Hey is this kind of joke made by Linus still appropriate in 2021?

[Seol.chi]

https://youtu.be/mvk5tVMZQ_U?t=3990

Here is the joke in question. As an Asian male who has grown up in both mostly white, mostly black, and asian communities, I feel like I've heard all the jokes. I get it, it is a joke. What I'm asking is whether or not Linus is the type of person to make comments about just any race for fun, or if he should be allowed to make this kind of joke to hundreds of thousands of people. This kind of thing is really damaging to any asian kids growing up, I could easily imagine many of them want to go into tech, reinforcing the stereotype and bringing them down about any part of their body could be harmful. I'm not so much personally hurt (again I've heard it all), but I wonder what this is saying about him and whether he wants to rethink his approach here.

[Rybo]

I think reducing your perception of someone's opinions about a thing to a single joke he's made about them is worse than any joke he could have made.  

The simple fact is that Linus has strong relationships with people from myriad backgrounds (the joke was about his WIFE, FFS).  This proves beyond a reasonable doubt his character.  

But the core of it, to me, is that we're currently in a culture that tells people to stay in their lane, culturally.  I won't speak to the merits of that, but I will say this: the best friends in the world are the ones with whom you're comfortable letting down your guard and being yourself.  The fact that he can do that with his friends -- and, more importantly -- his audience, shows how much he thinks of us.  

Please don't give him reason to lower that opinion.  

[Zusafek]

It's a joke.  If it bothers you, sorry.  But jokes aren't meant to be nice. They don't see boundaries. If your offended by that, never watch a Mel Brooks movie then.  People need to learn the difference between a joke and actual racism/bigotry.  

[wONKEyeYEs]

2 hours ago, Seol.chi said:

https://youtu.be/mvk5tVMZQ_U?t=3990

Here is the joke in question. As an Asian male who has grown up in both mostly white, mostly black, and asian communities, I feel like I've heard all the jokes. I get it, it is a joke. What I'm asking is whether or not Linus is the type of person to make comments about just any race for fun, or if he should be allowed to make this kind of joke to hundreds of thousands of people. This kind of thing is really damaging to any asian kids growing up, I could easily imagine many of them want to go into tech, reinforcing the stereotype and bringing them down about any part of their body could be harmful. I'm not so much personally hurt (again I've heard it all), but I wonder what this is saying about him and whether he wants to rethink his approach here.

Haven't you noticed?

Global warming is melting all the snowflakes.

[Guest]

He said his Schlong fits his wife well cause she's asian and he's not well endowed. 

 

Linus simply admitted he has a small penis. 

 

What's the big deal?? roflmao.

 

 

[divito]

2 hours ago, valdyrgramr said:

That's called an excuse.  Bigoted jokes are still bigoted.  Just because they make you laugh doesn't mean they are going to be towards the group the joke is targeting.  In fact, they can get you targeted, blacklisted, or even in legal trouble.  It also says a lot about the character of the person making the joke and excuse. 

"Bigoted (re: subjective) jokes are still bigoted (re: subjective)." Stop projecting.

 

2 hours ago, valdyrgramr said:

"My friend is black" is not an excuse, for example, to make jokes about the race.

What? You don't need an excuse to make a joke. If comedians could only joke about their own race, culture, and circumstances, comedy would have had a hard time existing all these years. Sure, many have a better perspective by which to find material in their own life experiences, but many comedians can develop and execute material across the spectrum.

 

Observation and comedic discourse about life should not be stunted by your limited view of humanity. Stop confining things to sex, race, and creed, as that's the slippery slope to segregation. 

[divito]

11 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

Sure, they can be bigots all they want.  It's just a prank bro!  Let's all put on some black face and dance around for a good ol' laugh!  How dare we judge them!  Let's stereotype for a laugh too!  Nothing wrong with belittling people over their race, gender, etc as long as the comedian and/or their fans are having a good time.  Everyone else who suffered is just sensitive.

Now I think you're just trolling me. I know sarcastic people like this quote really exist in the world but I don't have the time or inclination at the moment to help.

