussed. It's important and I'd never heard of it until that post. I couldn't watch the whole video tonight because it was too horrible, but I would have liked to hear from someone who had some insight into the issue, or worked with an aid group, or had a story to tell from this community. Hearing those things from unfiltered real people is the reason I read this site.
I know I'm not being constructive with a solution here. I'm just registering frustration. It was going downhill and I understand the deletion.
I hope somebody can post about it again and not have the train-wreck.
posted by dosterm at 10:10 PM on April 16 [4 favorites]

Like when a friend of mine had her oldest cat die & everybody was all "oh, how sad; you must feel terrible" & i thought this was just pandering to her desire to wallow in pity & sadness, so I made light of it & said I hoped the cat wasn't in pet hell with the evil Lassie; you know, the one that bit Timmy. She doesn't speak to me anymore, probably because she has no sense of humour.

Oh, that's why. I don't think it's that Americans have no sense of irony; it's that you have a very weak sense of how you come off. That is, it's everyone else is humourless, and you're so funny. Nobody gets you.

We get you, we get you just fine.
posted by exlotuseater at 10:13 PM on April 16 [11 favorites]

Hence the absurdism - perhaps I'm just feeling particularly cynical today, but everybody in the known universe has been decrying female genital mutilation for forever and a day, but are we any closer to eradicating it?

A little.
posted by bettafish at 10:14 PM on April 16 [1 favorite]

Yeah, krinklyfig, I realized that was poor wording when I hit the post button. I should have said "straight-faced" joke, or similar.
posted by exlotuseater at 10:16 PM on April 16

cortex: But besides being off the mark as far as our administrative take on this stuff, that's also just about the shittiest excuse for derailing behavior I can imagine, and kind of less than shocking at this point coming from you.

It wasn't an excuse for derailing behavior at all. Maybe that's why it came across as such a shitty one. The point is, a joke or two can't derail a thread without the cooperation of the serious users. Without their help, the mods can simply delete the offending remarks, and it will be as though nothing inappropriate ever happened.

This is complicated by the fact that many of the serious users get a sexual thrill from expressing angry indignation on the Internet, but there you go. Of course, even if you stifle all of the offensive people, the indignophiles will most likely just seize on something else to get their kicks from. Can't win.

Anyway, I didn't post in that thread, and I don't think I've had very many comments deleted at all, so I'm not sure why you're trying to make this about me.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 10:23 PM on April 16

I don't think I've had very many comments deleted at all

Maybe not, but you did have one deleted today as a result of "sexism" flag based on your gratuitous labelling of an emotional woman as a "whore", so it is pretty hard to take you seriously on this topic.
posted by Rumple at 10:26 PM on April 16

Ubu: I was just being ironic & Americans just don't get irony...

So, I guess you're American, then? Irony is dissonance between what is said and what is understood. Your joke wasn't ironic or even 'black humor' -- it was just a tasteless witticism.
posted by flatluigi at 10:29 PM on April 16

pssst...flatluigi: ^
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:41 PM on April 16

The point is, a joke or two can't derail a thread without the cooperation of the serious users.

Again, not in dispute. And, again, a stupid joke or two even more distinctly can't derail a thread if the jokesters can have the good sense to just close the browser and walk away in the first place, which is especially important in a context where the jokesters know full well how dicey the general topic is likely to be.

This is complicated by the fact that many of the serious users get a sexual thrill from expressing angry indignation on the Internet, but there you go.

A thrill, at least. And some get one from drawing that kind of response out. I'm not hot on either, and I don't think either adds anything of value to the site, but the folks who go knowingly stirring shit in the first place deserve the lion's share of the blame.

Anyway, I didn't post in that thread, and I don't think I've had very many comments deleted at all, so I'm not sure why you're trying to make this about me.

You posted in this thread, obnoxiously; your deletion history is, in fact, kind of shit and only the worst bits at that of what is despite bouts of apparent good-faith commenting still a generally antagonistic and fight-starting commenting history; and you seem very much to enjoy having things be about you, so the complaint rings more than a little false regardless.

It's one of the weird long-standing traditions around here that we usually don't ban people just for being kind of a dick, even when they're a dick on a pretty regular basis. This is more or less what I have to tell people when they ask me why you still have an account, and it's getting pretty old. There's second and third and fourth chances and by then it starts to look like a losing proposition.
posted by cortex at 10:43 PM on April 16 [8 favorites]

Ha! OK, then. Do whatever you're going to do. The threats are wearing thin, though.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 10:52 PM on April 16 [4 favorites]

Maybe not, but you did have one deleted today as a result of "sexism" flag based on your gratuitous labelling of an emotional woman as a "whore", so it is pretty hard to take you seriously on this topic.

An emotional woman who entered into a sexual relationship for pecuniary gain. I feel that last bit is relevant, and perhaps undercuts the "gratuitous" accusation just a bit.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 10:54 PM on April 16

Uhh... people? I know everyone is super offended, but this thread seems to be devolving into "generic lynch-mob" mentality...

perhaps instead of banning a member of the group, we can just agree that i can occasionally make childish comments? does this seem reasonable?
posted by [son] QUAALUDE at 10:59 PM on April 16

Breast ironing? I think I'm glad I missed that one.
posted by homunculus at 11:01 PM on April 16

The fact that people here think that a torturous act of barbarism perpetrated against women to "protect" them from further acts of pain and violence is fodder for comedy makes me despair that anything for women anywhere will ever get better when this is the environment we live in.

The fucking video should be what makes me cry, not the comments. Do you people not have mothers, sister, daughters or empathy?

I didn't watch the video, and I thought Ubu's comment was in bad taste. Isn't this rhetoric a bit over the top, though?
posted by onalark at 11:02 PM on April 16

Well, thanks to those who couldn't contain their inner arsehole long enough for people who were interested to have an adult conversation about a topic that I doubt most people had even heard of (I certainly hadn't). I count myself as another who sees no scared cows in any topic and, as far as I am concerned, everything is ripe for the picking if there is a witty, original joke to be made. The "jokes" in that thread were neither.

Plus, you know you've really fucked up when even cortex can't see your side of the story.
posted by dg at 11:03 PM on April 16 [3 favorites]

Breast ironing is what is egregious. Although, it is an incredibly depressing subject for consideration, especially given how little I can do about it.
posted by owhydididoit at 11:04 PM on April 16

The threats are wearing thin, though.

