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Boston asshole tries to find the humor in mass death
By adamg on Mon, 05/22/2017 - 8:15pm
Even if he had no shred of decency, which appears to be the case, you'd think somebody from Boston would know better than to make jokes about people dying in an explosion hours after it happened.
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Comments
Poor attempt at humor by
Poor attempt at humor by David Leavitt, but what comes of false outrage and internet shaming?
Who says it's false?
I really am outraged by this putz. As for Internet shaming, well, obviously I think he richly deserves some.
Me thinks so too. His timing
Me thinks so too. His timing is poor and the joke itself is terrible. I really don't get what inspires these morons to say jokes after a tragedy. The last person who did it right was Joan Rivers and even then, Gilbert Gottfried had to save her ala' the Aristocrats. Someone should contact his employers!
I get it, he is an idiot, but
I get it, he is an idiot, but what comes of it? Your blood pressure goes up for a few hours and in two weeks, no one cares or remembers? They will be too busy remembering 19 dead people. Focus on what is important.
The local angle
Guy used to write for Channel 4 (he did some "best of" guides for them) and is from Boston. So, no, I wouldn't have posted anything if he were from some other place.
But it's so much fun to join
But it's so much fun to join the social network pitchfork mob, isn't it?
I'd ask him to give it a rest.
If I was standing next to him in a bar, I'd ask him to give it a rest.
I watched many people ask him to give it a rest. He would not. He's kind of a dick. He was trying to be funny I assume. He was being cruel.
Your post caused my
blood pressure to go up.
I thought the same thing until
I looked at his profile. He's some type of journalist and advertises himself as such while commenting online. I think that makes him fair game.
He also advertises himself as
a video game player. Better stick with Minecraft, dude.
Someone has to be sacrificed
We are powerless to do anything about the bomber so some object has to be found for our hate.
And that is why you don't volunteer
Running your twit has consequences. Just look at 45.
what comes of [actual]
Gets his name out there into Google search results for the next time he's job-hunting. You're welcome.
Frank99 thinks the public is
Frank99 thinks the public is 'faux' outraged by a journalist joking about children being blown to bits at a pop concert... I'm glad I don't know you.
RIP to the victims.
Freedom of speech, anyone? If
Freedom of speech, anyone? If you don't like it, don't retweet him or follow him.
Meet my friend, XKCD
Nobody's saying he can't make an idiot of himself.
Jailing him would interfere with that
Making sure that potential employers see this, as he is a broadcast personality, is also free speech.
Actions ... meet consequences!
DailyMail just posted about
DailyMail just posted about him. "You had to be a big shot, big shot, why'd ya open up your mouthhh" Now the world knows how employable you are! Asshole.
You might want to look into
You might want to look into what Freedom of Speech is. Nobody is encroaching on his.
You might want to look into what done in poor taste means.
Considering people (and many children) were blown up at the concert.
And it really has nothing to do with freedom of speech. (oh, BTW, there are limits on that also. Ya know, defamation of character, that sort of thing that folks go to court over?)
congrats
in your self righteous effort to be a bastion of all that is good & saintly you just rephrased what the guy you were responding to said
Exactly
Adam is exercising his free speech.
FREEZE PEACH!!
Yes, he isn't the only asshole with free speech. All of the people who are telling him that what he said is stupid are ALSO exercising their free speech. Just because he said something does not mean that no one will challenge what he said or tell their friends that he said something stupid. Free speech isn't freedom from consequences, it's freedom from government censorship. I see no evidence that anyone is trying to censor him. Quite the opposite actually, his words are being spread far and wide with the amount of derision they deserve.
"Freedom of speech" has nothing to do with it
Reread Article 1 -- "freedom of speech" refers to government regulation of speech, not the use of Facebook by schmucks or decent people calling the schmuck out.
Um, bro, free speech is
Um, bro, free speech is exactly all of what you posted. Including your post!
He didn't get my tweet, then
Better to keep your thumbs off the keyboard and be thought a fool than to post and remove all doubt.
He plays video games.
The man is a child. He never grew up.
