Because people are offended directly relatively rarely. The big issue is people getting offended on others’ behalf. “I’m not <whatever>, but if i was I’d find this offensive.” In then meantime the people who actually are the whatever don’t give a shit or find it funny.
South Park was about confronting absurdity and being your own person regardless. It’s an excellent show to cultivate giving entrenched narrow minded folks a poke in the eyes.
(Family Guy is not my bag, boring and not funny, so I can’t speak to any appeal it might have on its fans.)
Look, the root behind “no one can take a joke!” is what you’d expect. People who are used to have their feelings considered first are upset all out of proportion when that doesn’t happen. So they get angry and make statements like always-never-everyone-no one. Their world is them. They’re not used to being challenged for lazy thinking. Rather than (1) accepting other people disagree or (2) reconsidering if they are being lazy or thoughtless, they developed an outrage culture. They decided to double down on feeling special by insisting it was *everyone else* who was being unreasonable....
They cry: Today’s culture is everyone is offended all the time!! No one can make jokes!! No one can even be themselves!! Thought police!!! Everyone just wants to be offended all the time!! How did I end up in this crazy world!!
It’s all just the same two sentences: I don’t like it when I’m not frequently told I’m special. I have an extremely low tolerance for feeling uncomfortable.
I feel like I’m pretty clear on why a group of people would resist change by building straw men and claiming it’s actually everyone else who are being the *real* snowflakes. What I don’t understand is why someone would admit to being part of this totally fake reality or even join it in the first place.
On today’s episode of “are they really?” We ask the question: “are they really?” Many of you weren’t alive before these shows. For some, you were barely kids. The Simpsons was hugely controversial and considered vulgar and adult. Not for being “offensive-“ not too many people raised a peep about the stereotypes and such in the early days, but for being “too extreme” in fowl language and themes, for being too “dirty” etc. go watch some early Simpsons episodes. They are pretty tame. “Don’t have a cow man” was tantamount to “fuck you” as far as how many schools etc. treated it.
Not so long ago things like talking about the bathroom, sex lives, showing a character in the bathroom even were considered too offensive for network tv. So now, people tend to get less offended by bodily function jokes. Tend to be more open to a character saying something like “I haven’t had sex in months!” Swearing, partial nudity, same sex relationships (when Ellen came out people threw fits and many said it was the end of her career. Even hinting a character wasn’t straight was taboo- although some comedies could get away with it if they didn’t go too detailed and just had them flame around.)
In. Single life time we’ve seen tv go from where two married adults couldn’t share a bed to where what was once soft core sex can be broadcast. Law and Order with its semen everywhere and rapes? Forget it. Even go watch Boston legal. Heralded as a show pushing the envelope. For the most part they stay pretty vague and tame even if there is some stiff still pushing it for today and some things that were ok but are now “problematic.”
So are people more easily offended? I don’t think they are necessarily. I think what people are offended by has changed. For the most part we’ve loosened up sexually a whole lot. Gore, violence, language etc. We tend to let shows that are satire get away with more than we would shows playing a joke straight- but more than anything I think.... and also for those not keeping up:
TL:DR- what people are offended by has changed, the outlets people can voice offense by have changed and increased because of the internet (before you could pretty much protest or write a letter to a network.) Content making has changed and now makers take much more direct feedback from audiences instead of focus groups or statistics. But mainly people are fine for the most part with toilet humor and nudity and the like (provided it has at least some context) but simply don’t support jokes that laugh AT other people the way they did when society was much more homogeneous and “that guy” was someone you’d likely never meet and not a neighbor or friend or you.
I also believe that how okay it has been to ‘be offensive’ it’s become just as okay to ‘be offended’ and I can’t argue, even tho I normally fall under the ‘be offensive’ category
I was raised on playschool, Rugrats and just about all the wholesome shows, brother raised on southpark and simpsons, but we all seem just as chill. I don't think the shows actually impact a persons ability to get offended, maybe they develop a different sense of humour but... eh, I don't have enough knowledge to add too much to this debate.
(Family Guy is not my bag, boring and not funny, so I can’t speak to any appeal it might have on its fans.)
Look, the root behind “no one can take a joke!” is what you’d expect. People who are used to have their feelings considered first are upset all out of proportion when that doesn’t happen. So they get angry and make statements like always-never-everyone-no one. Their world is them. They’re not used to being challenged for lazy thinking. Rather than (1) accepting other people disagree or (2) reconsidering if they are being lazy or thoughtless, they developed an outrage culture. They decided to double down on feeling special by insisting it was *everyone else* who was being unreasonable....
It’s all just the same two sentences: I don’t like it when I’m not frequently told I’m special. I have an extremely low tolerance for feeling uncomfortable.
I feel like I’m pretty clear on why a group of people would resist change by building straw men and claiming it’s actually everyone else who are being the *real* snowflakes. What I don’t understand is why someone would admit to being part of this totally fake reality or even join it in the first place.