/lit/ - Literature

The very reason you're joking about the so-called offensive topic is because it's offensive. Offensiveness is the substance of your joke. Some would say these jokes are lesser jokes, and that the jokes which avoid reliance on offensiveness and employ a greater deal of intellectual prowess are more valuable.

The problem is, offensive jokes can also employ a great deal of intellectual prowess: they can be very witty (Larry David or Ricky Gervais), and they can be profound in transmuting sadness to happiness as some said in this thread (>>2951072), and they can be of great use in social commentary (Swift's
"Modest Proposal"), etc. And if the value of a joke lie in its capacity to make one laugh, these offensive jokes can sometimes very much win out the "tasteful" ones!

I am of the opinion that tasteless jokes are best enjoyed alone or in the company of a few friends. They are funny because of their absurd tastelessness. We can go on about how decency is a construct of our society and how in our utopia everybody would be making 9/11 dick jokes, but that gets us nowhere. If someone really finds your tasteless joke unfunny, then it doesn't matter if its because they were patterned to think that way, you have simply failed as a joker- that is, if your aim is to make people laugh. If your aim is to piss people off, though, now THAT's what I call edgy.