Bang on.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:07 PM on April 16

Oh wait, I read "threats" as "multiple attempts to give you the benefit of the doubt in the hopes you'll turn it around and stop being a waste of everyone's time."

My bad.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:09 PM on April 16 [3 favorites]

note: Everyone needs a hug.
posted by [son] QUAALUDE at 11:11 PM on April 16

An emotional woman who entered into a sexual relationship for pecuniary gain. I feel that last bit is relevant, and perhaps undercuts the "gratuitous" accusation just a bit.

See, that is your interpretation which you are using as if it were a fact to excuse yourself. So, no, it undercuts it not one bit, in fact, add "narcissistic" to the gratuitous.
posted by Rumple at 11:12 PM on April 16 [1 favorite]

Heh, that should be sacred cows, of course. Scared cows are another thing altogether.
posted by dg at 11:13 PM on April 16

See, that is your interpretation which you are using as if it were a fact to excuse yourself. So, no, it undercuts it not one bit, in fact, add "narcissistic" to the gratuitous.

A woman marries an older, wealthy man, they divorce a few years later, she tries to publicly humiliate him, and her lawyer is rumbling about how the prenup is victimizing her because she's getting a mere $750k or whatever. I interpret these facts to indicate that the woman entered a sexual relationship for pecuniary gain. Do you really think I'm wrong? If so, you're one of the biggest chumps I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.

More to the point, I don't need to excuse myself to you, and that's certainly wasn't what I was doing. If you think it's "narcissistic" that your moral judgments have precisely zero weight to me, I'm pretty comfortable with that.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 11:35 PM on April 16

What offended me most about the thread was Ubu's comment that sometimes humour is the "only possible reaction to atrocity". No, it's never the only possible reaction. If it is, then there's something wrong with you.

dude, how do you ever manage to sit with that stick up your ass?
posted by quonsar at 11:39 PM on April 16 [1 favorite]

Carefully, I should think.
posted by dg at 11:56 PM on April 16 [1 favorite]

Count me as one of the indignophiles who is pretty disgusted that we can't have an adult conversation about a serious topic without a bunch of poor-impulse control people making boobie jokes. The fact that we have to have threads deleted because people can't resist being asses is pretty depressing.
posted by madamjujujive at 11:56 PM on April 16 [26 favorites]

More to the point, I don't need to excuse myself to you, and that's certainly wasn't what I was doing. If you think it's "narcissistic" that your moral judgments have precisely zero weight to me, I'm pretty comfortable with that.

And how do you feel if, say, 90% of us agree with Rumple...at what point do you care, or at least pause and think, Hell, there is a remote possibility that I might possibly be wrong."
Social mores are sorta defined by majority rule and if a member of society is a burden to that society, the burden is better removed. I fail to see any point you are trying to make, much less the validity of said point and, indeed, see you as still trying to stir shit up, probably cause you get a 'sexual' thrill? And you really can't control it can you? You, the Ralph Nader of metafilter.
posted by dawson at 12:13 AM on April 17 [1 favorite]

What they said.
posted by peacay at 12:24 AM on April 17

Good deletion. It would be nice if the reaction "but I lof the boobies! I LOF them!" didn't strike anyone as especially worth bringing to the table. In a conversation about FGM, comments like "but I lof vulva, it is so great for meee and I thank god for eeet, how could they do this" are really not terrific for similar reasons.

If you mean it to be funny, sorry, it's not original or clever or norm-challenging etc.
If you mean it to be pro-woman, sorry, it's reductive and objectifying and creepy instead.
If you mean it to be impressing the dudeZ with how str8 you are, sorry, what are you doing here and why don't you go back to the moron locker room instead?
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:38 AM on April 17 [4 favorites]

I'm not sure why you're trying to make this about me.

Dude, you've made nine comments out of a total of sixty five about a thread you didn't even post. There are at least as many posts from other people arguing with you -- which means that you're currently the subject of a good third of this thread.

If you don't want this to be all about you -- yet again -- why not just try shutting the fuck up?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:39 AM on April 17 [2 favorites]

It's important that we retain the ability to laugh about anything.

It's equally important that we try to have a clue about when to make the funny joke and when not to make the funny joke.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:47 AM on April 17 [9 favorites]

I disagree with this post deletion. Deleting a good (even if painful) post because of the few who are yukking it up means that this is the group that gets to set the bar for the level of conversation here, which I think is a mistake. It penalizes the good-faith poster and does nothing to discourage inane behavior. In fact, it pretty much means that the boobies-are-just-funny-I'm-sorry set get control of the site by default.

Ubu, I'm disappointed; I think better of you.
posted by taz at 12:53 AM on April 17 [19 favorites]

taz , I understand what you and others are saying. I'm wondering if maybe it's just too much hassle for the mods to hover over a thread for hours scooping up shit simply because a few attention whores are acting as if they are more sinned against than sinning. I think it was a good, well-crafted post. But until they start giving the yuck-yuck boiz a week or two off for being tiresome, I'm guessing we will be forced to miss some potentially good threads. Which is the main reason I'm fed-up with these adolescent punks. They are the ones who ruin it for everyone and then get a Christ complex. I've lost respect for several people this past week here, and not just from this one thread. egos.
posted by dawson at 1:05 AM on April 17 [1 favorite]

It was a good post, albeit a painful subject (and one that I had never heard of). Like taz I wonder who sets the bar for conversation around here.
posted by dabitch at 1:08 AM on April 17 [1 favorite]

The point is, a joke or two can't derail a thread without the cooperation of the serious users

She shouldn't have worn that dress.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:41 AM on April 17 [2 favorites]

What offended me most about the thread was Ubu's comment that sometimes humour is the "only possible reaction to atrocity".

I kind of see where he's coming from with the comment - it's not the only possible reaction, but when presented with something horrific and given no recourse to do something, it's either that or impotent outrage . And there is something to be said about people being entertained by their own righteous indignation (though I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "sexual thrill" - really?) It's good if it causes some to act, but rage and grief are not the same as action, no matter how hard your heart is pounding.

