Should comedians have boundaries?

[shavenferret]

Runa216 said:

LegitHyperbole said:

When shit gets hard and humour is needed this will all change. And it looks like the world is about to or sliding into hard mode right now, people will think less about such trivial things like offensive language and being offended. At any rate this is only an Internet problem, you think people in everyday life are censoring themselves or afraid to cross the line with humor... nah. Not even in work places, I'd imagine. But God it is something that needs to go away and not seep down to everyday life cause humour is what let's us relieve tension and we need that tension release these days. As for stand ups, I see no line within reasonn hell cross the line if you've tested and are confident in the joke at the end of the day it's the comedians job to read the room and to press on the line as much as possible. Dave Chappelle is the perfect example, a master of flirting with the line. 

Do you people genuinely not understand the significance of the difference of punching up vs punching down? Not know the difference between teasing something for something they said or did vs something out of their control? the difference between comedy and mean-spirited bullying? 

It baffles me that so many people genuinely seem to believe that all behaviour is acceptable as long as you tag it as humour, that context doesn't matter, and that compassion and empathy are weakness.

True comedy doesn't have barriers, this is true. As discussed in this thread. The thing is, a lot of stuff people laugh at isn't comedy. it's bullying with a 'comedy' mask. I can't ever see someone complaining about how 'sensitive' people are now without assuming they'd call me a retard or faggot or drop hard-R n-bombs if they thought they could get away with it. People aren't too sensitive, some people are just dicks or actively trying to use the blanket of 'humour' to get away with being an ignorant dick. 

It's like people committing acts of assault then crying 'it's just a prank, bro', like that makes it okay, then bitching about how some people are so sensitive to their audience. 

Your feelings are ok on this.  Most people don't think that they should legislate this problem away, because it creates more thorny problems than comedians being jackasses.  But we all agree that bullying is wrong, and what is also true is that we are becoming a better society so that there will be less of this punching down.