CLIMBING MEMES 2.0

Dm each other...stop wasting meme page space.

A V wrote:

Lets do this cycle again: Poorly made meme/joke in bad taste - backlash - backlash against the backlash - we all complain that these aren't memes and then proceed to keep posting memes. It happens again etc etc etc. Embrace it - this is the way on MP

But you forgot the part where the rest of us get to complain about our related memes getting pulled off the site. Help, I'm being censored! Everything is unfair!

• Can we agree that "offensiveness" is a bit of a sliding scale, and that different things will offend different people? 
• Can we also agree that there are things which most neutral observer would deem offensive (although some people won't be offended by), as well as some things that most neutral observers would NOT deem offensive (though some people will still be)?

It seems hard for me to not agree on the above. Which, if I am right, makes it a decent starting point to consider things.

The way I see it, this "offensiveness" topic can be construed as a negotiation. I as a person don't want to see/hear/be exposed to some things, for whatever reasons. I as a person also want to express things. And so does everyone else. Invariably this will come into conflicting perspectives sooner or later. I do not have a god-given right to "not be offended". Beyond reasonable expectations, there's no way for other people to predict whether or not I'll be offended by something. E.g. death baby jokes are probably something you'd keep for people you're pretty sure will take it well for instance. Yet people who do/say things that are offensive to me do not have a god-given right to be jerks either. And hence comes the negotiation reference.

Some negotiations are dead-ends - maybe Bill & I just can't really see eye to eye on that one. I do not construe that Tienamen meme as being crude, or offensive, and it seems obvious to me that Kevin's interpretation is what this is about. I am clearly not making fun, of minimizing Tienamen's square massacre but rather over-dramatizing our own perspective while climbing. Maybe Bill's family came true some civil war background or something and that shift his perspective on it, and perhaps to him that's obviously crossing a line. Sorry if that's the case, we're going to have to agree to disagree on that one. I'm not saying that to be a jerk, or dismissive of that perspective, it's just that my personal evaluation cannot bring me to the conclusion that "okay, yeah, there are valid reasons why part of the audience may be offended by that, and it's just not worth what it is against that fact". Which doesn't mean that someone cannot reasonnably be offended by it . 2 things can be true.