However, that sort of humor has to be handled delicately, and it can go terribly wrong. When that happens, and it happens to me on occasion, sometimes the best thing to do is to realize that it wasn't funny and might have been offensive or hurtful and concede that it wasn't the right thing to say, rather than to continue to defend the joke, especially since it was kind of a throwaway in the first place. You end up digging yourself in deeper over something that was best let go, and the joke doesn't get any funnier.
posted by louche mustachio at 2:02 AM on April 17

It's just weird to me that people think these make decent conversation starters, they just don't.

Jess, forgive me if I'm wrong here, but don't the mods frequently have to point out that the purpose of an FPP is NOT to start a conversation, but rather to highlight best-of-the-web? Aren't we frequently told, in one form or another, "If you just want to start a conversation, go to Metachat or someplace like that?"

In other words: If the documentary linked in the post was a good one and has merit, how is it right to delete it because of the way a bunch of juvenile people respond to it?

(Not saying that it does have merit - can't quite bring myself to watch it. Just sayin.)
posted by jbickers at 3:19 AM on April 17 [2 favorites]

Whoops, screwed up my link. Meant to go here. (It's early.)
posted by jbickers at 3:19 AM on April 17

Deleting a good (even if painful) post..

I strongly disagree that this was a good post. It was a poorly constructed post on an emotional subject and was pure outrage filter and shouldn't get a pass just because of it's subject matter.

A good post on this subject would have introduced it and offered context, links to society and history that help explain how this practice came out and why it only seems to be happening in Cameroon. Is there something unique about the society? I went through some wikipage links and got the impression this was more of a rural thing as opposed to urban and there were hints of polygamist sect like social constructs here, but that post just left me feeling generally angry and frustrated with humanity. There was no explanation, just "this horrible thing is going on the world!!!!!!" and that's about it.

That said, ubu and [son] QUAALUDE probably should have shut up and not continued posting. There's a time and place for everything and if even if you think everyone else is wrong, sometimes you just need to suck it up and let it go.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:27 AM on April 17 [3 favorites]

but rather to highlight best-of-the-web

How was that post "Best of the Web"?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:29 AM on April 17

How was that post "Best of the Web"?

Didn't say it was. If a post gets deleted because it sucks, that's one thing. But deleting a post because of the way people act within it feels like letting the bullies take over the playground.
posted by jbickers at 3:55 AM on April 17 [1 favorite]

Has a previously deleted post ever been un-deleted?
posted by dabitch at 3:57 AM on April 17

Yeah, it's happened a few times, I think.

*gives pointed look to mods, raises eyebrow in questioning manner*
posted by dg at 4:12 AM on April 17

But deleting a post because of the way people act within it feels like letting the bullies take over the playground.

That wasn't the only reason it was deleted, which people seem to be ignoring:

"This is going all sorts of unredeemably wrong and is sort of an outragefilter post to begin with. Why is every week a referendum on something shitty being done to teenage girls on MetaFilter? -- jessamyn"

Has a previously deleted post ever been un-deleted?
Yeah, several times. One mod might think it needed to be deleted and then another comes along and says, nah, it's fine and undeletes it.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:12 AM on April 17 [1 favorite]

What he said.
posted by aihal at 4:19 AM on April 17

what louche moustachio said just above.

that is, ok, it was a shitty joke & shouldn't have been made.

as an aside, i'm not at all surprised that a fellow aussie can see it in at least a partially sympathetic light. it's not actually about the irony thing, but something else: we generally have no sacred cows whatsoever, and the more something is held up as something that can only be respected in solemn seriousness, the more an aussie is likely to make a totally inappropriate joke about it.

for example, i bet that nobody in america was making jokes about september 11, that very morning. we sure were. the emails were flying thick & fast as people vied with each other to make the most tasteless gags possible*. that's just the way things work here, and it's easy to forget that others simply cannot get their heads around that kind of humour. even mentioning it probably makes me even further worse than hitler right now.

but what i tend to feel they don't get about that vein of taking the piss, is that it's entirely possible to joke about something at the very same time as respecting it. whatever fuss people made about a throwaway line, they apparently ignored my apology directly afterwards, and a serious comment about what is in fact a serious issue.

* i can't remember any right now, so i'll make one up:
"what's the #1 song in NY at the moment?"
"It's Raining Men"
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:21 AM on April 17 [3 favorites]

What you say is true, UbuRoivas, but.

Australians are certainly inclined to make jokes about everything and everyone, but people were not making jokes in public as the world trade centre fell - they were making them in private and only between people they knew would understand. MetaFilter is not your circle of close friends and making fun of people's misery here is like standing on a street corner and heckling handicapped people at the top of your voice.

I often catch myself about to post things that are most inappropriate here (and sometimes I don't quite catch myself in time, of course). Sometimes the best comment is one you make and never post. This was one of those times.
posted by dg at 4:38 AM on April 17

But even your apology afterwards didn't read sincere and ubu, you tend to put your foot in your mouth a lot when it comes to sexism related issues. Do you actually think you've done anything wrong or do you only backtrack when you notice that people don't "get" your humour?
posted by liquorice at 4:42 AM on April 17 [1 favorite]

so basically what you're saying here is that australians are witless, socially backwards goons that can't help themselves
posted by pyramid termite at 4:57 AM on April 17

Wow, good morning to me. I didn't think that this would happen with my thread, although I'm still somewhat new to metafilter, so perhaps that's what tripped me up. I think that to some extent this is definitely my fault. I was trying very hard not to editorialize, and I think that I ended up just not framing the thread at all, which is what made it seem like outragefilter. In fact, that wasn't my intent, and in the future I will try to find a better balance between a naked link and a screed.

It seems to me that the intent of the poster should count for something.

If my intent is interesting to anyone, it was essentially just to share what I thought was an interesting documentary about a cultural practice which I had never heard of before. It seems that many other people here had also never heard of it, and I guess I thought that it was in and of itself valuable to share something little-known (however upsetting), but perhaps that is too far from metafilter's purpose. In short, I wasn't trying to share my outrage with the community, I was just trying to share a piece of new knowledge that I thought was interesting. Frankly, I'd rather learn more about how other cultures function than see a single-link-youtube post about something soooo funnny guyzzz.

The thread should not have been deleted: the derails should have been deleted.

Thanks! I do feel bad about my thread having been deleted. I also feel kind of stupid for posting a bad thread in the first place. I just want to be clear -- it seems to me that Jessamyn was deleting my thread because she thought it was a bad thread and not just because there were problematic comments. She certainly knows more than I do about the standards of this community and about which threads are good and which are not good, so I don't think it's entirely fair to jump all over her for using her experience and judgment.