[LAwLz]

I'm usually not that sensitive to racist jokes and whatnot but I think the problem here was that it went on for quite a while and it was just not funny. 

 

Also, I think all the people going "it's just a joke bro. Linus doesn't care. He has an Asian wife so it's fine". Remember when he was informed about him using some racist term (can't remember what it was, gypped maybe) and promptly apologized and even told Luke to not use that word anymore?

Before you jump in to defend Linus and say he doesn't care, maybe we should give him some time to maybe adress it himself? 

 

I feel like this forum is full of Linus Stans who will defend him no matter what, and that's a really bad attitude to have. I'm not even necessarily saying he was wrong for making the joke, but I feel like maybe the people defending him wouldn't have defended it if it was someone else who said the same things. 

[Kadzo]

On 10/10/2021 at 3:36 AM, wONKEyeYEs said:

Haven't you noticed?

Global warming is melting all the snowflakes.

Obviously not fast enough.

[Moonzy]

On 10/10/2021 at 7:07 AM, Seol.chi said:

or if he should be allowed to make this kind of joke to hundreds of thousands of people.

I personally don't think anything of it, I'm Asian, but of course I don't represent everyone else

 

If everyone can't say anything that offended anyone, then we'd evolve to not have mouth

 

Edit: I actually laughed at it, is a pretty good joke imo

[AlTech]

Just my thoughts but I don't see the big deal. It was a joke, they had a laugh. It wasn't racist and if people can't make jokes about topics then it leads to bigger problems like not being able to talk about things or get past them which leads to more issues.

[Kadzo]

13 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Just my thoughts but I don't see the big deal. It was a joke, they had a laugh. It wasn't racist and if people can't make jokes about topics then it leads to bigger problems like not being able to talk about things or get past them which leads to more issues.

PSHHHHH you will offend the snowflakes.

[SolarNova]

Jokes and comedy are a thing, to be so easily 'hurt' by them signifies a deeper problem, likely a coddled upbringing. These people are normally refereed to as snowflakes.

 

Here's the thing. if a person starts down the snowflake route, its only going to get worse. 'Normal' people wont like being around them more and more as they get more perpetually offended by the smallest of things. As more and more people distance themselves from them and tell them they're to sensitive, or a 'snowflake' ..they'll get more angry, more hurt. And so the it continues until they possibly end up one of those deranged people screaming at nothing and acting like children often used in memes online.

 

Basically, suck it up, dont be a snowflake.

 

Coincidentally, if ur offended by , or feel offended on behalf of som1 or group of others, by this very statement ...ur kinda proving the point

 

#nopoliticsintended

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

On 10/9/2021 at 4:07 PM, Seol.chi said:

https://youtu.be/mvk5tVMZQ_U?t=3990

Here is the joke in question. As an Asian male who has grown up in both mostly white, mostly black, and asian communities, I feel like I've heard all the jokes. I get it, it is a joke. What I'm asking is whether or not Linus is the type of person to make comments about just any race for fun, or if he should be allowed to make this kind of joke to hundreds of thousands of people. This kind of thing is really damaging to any asian kids growing up, I could easily imagine many of them want to go into tech, reinforcing the stereotype and bringing them down about any part of their body could be harmful. I'm not so much personally hurt (again I've heard it all), but I wonder what this is saying about him and whether he wants to rethink his approach here.

How does not having the biggest shlong affect your will to get into Tech? I'm curious. Like if it was a joke on how every single computer science YouTuber is Indian (it's as common gag amongst CS students), then I can see the connection. But the size of your shlong and what your significant other can take? That seems like completely unrelated topics that should not affect one another. I guess if you and someone else in CS is fighting for a girl and loosing out affects your will to continue in the program... but at that point that's more a lack of self respect. 

[IPD]

As the great comedian Steven Hughes put it:

 

"Great!  BE offended.  Nothing happens when you are "offended".  You don't suddenly wake up the next morning with leprosy because you got "offended".

