AIBU to find this " Best Gag of the Edinburgh Festival in poor taste?

[speakout]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-49389208

I have seen and read this "joke " repeated several times on TV in the past few days and find it in very poor taste. Newsreaders on TV have been chuckling. Tourette's can be a serious and debilatating condition and sufferers have huge challenges in everyday life. Surely we are a bit more grown up these days than to poke fun at people with a neurological condition?
Is is just me being stuffy?

But the cow joke is excellent.

So if Jess Thoms says ‘biscuits’ it’s ok to laugh at her, but if the Swedish comic says ‘broccoli’ or ‘cauliflower,’ it’s not ok because he hasn’t actually got Tourette’s?

‘Biscuits’ is really the mildest thing JT says during performance. . I suppose though she would argue that her owning of the biscuits and fornicating with farm animals means that the audience is laughing with her rather than at her.

That's a terrible "joke".

The thesaurus one is the best.

“Shall I go on?”
No thank you. Because you’re being a teeny weeny bit silly, aren’t you?

So you should be the one who decides which jokes are genuinely upsetting, and which jokes are ok because the people who get upset are being a bit silly. Glad we've established that.

You don't think there's a vegan somewhere that might be genuinely upset about a joke about cow farming? Why risk it? Why make a joke that features cow farming at all.

Unfortunately , people struggle to differentiate between the subject of the joke, and the target of the joke. The subject of the joke is cow farming, the target of the joke is the bloke who misunderstands what the farmer is asking for.

Jokes about dodgy subjects can work well if the target is the "right" person. So a holocaust joke can be funny, if the target of the joke is the Nazis.

For people finding the concept of what’s appropriate difficult to understand, would substituting racial stereotypes for ones about disability help you to grasp it?

“You don't think there's a vegan somewhere that might be genuinely upset about a joke about cow farming? ”
Because being a vegan is not a neurological condition. HTH

OP and a few others on here seem to have had a humour bypass
Worried there is no appropriate or inappropriate, some will laugh, others won't.
Bit of a shit show if we all have to be so PO about what we find funny.
I'm a Romany Gypsy, we get all the racist comments and it's still accepted by society. I would still laugh at the peg, tarmac driveway jokes if I've never heard one before.

'get over yourself' 'stop it' 'professionally offended' 'pearl clutching'

Or perhaps some of us with actual experience of this illness do find it offensive. It's perfectly possible to express a view, particularly on such a personal subject, without rudeness or trying to shut down other posters who hold a different view you know.

Apart from the fact that it is a really shit joke, it's just not on to poke fun at people with additional needs.

Are autism jokes okay? How about some lovely ones I remember from the 1970s about Downs Syndrome? Are those okay?

I am far from humourless but I don't find making jokes at the expense of neurological/genetic conditions funny at all.

The professionally unoffended do feel they have the right to be as rude as they like, don’t they?

Or perhaps some of us with actual experience of this illness do find it offensive

Just because you're offended doesn't make you right.

Apart from the fact that it is a really shit joke

That’s the crux really isn’t it. Why are people falling over themselves to defend something that’s not even funny.

I love black humour. Isn’t the whole raison d’être that it’s actually funny?

Because being a vegan is not a neurological condition.

Who gets to decide that jokes about neurological conditions are unacceptable, but jokes about the farming animals are. How about Brexit, the holocaust, cancer, death, rape, paedos, etc.

Who gets to produce the list of acceptable subjects.

How about letting people joke about what they like, and letting individuals choose if they find it funny/upsetting/offensive or not, and then that person deciding to turn off the tv whenever a comedian they don't like comes on?

@lifecraft do you actually think that and can you really not understand how wrong your comment is?

I find it really offensive

But I roared with laughter at the antidepressant one, in spite of being on them for life.

I suppose it’s because the winning joke crossed a line and the AD one didn’t?

The professionally unoffended do feel they have the right to be as rude as they like, don’t they

I certainly feel that other people should have the right to say what they like, and joke about what they like, within the current law. I am not obligated to make jokes about all subjects myself, nor to find other people's jokes funny.

That's the thing about freedom, people are free to say things I don't approve of.

@lifecraft do you actually think that and can you really not understand how wrong your comment is?

Which one, I've made a few.

I suppose it’s because the winning joke crossed a line and the AD one didn’t?

Whose line?

@lifecraft So there is no such thing as offensive material in your world?

“I certainly feel that other people should have the right to say what they like, and joke about what they like, within the current law”

Do you also think that jokes about neurological conditions should win awards at mainstream comedy festivals?

@lifecraft So there is no such thing as offensive material in your world?

There's plenty of stuff I find offensive. But just because I'm offended doesn't make me right, and so long as whatever it is that offends me isn't against the law, I just have to suck it up. If it a comedian I find offensive, I just won't watch them in the future.

@Lifecraft

the AD joke didn't represent any problems of the illness, I guess. It also plays on a well known joke that we already know people make about us. It's hard to explain....there's an episode of Frasier when everyone's tetchy and he says "Is Seattle experiencing a Prozac shortage?" and I laughed at that too.

but in spite of not having Tourette's, I winced at that. I can't say I can make sense of it, but I can say that I think jokes about cows and thesauruses (sp? plural?) are fairer all round. And funny!

Do you also think that jokes about neurological conditions should win awards at mainstream comedy festivals?

Not that joke, because I don't think it's a very good joke. But in general terms, I would have no issue with a funnier joke about a disability or any other triggering subject winning an award.

But the fact that I didn't find that joke very funny is just my opinion. I have no right to impose my particular sense of humour on other people.

So jokes about rape aren’t offensive if they are not illegal?

@Lifecraft it isn't about being right or wrong, it's about opinions. People have different views, and just as you are allowed to not find the joke offensive, I can find it very offensive. You probably have no idea what it's like to see this illness close up and why it might be upsetting. I do.