A good post on this subject would have introduced it and offered context, links to society and history that help explain how this practice came out and why it only seems to be happening in Cameroon.

That definitely sounds like a better post. I don't know anything about Cameroon, and my lazy googling didn't really come up with much, which is why I just posted the few links that I did. However, it does seem to me that a feature of this community is that it contains people with a wide range of expertise, and I suppose I thought it possible that someone with more knowledge would come along to enlighten us. Nor, even now, do I really and truly think that my thread was terrible as is. But I'm biased!

Long story short: sorry, mefi friends. I will try to learn from this and do better next time.
posted by prefpara at 5:12 AM on April 17 [10 favorites]

Oh, great, so now Ubu is excusing his poor joke telling on being Australian... First, Americans don't get irony and now it's okay to tell tasteless jokes because Australians don't have sacred cows.

I've already been told I have a stick up my ass, so this can't get worse - but this sort of pathetic argument makes me embarrassed to be an Australian.

Actually, no, I'm just embarrassed for you - thinking this argument is going well for you at all.
posted by crossoverman at 5:16 AM on April 17

so basically what you're saying here is that australians are witless, socially backwards goons that can't help themselves

To be precise, he's saying that australians are socially backwards goons that can't help themselves, and he's demonstrating that they're witless.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 5:22 AM on April 17 [2 favorites]

So Ubu, what you're saying is "never mind how what other countries may think, by god I'm gonna do what us Aussies do and you others will just have to deal" ?

You sure you're not American?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:23 AM on April 17 [2 favorites]

honestly, do you people even hear yourselves?

or has this thread become some meta-ironic super joke that i need to be a part of monkeyfilter to fathom?
posted by [son] QUAALUDE at 5:39 AM on April 17

for example, i bet that nobody in america was making jokes about september 11, that very morning.

My friend worked at his high school radio station that morning, and he was got people calling in with twin tower jokes (he had made no request on air to collect them). So, you're wrong, we have assholes here in America, too.
posted by piratebowling at 5:51 AM on April 17

Three separate thing in that post are going to stop people from actually following the link:
1) 7-minute documentary
2) "graphic"
3) NSFW
So the number of people who actually watched this thing is vanishingly small.

OTOH, nearly every thread has comments from people who didn't follow the link, who commented solely based on the writeup. It's the MeFi way. So you end up with a thread with a mix of comments between people who care enough about this serious issue to watch a graphic video, and people who don't care about it at all, and it's not surprising it ends badly.
posted by smackfu at 6:04 AM on April 17

The thread should not have been deleted: the derails should have been deleted and their authors given a little timeout.

Amen. Jessamyn's decision to delete the entire thread was a mistake. Jessamyn, please stop doing that; it hurts the site when you decide to just eliiminate a discussion of a serious topic.

Please. stop. doing. that. jessamyn.
posted by mediareport at 6:14 AM on April 17 [1 favorite]

Well, if the choice is between deleting the whole topic, or deleting half the posts and then babysitting it for the next few days, I know what I would do.
posted by smackfu at 6:21 AM on April 17 [1 favorite]

Well, if the choice is between deleting the whole topic, or deleting half the posts and then babysitting it for the next few days, I know what I would do.

Yeah. Same shoes, same decision. Except I'd probably be much, much crankier, because my feet would really hurt from not wearing shoes that fit me well.

This is why we can't have horrible things.
posted by Drastic at 6:30 AM on April 17 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I count 13 derail-y comments out of the 22 in that thread, and that's after what was initially deleted. When the thread itself is mostly derail it gets to be a lot less attractive to try and babysit it into non-crappiness, especially when its the sort of timebomb of a topic that stands a good chance of exploding again right after even an unusually dramatic cull.

prefpara, I may feel less strongly about this one than jessamyn did, but I pretty much agree with her that despite whatever your intent was, the framing of something as contentious as this is really really important and you didn't really hit the nail on the head, as you note. It's not a great big deal, but there's a lot of differences in the baggage that comes with posting, say, a Neat thing vs. an Awful thing, and post constructions that work fine for the former aren't all such a great idea for the latter.
posted by cortex at 6:38 AM on April 17

it hurts the site when you decide to just eliiminate a discussion of a serious topic.

It wasn't a good post AND was going downhill. There's no particular reason why it should stay just 'cause it's a very serious topic.

But look ya'll, we can go back and forth on this subject, arguing who's right about this, that or the other thing and probably getting angry with each other and closing accounts, etc, etc.

I propose that we, and by we I mean those interested in seeing this topic as FPP, work together to construct an interesting post on the subject. What say you? I'm still curious as why and how this came to be only in Cameroon, what social forces are at work here, at all local, religious, community etc levels.

Here, I'll start: a brief look at gender in the country of Cameroon. There seem to be similarities to the current court case in Texas in the use of polygyny (as opposed to polygamy)as a social custom of marrying off young girls. This atmosphere of forced marriage may prompt mothers to willingly "damage" their daughters in the hopes of saving them.

Can anyone else find other interesting links that highlight the conditions that set the stage for breast ironing to occur?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:46 AM on April 17

It wasn't a good post

Many of us, including taz, dabitch and I think madamjujujive, disagree.

I think I understand there's a balance, and babysitting a thread is a colossal pain in the ass. I've definitely noticed an increased trend towards summary deletion of entire threads instead of culling the crap (and I've noticed it most with jessamyn), and I'm asking that that trend slow down for a while. I think deleting that post as "outragefilter" comes close to being snark.
posted by mediareport at 6:57 AM on April 17

Sick, Ubu, sick.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:03 AM on April 17 [3 favorites]

I didn't see any discussion of a serious topic in that thread. There was a serious topic, yes, which was presented. But not discussed. I think it's rather painfully hard to have a real discussion about those sorts of issues, apart from "Wow, that's awful, isn't it? What horrible things they do in these poor countries." We believe it's a horrible, abusive, unforgivable thing. They believe it's the thing to do to save their daughters. We are all together here, and so it's just a chorus of "Yes, it's awful!" because to put in a dissenting voice (a useful thing for a discussion) is to put your head on the chopping block.

How would a real discussion about this topic go?
posted by that girl at 7:35 AM on April 17 [3 favorites]

Why would there have to be one?

