Having a sense of humour is a hate crime

The irony of this falling into the laugh section isn’t lost on me, but I assure you, I am writing it with the most unamused scorn and deep rooted concern. But instead of crying tears of joy, I just … want to cry.

In case we didn’t already hate each other enough as it is, our last remaining saviour, the one thing that hatred can leave untouched – laughter – has finally been deemed one of the most hurtful things to experience, an act of mockery, and ultimately, now, a hate crime. 

But only when someone doesn’t think what you’re laughing at is actually funny. Even just one person. If we can absolutely categorically guarantee that all 8 billion of us are robotically amused by the same thing, then it’s fine.

Now here’s the thing – the internet is a place where, despite the techheads saying there are rules, there aren’t actually very many rules, and thus, the troll was born. There are people who will laugh at bad news – which shouldn’t even be on social media if you ask me – just to bam people up, not because they actually care or even read the story. They just know enough about social behaviour to know how to get a rise out of you all.

So the trolls exist alongside genuine people who probably haven’t laughed about anything from the moment they were conscious and consider the experience of laughing so hard you cry and pee a little a fascist brand of gloating and obnoxious dickheadery. And somewhere in the middle, the rest of us are just trying to tell our friends they’re dickheads.

Still getting rid of the laughing emoji face entirely is not the way to go – “that’s how the terrorists win”, apparently. And if you laughed at that, you too, are a terrorist.

Seriously though, there’s no denying that just as anyone can laugh and mock you in real life, there are those that use the laugh ‘reaction’ across social media in pretty much the same way – that it can be deliberately provocative and upsetting.

But you wouldn’t ban laughing altogether in real life just in case someone laughs at someone else, right? Because we just wouldn’t laugh…ever. Maybe seeing people laughing makes your faith in humanity slip a little further, becauseyou realise they’re not all as miserable as you and we should be walking around with faces like sour turnips.

Seems we’re heading that way. We all hate each other now and nothing’s funny anymore anyway.

At what point did one person’s problem with another person over the most asinine thing become a social movement that meant it was suddenly the problem of the rest of the entire world!?

I’d laugh if I wasn’t so despairing. Or it wasn’t a hate crime.