Interesting title for an interesting topic, but it’s one that’s been brewing for a while. This is strong, bottom-of-the-pot stuff. Fair warning.
Last night, President Obama announced that we had found and killed Osama bin Laden. I watched the announcement with a bunch of my friends in my dorm room. There was no real morbidity, there was no shock, there was no jubilant celebration (though most of us cracked open a beer). But one thing was prevalent.
Humor.
Twitter and Facebook exploded with various pop culture jokes. We searched around with glee for the best ones. I, with no sense of shame, penned a few and retweeted some of the best ones, including:
- Breaking news: Terrorism alert level raised to “confetti”.
- Answers on all my finals tomorrow: “USA”, “USA”, “America, F*** Yeah!” Profs will understand, right?
- Finally, a funeral Westboro Baptist can protest without pissing anyone off…
- sudo rm -rf /bin/laden
- Finally found Osama, huh? Guess he had an iPhone after all…
- Osama probably died waiting for the press conference about him being killed.
- RT @CNN: Chuck Norris was not harmed during his single handed killing of Osama Bin Laden.
- Obama: “We were all like ‘d-d-d-d-d, g-g-g-g-g’ (machine gun noises), and then it was like ‘eeeeeEEE-BOOM!’ (bomb noises)” It was pretty rad
- Osama bin Laden just ousted Adolf Hitler as the mayor of Hell on @foursquare!”
- So when Obama said last week he had ‘better stuff to do’ than talk about his birth certificate… Yeah.
- ☑ Saddam Hussein ☑ Osama Bin Laden ☐ Internet Explorer
Now, believe me, I’m no stranger to political correctness. I’m perfectly aware that most of those jokes are in poor taste. But unfortunately (if you don’t like those jokes), humor is how I express emotion. Happy? Tell/share jokes. Ticked off? Tell jokes. Stressed? Find jokes to make me laugh.
Does this make me a morbid, horrible person? Absolutely not. Am I going to cease these messages if you take offense to them? Probably not. A majority of my communication this day and age is made through social media. I never asked for you to follow me on Twitter, you did that on your own. If you don’t like it, there’s always an “unfollow” button.
To prove I’m not morbid and not blood-thirsty, let me show you what I posted on Facebook last night/this morning:
- While not a fan of murder, I am a fan of a terrible person who was a huge impact in worldwide terrorism no longer being able to hurt people.
- “I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.” – Mark Twain
- At some point, all the jokes will stop, all the excitement will fade… and hopefully then, we all remember why we were after Bin Laden in the first place. For those that have served, and for those that died… you will not be forgotten.
Ta-da. See? Nice cuddly Nic hidden underneath.
So seriously: this is a last warning to everyone, ever. While I am routinely reserved and of good taste with what I write/say, there are times where I choose to express myself in a more… well, expressive manner. If these rare occasions “make you sick”, “disgust you”, “make me no better than a terrorist”, or give you a desire to tell me to “get shot just like Osama did”, I highly suggest you stop reading this blog, stop following me on Twitter, and stay the heck away from my Facebook. Like, forever.
</rant>