Are we going to start deleting posts which generate nothing but "OMG that was hilarious!" reactions next? I mean, what else is there to discuss, right?
posted by mediareport at 7:43 AM on April 17 [1 favorite]

Many of us...disagree.

Can you explain why you and many others disagree that it was a poorly constructed post and therefore, should have been allowed to stay? Not looking to argue, but I am curious to see where you're coming from.

I've definitely noticed an increased trend towards summary deletion of entire threads instead of culling the crap (and I've noticed it most with jessamyn),

It seems like a response to inflammatory posts that tend to not go over well here. Metafilter is cool and all, but it can't handle every time of issue. that girl makes a good point, what are you supposed to do with this stuff? The way the posts are usually constructed, it's just an emotional sledgehammer of despair that ends up pissing people off.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:48 AM on April 17

MetaFilter is not your circle of close friends...

:(
posted by ODiV at 7:53 AM on April 17 [1 favorite]

Jessamyn, please stop doing that; it hurts the site when you decide to just eliiminate a discussion of a serious topic.

You suggested that she deleted a discussion. I was arguing that a discussion was not happening, and could barely happen at all.
posted by that girl at 7:56 AM on April 17

Ok, make that "decide to just eliminate a presentation of a serious topic."

The point: posts do not have to generate good discussion to be worth posting. That's always been true here; I don't recall when it changed.
posted by mediareport at 8:04 AM on April 17

The point: posts do not have to generate good discussion to be worth posting. That's always been true here; I don't recall when it changed.

Yes, but they have always been actively pruned when proven to promote bad discussion. Inflammatory topics are held to a higher standard than flash cartoons about bunnies. For a prime example, see Israel/Palestine discussions, or lack thereof.
posted by zabuni at 8:11 AM on April 17

but I lof my circle of close friends! I LOF them!
posted by Kwine at 8:12 AM on April 17

When the thread itself is mostly derail it gets to be a lot less attractive to try and babysit it into non-crappiness

Why do you feel obliged to? An interesting FPP with a shitty discussion attached is still an interesting FPP.

And god forbid anyone see what this community is really like.
posted by cillit bang at 8:14 AM on April 17

Inflammatory topics are held to a higher standard

So now breasts are an "inflammatory topic"? Good lord. Hello? That's part of the point here.
posted by mediareport at 8:17 AM on April 17

*slips out the door to work before the inflammatory breast jokes start*
posted by mediareport at 8:18 AM on April 17

The post about the polygamous sect where teenage girls were raped got deleted. Now this post is deleted as "outragefilter."

The post about teenage boys being prostituted in Afghanistan didn't get deleted. Neither did the posts about Genarlow Wilson and Matthew Koso, which were pretty much designed as outragefilter over our supposedly puritanical and draconian statutory rape laws.

I think this is a pattern, and I find it really disappointing.
posted by transona5 at 8:22 AM on April 17

I think I understand there's a balance, and babysitting a thread is a colossal pain in the ass. I've definitely noticed an increased trend towards summary deletion of entire threads instead of culling the crap (and I've noticed it most with jessamyn), and I'm asking that that trend slow down for a while. I think deleting that post as "outragefilter" comes close to being snark.

Maybe MetaFilter used to be a lot more lenient? Because if anything I'm often stunned by the seemingly superhuman levels of patience on display.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:24 AM on April 17

FWIW, I love dark humour and I'm a bit of a free speech radical, so I agree with Ubu on the whole "no sacred cows" thing, which is pretty much where I'm coming from culturally, too.

However, I still feel the joke was inappropriate, to me not because of its content but because of its timing: in that place and at that time in a thread an offensive joke like that tends to pre-empt meaningful discussion, IMO.

Also, it wasn't very clever.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:28 AM on April 17 [2 favorites]

I've definitely noticed an increased trend towards summary deletion of entire threads instead of culling the crap (and I've noticed it most with jessamyn)

You've noticed it with me because I'm the person who is more often here on nights/weekends having to make a decision re: babysitting/closure on a thread that is already destined to wind up in MeTa no matter what happens. Check deletedthread, I'm really not taking much down from MeFi at all. I didn't delete the thread because I thought "oh this is going to go badly I just know it" I removed it because it was going badly, getting worse, and there wasn't going to be any way to just remove a few off-topic comments (I tried that first, briefly) and rerail that train.

Also, topicwise, threads about shitty things being done to teenage girls really are starting to proliferate around here. I could see that being a good thing if what happened was people actually started talking about these topics, why this was, what people were doing about it, how it was to BE a teenage girl or be a parent to one. However, these threads tend to, with few exceptions, devolve into a bunch of people fighting about pedophilia, how they like women's pubic hair groomed. circumcision (as in this one) and the is-it-a-joke-or-is-it-not commentary like we saw in this thread. As it is, they're getting to be like Israel/Palestine threads in the last few months.

Serious topics don't just get a pass because they're serious. We didn't delete the thread about the boys in Afghanistan and that turned into a huge babysitting mess and a big lots-of-emails-back-and-forth MeTa thread to boot. This may be a bit of an unconscious reaction to that.

I'm aware, mediareport, that you think we should delete comments and timeout people instead of removing posts but that's not how we do things here. We've been doing it a little more in AskMe, I'm not sure how it's working yet as a strategy, but it seems like a shitty thing to do to someone, to time them out for a day, send them a note and then have the mod team asleep for the next 4-8 hours. I'm sure there are all sorts of ways to readjust the way we moderate the place but my feeling is that with the people and tools we have, this is mostly working.
posted by jessamyn at 8:41 AM on April 17 [4 favorites]

Inflammatory topics are held to a higher standard than flash cartoons about bunnies.

I was going to stay out of this, and I'll confess that I didn't watch the video (my tolerance for information like this, especially in video form, is vanishingly small these days - I go from "Huh, interesting" to homicidally enraged in no time flat), and I don't necessarily think that the post should not have been deleted, but...

But I disagree that the topic itself was inflammatory. It was outragefilter, perhaps, but I can't see how it was controversial in the sense that "Oh, there's another side to this story" controversial. We have a fair number of posters (hadjiboy, hama7, some others) who post things that may generate a dozen comments, all along the lines of "Thanks" or "Neat", which to my mind does not consitute discussion. So a post like this deleted one, if it only generated 20 comments that all said "Jesus christ how awful" wouldn't be unusual in that respect.