 

Comedy is often funny because it highlights the kernels of truth in stereotypes.  When that crosses the line into bigotry--the joke teller is the one who will eventually be ostracized and bigotry will naturally wane (collectively) over time.  The issue is that--currently--there are simply too many people trying to virtual signal to each other (i.e. hybrid drivers in South Park sniffing farts)--and that has created an atmosphere where humor isn't possible.

 

And if there's one thing that survivors of autocratic, totalitarian, fascist or communist regimes will tell you...it's that when humor goes (becomes unpermissable, inadvisable, etc) there's no hope left for that society.

[Dutch_Master]

On 10/10/2021 at 5:55 AM, valdyrgramr said:

Nope, just an anthropology major who doesn't find this kind of bigoted humor amusing.

That's an opinion. Yours, actually. Which you are entitled to. Just as anyone else who disagrees with your opinion is entitled to theirs

 

Now, English isn't my native language, but as far as I can tell, the subject of Linus' joke was: Linus. Not Asian males, neither in general nor specifically targeted.

 

And frankly, there are much, much more worse things happening in this world ATM

[airborne spoon]

Does a joke offend you? Then stop watching said person that makes the jokes. FFS have you ever watched Dave Chappelle or George Carlin or Isaac Butterfield? Those guys are super funny and they say some crazy off the wall stuff because ITS FUNNY!!! Not because they are racist assholes, you people are the worst kind of people.

[Dutch_Master]

20 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

My opinion holds more weight as it's using facts.

Ah yes, another opinion.

21 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

The other side is basing their opinion on emotion and fan biases.

And another one. You're entirely entitled to your viewpoint but I, and many others, disagree with it. Deal with it, fact of life. I'm sure you'll disagree, but I, and many others, don't really care much about your opinions after that first sentence from you I quoted. Never mind the second...

 

Sorry dude, you're clearly either trolling or being that snowflake explained earlier. Your choice.

 

Let me get this to you straight: if you are so offended by Linus' jokes, why are you watching his channel anyway? Did you notice the "Linus" in LinusTechTips? Not "valdyrgramrTechTips"? You're free to watch it, as you are equally free to not watch it Your choice.

[Tristerin]

Read a couple of the first words, my response:

 

Yes

 

Dont care what the joke was, it was a joke.  Thicker skin folks.

[Jtalk4456]

On 10/9/2021 at 7:07 PM, Seol.chi said:

1. I feel like I've heard all the jokes. I get it, it is a joke.

2. if he should be allowed to make this kind of joke to hundreds of thousands of people.

3. This kind of thing is really damaging to any asian kids growing up, I could easily imagine many of them want to go into tech

I'm at work and can't review the actual wording here, but I'm going to reply in assumption that the description of the joke given by several others is accurate. 

1. You have basically answered your own question already. It's a joke. Most humor comes from at least a grain of truth. Racism doesn't come from truth. It might exploit the truth in a stereotype and twist that into a false negative assumption about the race, but there's a stark difference. The difference is simply intent of harm and devaluing. Racism seeks to assume a difference makes a race less valuable or even less human. This race is BENEATH us, doesn't DESERVE this, is ONLY GOOD FOR this.

A joke only highlights a kernel of truth and blows it out of proportion so it's funny. A verbal caricature if you will.

Taking the black man and fried chicken stereotype. A joke might be a fried chicken air freshener for a car. It's not harming the person, belittling them, or placing them beneath anyone else. Now if they tell you they find it offensive and you do it again a week later, that's a matter of respect for a friend. Now laying out some wings on the ground in a line to a boat going to Africa, that would be racism, plain and simple. Harmful, demeaning, belittling, whatever other bad words you can think of. Intent is also a large part of it. Lets say the same racist scenario, but it's a joke animated on family guy or robot chicken. Well then it's making fun of overt racism, so it's a joke about racism, not racism in of itself. Could it be argued that the joke is in poor taste, sure. That's a subjective criticism. But that's as far as it goes.

