Am I a laughing stock?

[CovidHeadache]

I jokingly call my house “surname towers” so for example if my surname was Jackson, my house would be called Jackson Towers. I’ve called it this for years, it’s very very lighthearted as I’m sure everyone knows. We host a lot of social events and I use the name in invites for example “birthday party, Jackson towers”, “Strictly finale party, Jackson towers” etc
In Christmas/birthday cards “love from A, L and all at Jackson towers”

All my friends and family know I call the house this and some call it this name too either in replies or just in general.

Anyway, last night I’d popped to my mums and my sister was there, we were talking about taking the kids to a Halloween event tonight and I said “why don’t you bring them back to the towers afterward and we can have a little party?”

My sister then said “I’m sorry but can we stop with this towers bullshit, it’s so cringy”. I said “It’s a joke! And you’ve never complained before!” My mum then said “not to your face maybe”. They both started laughing and my sister then said “no I’m sorry, someone needs to say something, people have been ripping the piss out of you for years for it, just give it a rest now”.

so to cut a long story short, turns out almost my entire family have been slagging me off for it for years and my sister hinted that my friends have too.

When I got home I rang my friend and asked her if the towers name annoys her and she said “no course not” so I asked if she knew if it annoyed anyone else to which she hesitated and then said “not annoy as such”. She wouldn’t elaborate further.

Now I’m pretty thick skinned and can mostly laugh it off if I’ve been a dick but this time I’m a bit upset, I keep trying to tell myself I’m not bothered but I can’t stop thinking about it. Have I been a laughing stock for years? If so AIBU to think someone might have mentioned it before now?

Laughing at this thread as my boyfriend and I refer to our house as Tearwood Towers… (Tearwood is our street name). Wonder if all my friends and family are laughing at us behind our back’s too! 🤣

This is lovely, I second what someone unthread said, that the world would be so boring without people like you! I enjoy making conversations interesting too and will often give people nicknames when I say good morning, think along the lines of Charlie warlie,

Love it! My sister's kids are grown up, but she has a demanding cat. I'll suggest I get her one too.

💯 agree.
Social fun homes are hard to find these days, people are very isolated.

Exactly this.

What started as a small joke has become your own personal cliche.

It's lost whatever humour it had and gained a layer of cringe because you haven't realised.

You're not Bruce Forsyth. You don't need a catchphrase.

Awful.

Can you explain why it’s funny/funny to others? I’m not being rude I don’t quite get it!

Oh God, you're exactly right. She sounds like an ancient radio DJ from twenty/ thirty years ago.

It's like Smashie and Nicey's funny farmstead.

It's the comedy of bathos. She doesn't really live in a grand house, so referring to her ordinary house in the language of grand houses is... not funny, exactly, but let's call it "gently amusing".

Thank you, it reminds me of a family friend who lived in’rose cottage’. A normal house on a main road , small garden and in a noisy town. It was in way a cottage but they’d put that on Christmas cards and refer to the cottage.

It's an ironic posh name for a normal house. Like naming a massive dog Titch. And also just affectionate, like parents sometimes addressing their daughter as "princess". Both ironic grandness, and genuine affection because the home is as precious as if it were a palace.

It's absolutely ridiculous for people to say it's so unbearable they couldn't take any more, and I do not believe anyone who claims to think she's actually genuinely boasting about the size and grandeur of her three storey townhouse.

People who say this is a bit Hyacinth Bouquet are wrong. Her pretensions are unironic. She doesn't know she's making a joke. The OP does.

People who say this is a bit Alan Partridge or David Brent are right. They make jokes like this on purpose. We laugh at them because their humour is forced and cliched and not funny, though think it is. We are laughing at their lack of self-awareness.

But OP hasn't said anything to suggest that she's expecting people to laugh or react or think it's brilliant every time. I got the impression she hadn't even been thinking much about it by this point. It's just her jokey nickname for her house and what she's got used to calling it.

Well, it's obviously time to change the name to "Jackson MANSIONS".
And sod 'em.

It’s just a collective term implying everyone in the household. Shorthand in a mock self deprecating way. Yes you could make an anagram of it cf Fawlty towers. That’s if you ever invite them to anything ever again…you sound happy and generous that can be very annoying to people.
Or even better you could face them out so at the next gathering the towers have invited them to you could say to their faces , ‘Imagine I never knew you were laughing at me behind my back. But I do now. Help yourselves’ oh I know you won’t, but they do deserve it. Only parasites mock their hosts.

Who is Amanda?
Do you mean Miranda? 😂

I'm guessing PP means Amanda from Motherland & Amandaland.

You're right.

Even the OP doesn't think it's funny any more. It's lost whatever purpose and meaning it had. It's become a personal cliche.

Miranda who?

It’s a Motherland reference.

Oohh, I haven’t seen that!
It was Miranda that sprang to mind for me, with her what-I-call whimsical name! Such fun!

I was thinking of Miranda Hart!

Ok, but so what? David Brent wasn't a twat because he had a pet name for something that he liked to use to please himself. He was a twat because he was always trying to impress everyone and being totally awkward, insincere contrived and performative about it.

OP's just got a nickname for her home that she likes to use. She doesn't even think about it unless people suddenly attack her for it.

Motherland is great, so very what-I-call Funny 😁
Amandaland, not quite so much.

I think they mean Amanda from Motherland. To be fair I don’t think Amanda would call her house Whatever Towers because she sees herself as impossibly sophisticated. She wouldn’t make a joke around her house.

I’d ignore them and carry on. It seems to me there are a great deal of miserable b@stards nowadays who have lost there sense of humour and are jealous of the few who still have theirs! Yes I know only too well there’s a cost of living rise blah blah blah and people are struggling blah blah, I’ve got my own problems too but for Gods sake something like what you call your house is up to you and strikes me if they’ve got no SOH I wouldn’t want to invite them or be around them! There’s far worse things going on in the world so to have a laugh now and then is good for the soul, please don’t let these people bring you down!