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<blockquote data-quote="Cadence" data-source="post: 6178501" data-attributes="member: 6701124">Certainly,&nbsp; pretty much anything negative could set someone off -&nbsp; the Pony incident in Seinfeld, an infidelity joke for someone who just found out their partner has been, dead baby jokes for people who lost an infant, &quot;drink the kool-aid&quot; for someone who had a relative at Jonestown, etc...&nbsp; And, given the number of ways horrible things happen to people in the world it could mean the end of jokes in general if anything that might negatively touch an audience member had to be avoided.I'm guessing people reacting badly to having personally horrible things brought up is at least as old as the joke. And so what happens when a joke you tell affects a person for whom the horrible thing is a raw personal issue?&nbsp;&nbsp; One approach could be to either publicly or privately say something like:&nbsp; &quot;We weren't trying to mock &lt;insert issue&gt;. We were simply using it as an example of something horrible, because an example of something horrible was required to make our point.&nbsp;&nbsp; We are very sorry it touched on your personal experience, that was not our intent.&quot; A second approach could be to ignore the reaction.&nbsp;A third approach could be to deliberately start mocking groups for whom it was an intensely horrible personal issue.&nbsp; Choosing door number three seems like asking for one's things to be ruined.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Cadence, post: 6178501, member: 6701124"] Certainly, pretty much anything negative could set someone off - the Pony incident in Seinfeld, an infidelity joke for someone who just found out their partner has been, dead baby jokes for people who lost an infant, "drink the kool-aid" for someone who had a relative at Jonestown, etc... And, given the number of ways horrible things happen to people in the world it could mean the end of jokes in general if anything that might negatively touch an audience member had to be avoided. I'm guessing people reacting badly to having personally horrible things brought up is at least as old as the joke. And so what happens when a joke you tell affects a person for whom the horrible thing is a raw personal issue? One approach could be to either publicly or privately say something like: "We weren't trying to mock <insert issue>. We were simply using it as an example of something horrible, because an example of something horrible was required to make our point. We are very sorry it touched on your personal experience, that was not our intent." A second approach could be to ignore the reaction. A third approach could be to deliberately start mocking groups for whom it was an intensely horrible personal issue. Choosing door number three seems like asking for one's things to be ruined. [/QUOTE]

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