Previously Posted on Facebag

I’m in a mood to opine this evening, let’s shift gears.

You know what I love about comedy? It’s like a metal detector for stupidity. You tell a joke, and the people who laugh — they’re fine. But the ones who cross their arms and scowl? Oh, they’re my favorite. They’re the self-appointed guardians of everyone else’s feelings. The volunteer hall monitors of human emotion. They don’t laugh because they’re too busy deciding who should be laughing and whether or not someone, somewhere, might be offended.

And I actually appreciate them. They save me time. It’s like free x-ray vision for thin skin. You can spot it immediately — that little twitch, that gasp, that slow lean toward the imaginary complaint department in their head. “Excuse me, sir, I’d like to file a grievance on behalf of a stranger I saw in a meme.”

Now, I don’t dislike these people because they disagree with me. I dislike them because they pretend to care about people they’ve never met. They think moral superiority is a personality. They walk around polishing their invisible medal that says Certified Defender of the Oppressed, handed out by the University of Twitter.

See, they think they’re helping. They think they’re protecting someone. But what they’re really saying is, “Don’t worry, little buddy, I’ll handle this — I know you’re too fragile to survive a punchline.” You can almost hear the imaginary drumroll of virtue. And the best part? They never actually talk to the group they’re protecting. Oh, no. That would require a conversation. Instead, they just stage a Broadway production of empathy and demand applause.

And that, right there, is exactly what we’re seeing in these so-called “No Kings” protests. The same crowd that claims to be fighting tyranny is out there cheering when someone like Charlie Kirk is assassinated — laughing about it online as if killing someone for having an opinion is a sign of progress. They’ve traded free thought for mob applause. The same people waving signs about equality and tolerance are the first to celebrate violence when it suits their politics. That’s not revolution; that’s regression dressed up in hashtags and hoodies.

And don’t even get me started on the college “activists” — you know the ones. The suburban, white, latte-fueled “allies” who can recite every slogan about injustice but would never step foot in the neighborhoods they claim to represent. They’re the kind of people who’ll tell everyone else how to live while never risking a thing themselves. They’ve turned empathy into theater, outrage into fashion. And they wonder why people roll their eyes. Honestly, I feel sorry for anyone actually named Karen, but the stereotype exists for a reason. It’s the kind of self-righteous hypocrisy that makes real people — the ones who actually live with consequences — want to scream.

It’s the new national pastime — performative outrage. It’s like fantasy football, except the only thing you win is hypertension and a broken sense of humor. You get people arguing online over things they don’t understand, defending groups they don’t belong to, and rewriting the dictionary one fake crisis at a time.

We used to have philosophers; now we have hashtag activists. We used to debate ideas; now we file emotional subpoenas. People say they want a safe space. I say: fine — build one. Just remember to soundproof it, because the rest of us are still laughing out here in reality.

And here’s the truth nobody wants to admit: being offended doesn’t make you right. It just means you’ve mistaken your feelings for facts. The world doesn’t need more referees of emotion. It needs adults who can take a joke, shrug, and move on.

So, yes — laugh. Or don’t. But if you sit there clutching your pearls because someone told a joke that doesn’t match your worldview, congratulations — you’ve just nominated yourself for president of the International Bureau of Pretend Suffering.

Because comedy isn’t cruelty. It’s honesty wrapped in absurdity. It’s how we process the nonsense of life without screaming. And if that offends you — you might just be allergic to truth.