What made the thing go up in flames was not the post itself - which could have been better, but was hardly the Worst of the Web^TM - but the stupid can't-keep-their-mouths-shut "jokesters" who think they're The Funniest Thing Ever and the inability or lack of desire of others to ignore them (which I totally grok).

But I'm leaning more with the admins on this - when half the comments have driven off the rails and are riding off to an inevitably fiery conclusion, deletion is probably where it's at.
posted by rtha at 8:45 AM on April 17

"for example, i bet that nobody in america was making jokes about september 11, that very morning. we sure were. the emails were flying thick & fast as people vied with each other to make the most tasteless gags possible*. that's just the way things work here, and it's easy to forget that others simply cannot get their heads around that kind of humour. even mentioning it probably makes me even further worse than hitler right now."

Bullshit. And bullshit for two reasons: First off, it happened in America. You and Paul Hogan are pretty much as geographically far from the site as possible. I went through trying to explain this to my girlfriend at the time, who was in Thailand, how the US felt palpably different. That there was absolutely no traffic, that roads were shut down, that everyone was on high alert. You didn't have that. Second, there were jokes about it. Immediately. Newsroom mailing lists had jokes before the second plane hit. So no, you're not special.

I would wager that there were fewer jokes about the Bali bombing, which killed quite a few Australians, because nobody cared enough to make jokes.

And when you must be offensive, also be funny. Sub-Fark "huge mammaries" isn't even worth typing out except to get a rise. If it's already been a macro, it's likely not worth repeating.
posted by klangklangston at 8:50 AM on April 17 [5 favorites]

I'd guess that part of gallows humor is actually being the one in the gallows. Otherwise, you're just pointing and laughing at someone else's suffering.

(In the gallows? On? At? Being hung from? Eh, whatever.)
posted by Ms. Saint at 8:57 AM on April 17 [11 favorites]

I go from "Huh, interesting" to homicidally enraged in no time flat

And that's part of the problem. Under normal circumstances, flippant, rude comments are deleted, and the thread goes on, to either obscurity or a discussion. But with outrage filter, you already have a group of people angry about a topic, whether it be palestine, alberto gonzales, or whatever, and then we get the requisite 20 or so comments angrily deriding the flippants, and a 100 comment metatalk thread.

What made the thing go up in flames was not the post itself - which could have been better, but was hardly the Worst of the WebTM - but the stupid can't-keep-their-mouths-shut "jokesters" who think they're The Funniest Thing Ever and the inability or lack of desire of others to ignore them (which I totally grok).

Yes, but posts about certain subjects correlate to having such comments. It isn't the quality of the post, it's the subject matter. As far as inflammatory, I meant that in a metafilter sense, the subject matter had the odds of easily becoming the debate that has happened here.

Thus the reason for a higher standard. A great post can sometimes transcend the inflammatory subject matter. Sometimes.
posted by zabuni at 9:04 AM on April 17 [1 favorite]

there an Ian McEwan quote that I linked to months ago that's worth repeating: "I don't read the blogs much. I don't like the tone-the rather in-your-face road-rage quality of a lot of exchange on the Internet. I don't like the threads that come out of any given piece of journalism. It seems that when people know they can't be held accountable, when they don't have eye contact, it seems to bring out a rather nasty, truculent, aggressive edge...."
posted by dawson at 9:09 AM on April 17

there's
posted by dawson at 9:09 AM on April 17

Why do you feel obliged to? An interesting FPP with a shitty discussion attached is still an interesting FPP.

Yeah, but an interesting FPP with a shitty discussion attached, left alone to continue being shitty, generates a lot of ill-will, a lot of flags, a lot of complaints and questions. Part of our job every day is finding compromises between a desire to let people have in principle free rein topic-wise (one of those things that I think Matt and Jess and I all agree on as the ideal state) and managing the stuff that either serendipitously or characteristically goes badly so that threads don't become unchecked festering awful messes.

And the more heated the topic is, the better the chance that whatever decision we do make, whatever compromise we do decide on, is likely to leave some folks unhappy, and so it goes. When we delete, it's a bad deletion. When we don't delete, we're asleep at the wheel. There are reasonable people in this thread arguing either case in good faith, and I don't think either argument is really wrong in that sense: it's just a difficult problem with no perfect solution.

But if the choice is between having some folks be unhappy and having an escalating mess of a thread, or having some other folks be unhappy and having that mess contained, we're probably going to opt on the side of containment one way or another if we can manage it.

And while there are definitely topics that take some care to frame well here, there's no general moratorium on a topic just because a thread on it went poorly. Someone could do an interesting and better-presented post on this a month from now and that could be and go fine. Or it could turn to shit again despite the good framing, because the dynamics of a thread on (or tied to) a hot-button topic are so damned unpredictable. As Jessamyn just said, part of the problem is not just that these threads can be heated, but that they often become nasty nth-time-around rehashes of even hotter semi-related topics instead of the heated-but-good discussion of the ostensible topic.
posted by cortex at 9:13 AM on April 17

Yes, but posts about certain subjects correlate to having such comments. It isn't the quality of the post, it's the subject matter. As far as inflammatory, I meant that in a metafilter sense, the subject matter had the odds of easily becoming the debate that has happened here.

Yeah, I hear you on that (and pretty much everything else you've said, really). I guess it's just tilting at windmills to ask that people stick to the topic, or at the very least to not shit on it.

This is why I like cat video FPPs - "discussion" is "oh cute!" and "one time, my cat..."

They're restful.
posted by rtha at 9:24 AM on April 17

Yeah, but an interesting FPP with a shitty discussion attached, left alone to continue being shitty, generates a lot of ill-will, a lot of flags, a lot of complaints and questions.

Could you just nuke all of the comments and forbid further discussion?
posted by probablysteve at 9:30 AM on April 17

I'm with Ms. Saint. How do you not see the colossal arrogance and self-absorption required to make jokes about an atrocity that doesn't affect you personally at all? Your attempt to characterize yourself as some kind of no-sacred-cows iconoclast is astounding.

Examples of gallows humor: Jews cracking Jew jokes in death camps. People on death row making jokes about prison rape. People whose babies are dead making dead baby jokes.

