tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post5219081441110514177..comments2024-03-13T19:49:05.520-07:00Comments on The Adventures of Shylock Holmes: What Henry Blodget Could Have WrittenShylock Holmeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446165270035271752noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post-13404713919075813552015-06-05T19:03:31.583-07:002015-06-05T19:03:31.583-07:00No worries.
Reading over it again does make me s...No worries. <br /><br />Reading over it again does make me sad about the real world response. I miss your old twitter feed, it was one of the funniest things on the internet.<br /><br />I hereby offer this speech in its entirety to any leader of an organisation faced with this choice, and commend it to all.Shylock Holmeshttp://shylockholmes.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post-39250066258094102212015-06-05T18:27:21.072-07:002015-06-05T18:27:21.072-07:00Hey, I had never seen this before. Thanks for wri...Hey, I had never seen this before. Thanks for writing it.Pax Dickinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04007901725408378861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post-74573547164289684122013-09-14T19:37:23.636-07:002013-09-14T19:37:23.636-07:00That said there is an art to choosing your venue, ...<i>That said there is an art to choosing your venue, when trying to make fun of something so controversial I would hope that you would try to provide some context or convey that it is not a personally held opinion, not an easy feat in 40 characters or less. </i><br /><br />Indeed. I think twitter is a very tough venue in which to either make risque jokes or talk about controversial subjects without hanging yourself somewhere, especially when you've written 10,000 tweets like Pax has. That's part of the reason I stick to this venue, where the caveats come flying thick and fast. :)<br /><br />Still, I think something definite is lost when every joke needs to have a footnote to a paragraph of explanation to make sure nobody takes it the wrong way. There's a certain style of impulsive humour that you just can't make to work.Shylock Holmeshttp://shylockholmes.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post-65773144446040422013-09-14T17:35:40.153-07:002013-09-14T17:35:40.153-07:00That's a fair point. Anything out of context i...That's a fair point. Anything out of context is open for wild interpretation. That said there is an art to choosing your venue, when trying to make fun of something so controversial I would hope that you would try to provide some context or convey that it is not a personally held opinion, not an easy feat in 40 characters or less. <br /><br />I suppose though this speaks to the issue of people not being able to take a joke in the first place.<br /><br />I think this is just one of the many failings of having such a connected general populous -- you get people who use the internet as their own personal soapbox. When I hear of such events I often find myself wondering why they don't have better uses for their time than to become in internet activist for some ridiculous cause. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post-4395282658139787662013-09-14T13:12:23.700-07:002013-09-14T13:12:23.700-07:00Regarding that specific quote, without any context...Regarding that specific quote, without any context, I agree, it certainly sounds bad. But Pax <a href="https://medium.com/glimpse-labs/4aa5b6a6a665" rel="nofollow"> makes a defense</a> (quite credibly, in my opinion) that this tweet was a deliberate play on <a href="http://www.thesuperficial.com/mel-gibson-to-oksana-youre-going-to-get-raped-by-a-pack-of-n-words-07-2010" rel="nofollow">this Mel Gibson quote which was well-known at the time</a>. He was, in other words, mocking and satirising someone else's racist statement, not advocating it himself. The dates match up anyway, as the tweet is from the same time period. The phrase 'my remarks were taken out of context' gets thrown around a lot as a cowardly defense when it's unjustified, but here I really do think it's true.<br /><br />More importantly, I think there's an ocean of difference between a) 'we should advocate such banter taking place' (which, as far as I know, nobody is pushing), b) 'we should privately discourage such banter when we meet people who engage in it', and c) 'we should publicly attempt to get people fired who engage in such banter'.Shylock Holmeshttp://shylockholmes.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1764328218611568829.post-16608357970786389342013-09-13T22:42:53.345-07:002013-09-13T22:42:53.345-07:00While the limits of acceptable discourse may be sh...While the limits of acceptable discourse may be shrinking, intelligent conversation is not being stimulated by comments such as "In The Passion Of The Christ 2, Jesus gets raped by a pack of niggers. It's his own fault for dressing like a whore though." It's hard to be an advocate for such banter in a public forum -- that talk has a time and a place, I don't think that twitter is the time or the place especially if you know how polarizing it will be with so little to gain from such a proclamation.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com