Hey now
Plenty of people game, be it videogames, board games, or newly ARG'ing such as escape rooms.
Don't lump this maladjusted dick in with us.
Is he really
..from Boston? I don't want him to be!
Leavitt
Lived with this guy in college. He was nice enough, but an emotional mess whenever he'd drink. His comments are dumb and insensitive, but he's ultimately harmless. He's always been the type of guy to say/do the wrong thing at the wrong time. I'm sure he's feeling the backlash today.
Needs an intervention
Dude needs a crash course in decency. Laughing about somebody else's murdered children before the bodies are even cold. David Leavitt is a shithead.
He deleted the tweet.
Rookie mistake. Never delete the tweet. That just makes it worse.
Sigh
http://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2017/05/22/fckin-scumbag-verified-twitter-a...
Too soon- not just a
Too soon- not just a punchline afterall
Whew
Thought this was gonna be about me
Lots of outrage over this
Lots of outrage over this buffoon's lack of judgement here. Rightly so I might add. My question is this, is anyone outraged by yet another terrorist attack? This time this was directly aimed at young adults and children. I find this more troubling than an idiots tweet.
Yes, of course
Don't infer any lack of concern over the murder of innocent children from a discussion on a Boston Web site about a Boston person.
i'm not really outraged
if i'm being honest
about the tweet nor the bombings. suicide bombings happen globally almost as often as shitty tweets
thats life now
Whatever this guy's reasons are for making jokes about this
horrible explosion that killed a whole bunch of people, the jokes and humor over the Manchester explosion and the resulting deaths are inexcusable, and not funny, at all, especially for the grieving survivors of those who perished in that explosion. This guy has to learn some common sense, which he seems to be woefully short on.
Just not funny
I've made black comedy jokes before. But they have to be funny. This guy's just not good at comedy.
Making jokes about this kind of catastrophe:
Making jokes about a horrible explosion that maims and/or kills tons of people is totally out of line. Even black comedy humor isn't appropriate for something like this.
?
congrats you literally don't know what "black comedy humor" is
i will say that i privately made my own jokes to an audience i knew would take them for what they were. somebody showed me a video of the concert hall (you saw no explosions/bodies or anything of that nature) and i heard the big pop and then of course the confusion that followed. it pretty effectively made me lose interest in making jokes about it, but if somebody else can be funny with it i encourage them to go wild.
Kaz and scumquistador:
My whole point is this: The horrific suicide bomber attack at England's Manchester Arena that killed at least 29 people is not a joking matter....period. Why make jokes about it at all?
no, your point, even though you dont know what it is
is that you don't find black comedy to be funny. that is a perfectly acceptable, reasonable, and not uncommon view to have.
unfortunately for you, your opinion does little to change the long standing existence of such humor.
as far as "why"? seriously go look it up yourself if you honestly don't understand why people joke about grizzly affairs. i'm not going to explain this shit to you.
heres an example of some black humor i saw in the wild once, in cincinatti. there was a homeless guy in a wheelchair missing either one or both (i forget, it's been 10 years) legs. he had a sign that said something to the effect of "give me money or i'll kick your ass" this is an example of black humor. it doesn't even always have to be directed at others, it can be self deprecating too! and if you find less humor in a mans misfortune than said man does, well, perhaps you need to start looking at the constant in all of this.
You're still missing my point, scumquistador.
I fail to see any humor whatsoever in a suicide bombing (which this was) that kills and/or maims scores of people.
yeah
you're actually missing your own point which is pretty incredible
Yes, it's exactly when it's appropriate
Here, let the country where this occurred tell you exactly why it may not be your cup of tea, but it's good for our psyche to hear black comedy:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-12775389
The problem here is that this guy's attempt wasn't a good one. It relies too heavily on making fun of the victims. It begins with a news headline about the dead rather than an assumption that you already know that there are victims of the bombing. It's just poorly constructed.
Maybe a better black comedy joke would have been: I hear that the bomber waited until the end of the concert because the ticket was so expensive he couldn't let it go to waste.
Whoa!