Examples of being an asshole: Americans cracking Jew jokes during the Holocaust. Internet pundits making jokes about prison rape. Co-workers of people with dead babies making dead baby jokes. Western dudes comfortably ensconced at their computers making boob jokes about mutilated Cameroonian girls.
posted by nasreddin at 9:33 AM on April 17 [14 favorites]

Count me as one of the indignophiles who is pretty disgusted that we can't have an adult conversation about a serious topic without a bunch of poor-impulse control people making boobie jokes. The fact that we have to have threads deleted because people can't resist being asses is pretty depressing.

Amen.

And let me be the nth to ask why, exactly, Dr. Steve Elvis Whatever is still here. I mean, is there some MetaFilter Dick Quotient that we need to fill, and he's the best for the job, or are the moderators just bending over backwards out of some benighted concern for "freedom of speech"?

The guy's like the anti-Miko: every good post she makes is offset by some fucking drivel from this guy. At some point, I think it's time to yank the cord on some asshole for the good of MetaFilter in general.
posted by scrump at 9:35 AM on April 17 [1 favorite]

Could you just nuke all of the comments and forbid further discussion?

Technically, we could implement something like that if we decided it was the way to go. Practically speaking, that's at odds with 8+ years of how metafilter has worked, and it'd be an odd move to make on the front page.
posted by cortex at 9:36 AM on April 17

Ah, as I see it... the result of this whole nonsense/shitstorm is clearly to be found in the comment stream of the current horrific atrocity FPP. (which I declined to comment in, thank you)

Notice the uniform lack of ... substance to the commentary? is this really what we want?

.
posted by [son] QUAALUDE at 9:41 AM on April 17

the current horrific atrocity FPP

Really, it's not a "horrific atrocity FPP", for one thing. It's a nice collection of personal blogs from African women, discussing some hard things but fundamentally kind of just a peek into the personalized worldview of these women.

Notice the uniform lack of ... substance to the commentary? is this really what we want?

There's a few substantial comments in there already, along with some praise for the post. There was also a weird derail from an unattributed Tarantino quote about white and black bitches that I caught early and removed.

I'd love to see the substantial discussion in the thread grow (and I'm weirdly optimistic that it will over time as the thread goes on), but other than that I'm having a hard time seeing that as something other than what we'd want. That the reaction to that thread could be something like "we've got to make this more interesting" is kind of depressing.
posted by cortex at 9:53 AM on April 17

Notice the uniform lack of ... substance to the commentary? is this really what we want?

Sounds like you're implying that your (and UboRoivas's) commentary in the deleted breast ironing thread are examples of adding substance to the discussion. You don't really believe that, do you?
posted by dersins at 10:01 AM on April 17

There's a few substantial comments in there already, along with some praise for the post. There was also a weird derail from an unattributed Tarantino quote about white and black bitches that I caught early and removed.

And that probably has had some terrible chilling effect on substance that we will now never see. Perhaps a hilarious bon mot involving a sacred cow-tipping synergy of jokey strained puns about race, menstruation, and domestic violence all at the same time. Perhaps many of them! Now that will never been seen, and metafilter has to soldier on through a world a little more gray and cold with such meager substanceless fare as this anemic me-too comment. Truly, woe is us.

Further...wait one, I'm getting a dispatch.

Apologies. I'm being informed that "woe" isn't the right term, and that I'd been using a dicitonary from the Bizarro Universe for several other terms as well. Please stand by.
posted by Drastic at 10:06 AM on April 17

Notice the uniform lack of ... substance to the commentary? is this really what we want?

hadjiboy consistently posts quality, well-researched links to the FP, so it seems a bit odd to call him out on this.
I kinda hate to 'go there' but I do have to ask, say your mom is raped and horrifically tortured to death over several days. The way I understand some of you, yr cool if I crack jokes about that, right? because, I mean, I can, and I have the right by God and if you don't get my humor that's yr shortcoming. But isn't that lack of restraint much like someone who has lost the ability to control their bowels? Obviously I can pretty much fart on demand, but while I have the right, should I just go about farting whimsically and giggling like Bevis?
posted by dawson at 10:07 AM on April 17

the current horrific atrocity FPP

WTF are you talking about? Please tell me how that post is entirely horrific atrocity. Because it isn't.

And did you read the comments? Does this lack substance? Or this one?

Or maybe you think that comments that say "Thanks - excellent post" are as substance-free as "BOOBIES!" jokes? Are you serious?
posted by rtha at 10:07 AM on April 17

Gallows humor:

Creak, creak... creak.

Narrator: While not renown for the subtlety, gallows have a remarkable dry sense of humor.
posted by quin at 10:13 AM on April 17 [1 favorite]

I can take gallows humor - I often enjoy it. That isn't the point. The point is that it was a sophomoric derail from the topic that set the thread tone and squashed the potential for any more meaningful discussion to follow. Not to mention the insensitivity given the numerous recent threads we've had with woman after woman expressing feelings that mefi is not a women-friendly place, largely because of tiresome throwaway lines like that.

There are so many threads for humor and snark. Can't serious topics, even terrible topics be presented? The argument as to whether it was the "best of the web" or the ideal framing - it was link to a documentary on a topic of some interest and it hadn't been covered before. We have had numerous other single link posts to documentaries. The only difference I can see is that this was an ugly, sad topic. I don't get the "controversial" or "heated" part. Surely there aren't people here who favor breast ironing? Sadly, the only controversial part seems to be that the practice involved breasts.

I don't fault jessamyn or any mod for growing exasperated with trying to babysit threads that derail in an ugly fashion, but it's pretty hard not to have it seem like and feel like the lowest common denominator gets to dictate the conversation (or non-converation) in such situations.
posted by madamjujujive at 10:16 AM on April 17 [9 favorites]

The threats are wearing thin, though.

They aren't threats, MPDSEA, they are attempts to wake you up.

But you keep hitting the snooze button.
posted by jamjam at 10:17 AM on April 17 [1 favorite]

There are actually a few good "touchy" topic threads on the blue right now including the Abortion Art one and hadjiboy's post. The abortion one was an okay post [single link news filter] with an interesting topic and people are having a decent, pretty interesting, discussion. hadjiboy's was a very good post on a touchy topic and his solid presentation plus a lot of early "hey thanks for this" comments (plus the removal of whatever cortex removed) have pretty much assured that it's going to be okay.

