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From: shiue@h-sc1.UUCP (steve shiue)
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d
Subject: Re: THAT article - the sequel
Message-ID: <838@h-sc1.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 15-Dec-85 01:22:59 EST
Article-I.D.: h-sc1.838
Posted: Sun Dec 15 01:22:59 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 16-Dec-85 04:46:35 EST
References: <1798@teddy.UUCP> <1441@jhunix.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Harvard Univ. Science Center
Lines: 86

> In article <1798@teddy.UUCP> rdp@teddy.UUCP writes:
> >Well, the flames are come fast and furious over my silly little joke
> >... Funny how people don't seem to think that a joke that they
> >willingly and eagerly fell for belongs in net.jokes. 
> 

Kenneth Arromdee writes:
> There's a difference between a joke that you tell to someone, and a joke that
> you play on someone.  Net.jokes is for the first type.  
>  
> >Now, some statistics. Since I posted the original article, I have received
> >85 replies by mail. At first, the real rabid flames were outrunning the
> >positive responses by about 10 to 1. Now, however, the people out there that
> >have a good natured sense of humor are overtaking the doting sourpusses
> >among you.
> 
> Again, one is a joke told to someone, and another is a joke played on someone.
> The distinction is that in the former case you have an option whether or not
> to listen and in the latter case you're participating whether you want to
> or not.  (And don't say that you had the option whether or not to read your
> article.  The article was written so as to deceive its readers.  If your
> motivation was just to tell a joke and you didn't want anyone to take the
> article seriously, you could have had, for example, a subject line saying
> "I don't *really* mean it but..." or something similar (smiley faces aren't
> enough).  If you had other motivations, such as conducting an "experiment"
> in which you expect some people to take the article seriously, then you 
> shouldn't be surprised if some people are deceived into actually taking it
> seriously.)
> 
> 
> I have seen enough serious postings as ridiculous as your article was
> that I had good reason to take it seriously.
> 
> Kenneth Arromdee

Lighten up already.  I swear you people on the net take yourselves so damned
seriously.  For instance, when hoffman (I believe from MIT) posted his
flame of "Sun City" in net.music (which he has apologized for, to his great
credit), and people attacked the naivete and ignorance of his politics, he was
extremely zealous and defensive against those who would attack his position -
a position that he obviously hadn't looked into too far in the first place,
since he didn't know that Sun City was in a S. African "homeland."  (It was
precisely because I wasn't absolutely certain about Sun City - I only
remembered that it was associated with S. Africa - that I cancelled my
original basting of hoffman until I could check my facts.)  I realize that I
am digressing, but the point is that people on the net get self righteous so
easily.  One expects this in net.politics or net.abortion, but in when it is
seen in the JOKES newsgroup then I think people have gone too far.  It is bad
enough that people get so upset when non-jokes are posted in net.jokes (though
I can understand why), althought the "why is this in net.jokes?" or "this
should be in net.jokes.d" are entirely unnecessary - don't try to tell us that
these "need to be in net.jokes because the offender obviously doesn't read or
understand the purpose of net.jokes.d" because these responses could be MAILED
privately to the offender's account - if they don't log in there anymore, then
they obviously can't post anymore, can they?

(about time for a new paragraph, and a catching of breath)

	In any case, though I realize that my viewpoint is entirely
subjective, I felt that the humor content in the original posting was obvious
from the start, and the real tipoff, besides the smiley face, was the
gratuitous reference to JESUS CHRIST, etc.  Don't tell me that smiley faces
are not enough - if they aren't then why have them as a convention in the
first place?  It seems to me that the main purpose for such conventions is
twofold - that some people are so bad at sarcastic or deadpan humor that they
should warn those who would be potentially offended (I don't think that this
is the case here, but EVEN IF YOU DO, he covered himself with the smiley face,
which was in the title and unavoidable), and that some people are humor
defective mutants and can't even see the most obvious humor when it stares
them straight in the eye (which is what has obviously happened here).  I
thought the posting was funny in itself, and the thought that people might
actually take it seriously, and add a whole dimension of irony to the
proceedings, never even occurred to me when I first laughed at it, so I think
that it has joke value (as a comment on the "offendable types" on the net)
outside of what people think its "nasty" purpose of fooling them is.  What I
believe is happening now is that people have been caught with their hand in
the cookie jar, and just can't face up to the fact that they might have been a
bit thick - so they resort to the most easy and shallow defense mechanism of
self-righteousness.  Ridiculous.  This obviously means that they don't have
what I feel to be the most important element in a good sense of humor - the
ability to laugh at theirselves, especially when they've been silly.

			-Steve Shiue
 
"I don't make monkeys.  I only train them!"
	-P.W. Herman