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I see the "it's just edgy comedy!" excuse trotted out quite frequently to excuse a certain creator's behaviour. Quite frankly, as someone who enjoys actual edgy humour, it's bollocks, and most of us know it's bollocks, but it's necessary to address because of how prevalent it is
How the human brain actually resolves humour is staggeringly complicated and really damn weird. Essentially, at best research, it boils down to rectifying perceived incongruity. Here's a big science on it: https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/126/10/2121/314497
If you like comedy, you probably like edgier comedy, because it straight up is funnier. It can be a genuine resource in speaking truths people ignore. It can shine a spotlight on the weird, shitty, and hilariously awful aspects that form the general catastrophe of human existence
Societal taboos are very easy targets for this. That word you can't say? Well I'm going to say it! And I'm going to say it in a deliberately jarring situation! Resolve the incongruity of me saying it in a deliberately jarring situation and rejoice! Humour has been made!
All humour has a context, be it the person you're telling it to, the comedy club it's delivered in, or the society it is born from. That latter part is important when it comes to the "comedy" of content creators, because often, it's the only context your "material" will ever have
The internet obliterates everything contextual that true edgy humour needs to not just be offensively bad. It removes the relationship you have with a friend, or the interplay between comic and audience. In many cases, like Discord chats, it even removes tone and inflection.
"Oh but it's taken out of context!" Sorry bud, it's not. When you strip away all other context, all you've to rest on is the context of the social system the joke was said in, and guess what; it doesn't work within that context either.
Even if, and that's a big IF, dropping a slur in a video was your idea of a joke, of edgy humour, of being deliberately offensive to call out ridiculous norms, you can't just do it and expect everyone to get it. In fact, if they don't, that's not their fault, that's yours.
You know what you call a comedian who tells a joke the majority of the room doesn't laugh at? A bad fucking comedian.
You never see people rushing to the defence of no-name comics who can't get an audience at their local comedy cellar to laugh at their material. If they stand up and drop stuff that bombs, how often do you see them running from the room claiming their free speech has been harmed?
Edgy humour is about telling truth to power, about dissing those holding all the cards, often because the person spitting it has had all means of affecting said powerful removed from them. It's punching UP. Dropping a random ethnic slur? My dude, that's punching DOWN.
Punching downward, dissing the weak, dropping the slurs people who want them dead literally use all the time; that's not funny, it's just straight up bullying. It's cruel, and when people call it that, it's not because they don't understand. They understand it better than you do.
Trotting out the tired excuse of "snowflakes" being easily "triggered" by "edgy" jokes is just the modern version of "they swear too much" and "what happened to good clean family fun". It's an excuse to moan about prevailing social change you don't like. It's boomer shit.
It's "why can't I be openly awful anymore." Well, cause people have changed. There's a bit more empathy in the world, and a bit less patience with shitting on people who have been consistently and badly shit on.
Anyway, this is getting ranty. As content creators we have a responsibility to be aware that our context is now global, and our relationship with our audience entirely one-sided. It behooves us to take greater care in what we say and create, as we don't know who's watching.
You don't know them, you don't know their struggles, their lives, what they deal with every day. Work to build compassion and empathy into your content instead of going for a cheap own. And if not, well, you will not be missed.