Both of them deal with tricky subjects and "women/gender/sociology" issues, and yet are going just fine. While there's never any absolute way to say "See, the comparison between these three threads and how they were dealt with PROVES this about MetaFilter...." I think you can see some differences and learn from them.
posted by jessamyn at 10:19 AM on April 17

Jessamyn: The Aborion Art post is a single link to an article and a quote from that article. There's no obvious "framing" within the post. I'm honestly confused: why is that post OK, whereas mine is bad outragefilter? How should I have framed my post in order to increase the chances that it would not be removed? I thought I was sort of figuring it out, but now I am back to not really understanding what the rules are. Whatever it is I could be learning from the contrast is going right over my head. I feel like I'm missing something, and I would like to make good contributions rather than cause headaches. Can someone please explain it to me slowly?
posted by prefpara at 10:39 AM on April 17

I strongly resist the idea that the post wasn't good/interesting enough; it was of enough interest for an article in Harper's, and prefpera didn't do anything wrong in posting it here. The subject matter is fine. It's not something that you are going to find 25 links about, because it is a practice that was largely unknown/unacknowledged until some of the founding members of the Tantines/Aunties, speaking among themselves, discovered that it was a fairly widespread practice in their region.

Breast ironing is a well kept secret between the young girl and her mother and usually even her father is not aware of the torture his daughter is subjected to. The girl believes what her mother is doing is for her own good and keeps silent. This silence perpetuates the practice and all its consequences. It was during one of our training workshops for the Tantines that we realized that several of us had suffered this terrible ordeal and we therefore decided to denounce it and campaign against it.

There was such a conspiracy of silence between the mothers or families and the girls themselves that nobody really knew what was going on. The Aunties have a site in French, but some publications such as BBC and Harpers have been interested enough to cover the topic and break through the conspiracy of silence a bit... But, you know - boobs. So, bad post. Whatever.
posted by taz at 10:42 AM on April 17 [2 favorites]

prefpara, there's a difference between linking to a "graphic seven minute documentary" and linking to a news article. There's a difference between a NSFW post and one that isn't. There's a difference between a 9:30 PM post and one at 11:45 AM (EST). Making posts on difficult topics is something of a crapshoot here because sometimes no matter what you do, they go badly. Sometimes they go well. Every post is contextualized so many different ways that there's not one surefire way you can always get the post and the link right and asure that it will go well.

Everyone has different preferences here. Generally speaking, I'm with cortex that "part of the problem is not just that these threads can be heated, but that they often become nasty nth-time-around rehashes of even hotter semi-related topics instead of the heated-but-good discussion of the ostensible topic." And, at some level, there's not going to be an airtight set of rules you can always follow to make sure your post always goes the way you want it to. You're welcome to run them by us or other MeFites if you're feeling uncertain but at some level having a post removed is one of those things that sometimes happens and it doesn't [most of the time] reflect badly on the person who made the post.
posted by jessamyn at 10:49 AM on April 17

Discussion can be better than that. Looks like there was a whole lotta deletin' goin' on, and what's left is still not impressive. UbuR, your defense of the jokes is weak. Could we please have thoughtful articulate discussion? Not every thread, but once in a while, I would like to participate in a snark-free zone. Jokes and snark are so easy, and I understand why people use them, but sometimes the grownups want to talk, okay? So play in another thread; there are plenty to choose from.
posted by theora55 at 10:50 AM on April 17

I went to bed last night thinking that this metatalk thread would be closed because the thread it was based on was deleted.

All of you people who complained about the jokes in that thread need to be reminded that to ensure a good signal to noise ratio, some people actually have to generate signal. If you saw the jokes, why not post a comment that addresses the fpp in a serious way? The reason the jokes show up first is because when people start discussing a topic sincerely, there's a reluctance to make a joke that could be misconstrued as mocking a commenter.

With that said, here's a joke for you:

So these mothers in Africa are ironing their daughters' breasts so that they'll stay flat. Isn't that crazy? That won't leave any room to give them breast implants when they turn 16.

What I find absolutely fascinating is that it is somehow unacceptable to make jokes about the practice of mothers' disfiguring their daughters' breasts in an effort to make them flatter and less sexually appealing, but it is perfectly acceptable to make jokes about women disfiguring their own breasts to make them larger and ostensibly more sexually attractive and thereby establishing a standard of beauty for all other girls to follow. The reason for this is obvious - as long as we are joking about how women objectify themselves within our own culture, it's okay, because the women are still objectifying themselves. But we can't joke about how women prevent themselves from being objectified, because the unobjectified woman is not really a woman. Or if you prefer - the girls in the post are less than complete women because their breasts are too small, but the women with implants are "more woman" than ordinary women, because their breasts are extra large.

How about this instead: women are whole women no matter how big their breasts are, and men's attitudes about sex need to be set properly but their mothers at a young age so they don't become misogynistic assholes.

Because underlying both cases of breast mutilation is an acknowledgment by women in both societies that men set the standard for beauty, that their attitudes are fixed and immutable, and that those attitudes should dictate what women do with their bodies. We are only outraged by mutilation to reduce breasts because its the opposite of what we our culture endorses, which is breast mutilation in the service of enlargement. Apparently our culture wants women to cut open their breasts and insert plastic implants so their breasts can become striated, hard and absurd, so that they will be more certain of finding a mate.

Granted there is an element here of consent, but the same could be said of the moms here who pierce their daughter's ears at a young age, or who set examples for their daughter by getting cosmetic surgery and neurotoxin injections to look more attractive. The outrage is not over the fact taht the daughter's didn't consent to breast ironing, the outrage is over the fact that they feel they have to do this in the first place to protect themselves from men.

But our situation is actually worse from a certain perspective. There, the moms are trying to protect the girls from being preyed upon by men, so there is some noble intent there at least of mothers protecting their daughters from a very real and life-threatening harm.

Here, there is no risk of harm. The only risk of not looking as synthetically beautiful as possible is that you won't attract the right kind of mate. The pursuit of youth and beauty through surgery is part of the same mindset that motivates mothers in America to admonish their late-twentysomething daughters to find a husband soon because "they aren't getting any younger."

So yes, breast mutilation is horrible, but joking about it in an

Not funny. April 16, 2008 8:46 PM Subscribe

Not funny.
April 16, 2008 8:46 PM Subscribe