Was this joke rude or funny (details)?

Bad. It’s such a visceral subject for so many, that IMO it’s tasteless, especially when done so publicly.

@JilltheTooth GA. I was going to say who cares, it’s facebook, but you’re totally correct. It hit’s too close to home for a lot of people.

Its pointless.

It’s not a “joke” or a “prank” at all. He said something to get a rise out of people, to stir their emotions, and he apparently succeed at that. There’s nothing funny about it, except maybe to him, seeing people react in various ways to his “news”.

To me, that’s not an act of humor at all. In fact, since he’s telling people news about “the family”, then it hits them very close to home. It’s a lie about their family, and who likes that? It’s mean.

Not too funny as he found out from their reactions.

Pretty stupid thing to do.

Not funny at all.

“I’m dying of aids and cancer.”

“What? It’s funny. Don’t you get it? It’s funny because I don’t have aids or cancer…right? Anyone?”

@tom_g Lol!

Yeah, I thought it was pretty tasteless as well.

I find it rather passive aggressive. I think the guy KNEW he’d be stirring a real shit pot that would get a lot of people all fired up. Juvenille at the least, rather sadistic at best.

I don’t consider something to be “humor” if the intent and outcome is to upset people.

On the other hand, it also kinda reveals the state of mind of those viewing the “joke”, in the sense that IF, it was true, well…it’s really not their biz HOW he chose to share the news.

Dunno…sounds like a bunch of 8th graders. lol

Sure it was good joke – on him. He just got himself defriended or blocked by a pile of his former friends. Jerk.

@Coloma I like him, but unfortunately him and his group are still kind of stuck in high school lol.

Playing on a parents fears is rarely a joking matter. Every parent has hopes and dreams for their children and admit it or not, we worry about the things our kids could do to sabotage their future. In one facebook post he shattered dreams. He messed with a whole array of deep emotions and then turned around and said it was a joke. Not nice at all.

It’s stupid.

A crazy thing to do. Was he drunk?

The thing about jokes is you have to know your audience.

The guy’s an idiot.

Not good man.

I think that’s called “trolling”.

It was a dumb stunt, but it’s not nearly as bad as vandalizing a coherency-deprived jelly’s baby picture! ;-(

@Incoherency_ Lol!

One word:
Immature

I still don’t understand why people post some of the stuff they do on Facebook.
But, it is not much different than if they pranked that face to face with people.

Lame! Sounds like something kids would do in middle school to get attention.

*shrugs.

I once entered into a “facebook official” relationship with one of my close female friends. We made it plainly obvious that it was a joke and people still lost their shit when we “broke up” because “they don’t like being deceived.”

Facebook = srs bsnss

Not funny at all. Now he is like the Boy Who Cried Wolf. No one is ever going to believe him when he posts some important news about whether he’s really going to be a father or if he has cancer. I just don’t get the point why he would post something like that.

Here are a few reasons why it could have been very upsetting to some people, especially family members and older folks. Lots of people in this day and age have fertility problems and are trying desperately to have a baby. When they found out this guy was just joking around it really hit home with them, and made their already difficult situation even worse. Any number of the women friends or relatives he knows could have had recently or way back in the past, had a miscarriage (or even two or three, as have some of my cousins). Some people, such as his parents or grandparents or siblings may have been hoping that he would finally be having a child (as they had hoped for him) and/or those same people may have been devastated to hear the “news” because they thought it wasn’t fair to bring a child into this world if your friend was un-married, or un-attached to the mother, or worse yet, didn’t even recall who the mother was, or that your friend was not in a mental or financial position to raise a child. A few people, like his own parents might have been worried that this poor child would have to be raised by them whether they wanted that situation or not. Some of his friends (male or female) might have been upset that your friend didn’t trust them enough to let them know ahead of time that he was in a relationship with someone, and then felt betrayed to find out that they had been lied to or duped. If anyone in his workplace read the “news” and then found out later that it wasn’t true, they might have thought that their co-worker was un-trustworthy.

Well, if anyone I know posted that he was going to be a father, I would congratulate him. Even if he was 16 and an idiot, it would be too late at that point to preach to him, so what else would you say? For him to post such news as a joke is pointless – not funny, not all that shocking either. If his intent was to get a rise out of his friends, he is going to have to try harder than this. But it sounds like his friends did lose it – they must be easily ruffled.

Well, if your friend’s personality is like Obama’s, no it’s not funny. But if he is like that AFLAC duck, then yes it is.

You said he was quite mischievous so maybe those who reacted negatively probably did not know that much about him.

@tom_g That was so funny! Really.

That’s really not funny at all.

Not funny. Everyone on my facebook wall would be supremely pissed if I did something like that.

Also, you may tell your friend, people usually end up hating jokes done in the form of a lie. Lying jokes’ punchlines suck the most.

Not a joke, more a shout out for attention.
Rather pathetic, in my opinion.

Eh, I don’t think it’s all that bad.

About as funny as calling into work and saying you won’t be in today because you had a death in the family.

I don’t think it’s rude but… it’s one of the most over done jokes in the book. Reminds me of when a cousin of mine announced on facebook that he was gay with a man 25 years his senior… Now that was a funny joke with most of my Dad’s side of the family unfortunately falling under the white trash hick category, they went ballistic.

Seems funny to me.

Not funny.
He’s the joke.

I don’t think it’s funny, but I don’t think it’s a big deal or rude.
He wasn’t making light of some kind of serious illness or pretending someone had died or mocking a minority or anything of that nature. He didn’t make a prank announcement that someone else just found out they were going to be a parent over the phone. Maybe it wasn’t a completely tasteful joke, but it doesn’t sound like something to get worked up over (except maybe his parents).

I think that facebook leads people to believe that they aren’t just observing someone’s life, but they have a say in how they live it. I can definitely understand his parents/close family members being upset with him, but that’s about it.

Eh. That’s lame.
@tom_g, hahahahaha. :)

I don’t even see how this is a joke. It’s a lie, whatever pretext caries it. People are going to believe it, naturally, at least some, then it turns out that the person just said it for the lulz. Sure, there are many different forms of humour out there, and I’m not saying this can’t be funny to some people. I guess. Although personally, I think that’s pretty bad. :/ You’re getting a reaction and playing on people. Even if it’s funny to some, technically, it isn’t a joke. The whole thing is bad taste. I’d rather tell some guy coming out of the hospital after his hand was amputated to ’‘hang on, man’’.

Not funny, but not a big deal.

Sucks that his family was quick to judge him like that.

I don’t really see how it could be funny. Your account of it was, though!

It’s not cool to joke about things like that in an environment where people will take the person joking about it seriously, but at the same time, people need to get over it. It was just a joke.