This:
doesn't sound like a good joke in response to this horrible tragedy, either.
in all honesty
the best joke that can be made on uhub about this already has been made, but its more in the performance art category. a bunch of self righteous twats a few timezones away expressing their rage that some guy wasn't funny enough mocking a concert bombing
now that is genuinely hilarious
also. roger moore just died. britain having is having a bad day
Interesting juxtaposition
The death of a Bond and a suicide bombing.
Bond always won because he only had to defeat one or two evil geniuses to bring an entire villainous enterprise to shambles. Bond would be no match for today's villains. They are largely anonymous, require no structured hierarchy of evil, and rely on no genius plans. Anyone anywhere can form an attack with some construction materials. All the laser pens and missile-launching Aston Martins can't stop a backpack from exploding in a crowded place.
Our enemies today aren't evil geniuses. They're just otherwise normal people put upon by inequality and inequity, constant asymmetric warfare, and tribalism.
I don't think that's it
Do you honestly think that their criticism is that he wasn't funny enough? I don't. They're not arguing about where he is on the spectrum of less funny/more funny; they're arguing that this is not a "funny" think in any degree, and that no amount of skill would have changed that.
I understand what you're saying about black humor, but I also think you're missing some of the essence of black humor, too. There is a matter of timing; it's why people say "too soon". And before you ask for some definitive statement on how long is long enough, the fact that such a thing can't be precisely defined doesn't mean that "too soon" doesn't exist.
Ah...I see the issue
scumq. is right. You don't grasp the point. It's cool, not all comedy is for everyone.
Like I said before, Joan
Like I said before, Joan Rivers made a joke about 9/11 firefighters widows a week or two after the tragedy. Was it black comedy? Yes. Did it spur Up controversy? Yes. But you're just a commenter on the internet trying too hard.
A better joke would be
Fear for my own life....Now I have another reason not to go to Boston Calling this weekend.
If you want to hear some really black humor
Hang out with first responders. I think it must be how some cope.
Meanwhile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUhlRoBL8M
Audience matters
Black comedy is funny if you know that your audience will receive it in the proper spirit and frame of mind.
You don't serve caviar and well-aged scotch to kids in the elementary school cafeteria.
Indeed
This is why I have a custom Facebook list just for offensive jokes. My friends have to request to be added. Know your audience.
(I didn't post any jokes about this. But I still remember thinking after 9/11, "This will never be funny," and then The Onion releasing a special 9/11 themed issue right after.)
Impulse control, Mr. Leavitt
I like dark humor. Psychologically, it serves an important purpose for humans. Just sometimes, you gotta say no, I'm not gonna crack this joke. Would you crack a joke about boy from Dorchester killed by the marathon bomb?
Could be worse
Another twit has posted a couple of times about how this is God's retribution against Ariana Grande for assorted imagined faults. No, I'm not going to provide links because attention is exactly what this religious nut-job wants (despite all her faux-protestations about persecution). Leavitt's post was in extremely poor taste, but at least he isn't engaging in fanatical emotional terrorism.
I don't visit this site for personal shaming
I visit this site for news in Boston that the Globe and other new sources may not cover, and I appreciate it for that. I'm not really interested in reading about particular people who do something boneheaded like posting an offensive tweet or putting a Confederate flag on the porch and calling them out for it. It seems to take away from the journalist integrity of this site. I know I don't have to read it, etc. But figure I throw my opinion that you stop this as it seems beneath the mission of Universal Hub.
"beneath the mission"
Well, what IS this lofty mission, then? Posting about turkeys over and over as if, wow, it's the first time anyone's ever seen one?
We've all got things that we come to uhub for, and I'm sure we all have things we think are incredibly stupid. When the latter outweighs the former, that's when you move on to a new site.
I come here explicitly for
I come here explicitly for all of those things, so I have nullified your vote. You're welcome. :)
People are strange...
... and sometimes they process inconceivable horror in ways that seem bizarrely inappropriate.
Until I see evidence to the contrary, I'm willing to accept that he's not actually a vile scumbag trying to milk this for a cheap laugh.
Did you read anything else on
Did you read anything else on his twitter? Vile might be overstrong, but douchebag isn't.