2. Should be allowed? Anyone should be allowed to make whatever joke they want, even racist. Free speech matters. But on the flip side of that, if someone IS racist, the population also has the permission to stop listening them, to ostracize them due to their hateful speech and beliefs. A company has the right to make a crappy product, and the consumers have the right to laugh at it. Free market of products same as free market of speech. 

3. I'm gonna second @BlueChinchillaEatingDorito here. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how this joke would damage Asian kids getting into tech. 

First the butt of the joke wasn't Asians, but Linus himself. Second, if you wanna argue the part of his wife being small so he fits, that's subjectively a good thing as tight is generally regarded as better in those terms... just saying. 

On 10/12/2021 at 8:42 AM, Moonzy said:

then we'd evolve to not have mouth

What a beautiful world that might be XD /s but almost not...

On 10/9/2021 at 11:55 PM, valdyrgramr said:

It's highly known that the Western world is highly ignorant when it comes to the rest of the world. 

Based on? There's a running STEREOTYPE that Americans are dumber if that's what you're referring to, but you're a professional (student) supposedly, so show me the factual evidence that the western world is more ignorant. After you do that, if you could please define what you mean by ignorant. Do you mean low test scores, bad mathematics, low empathy, no common sense, bad at logic, poor at business? Then after you define what ignorance you mean and define the statistical numbers we will be measuring based off of, could you please define what you mean by the Western World? Are you lumping in all of latin america and south america as being some predefined version of ignorant? Does this include canada? Or are you just referring to the stereotype of dumb america? This is very important to define as you're essentially telling me that an entire ethnicity or groups of ethnicities are ignorant by nature. That would be a highly racist comment, and I can't imagine such a studied student of culture would ever want to accidentally make such an obviously harmful and belittling judgement of entire ethnic groups with no facts to back it up and no defining of the terms being used to belittle said groups with.

2 hours ago, valdyrgramr said:

1) My opinion holds more weight as it's using facts.  The other side is basing their opinion on emotion and fan biases.

Haven't seen you present a single fact yet. I've only seen you argue your OPINION, same as everyone else here

 

[Guest]

lol. 

I'm laughing pretty hard @ "His wife is tight, that's a good thing" roflmao. 

 

oh man *wipes tears away*

 

Linus just meant Asians have smaller proportions because they are generally a smaller build. He probably didn't mean to offend any one. It wasn't the best wording, but he was just trying to make a quick point.

 

Any normal person can see that, understand it and have a chuckle while he bashes on himself about his little dick. 

 

I love reading threads like this. There really isn't more between the lines here. 

 

Curious how stupid this needs to go though. Please do carry on! Keep it tight! XD

[SolarNova]

 

"Villains who twirl their moustaches are easy to spot, but those who cloth themselves in good deeds are well camouflaged. Those people will always be with us waiting for the right climate in which to flourish, spreading fear in the name of righteousness. Vigilance, that is the price we must continually pay”

 

Jokes are jokes . humor is humor . .Leave it at that.

 

#nopoliticsintended

[Jtalk4456]

1 hour ago, valdyrgramr said:

1. Can you explain to me how the US makes up the entire Western World?  They are part of the Western World, but it seems you're ignorant of that term.  https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/list-of-western-countries.html

2. By definition you are showing a form of ignorance, as it means lack of knowledge or information.   You can spin it however you want, but you too are simply proving my point. 

3. It's a bad thing when you're using it to be intolerant towards others for bigoted reasons.  Telling people to deal with it, shrugging it off as a joke, calling people snowflakes, and so on also proves that one enjoys belittling others for bigoted reasons.  Most prefer the term "uninformed", but ignorant is still technically correct.  From there it comes down to phrasing.  Bigoted jokes are only funny if you are indeed a bigot. 

4. People who have faced genocide, oppression, and so on.  What is so damn funny about it?  Do you even know why you're laughing?  Conformity?

5. I literally talked about why it's not funny, and stated facts about why. That is the evidence.

6. If you want proof of the ignorance of the Western World, and not the stereotype you're talking about, one example is in the book titled The Asian Policy. 

7. You guys have done nothing to disprove any of it.   All you've done is say "Nu uh, that's your opinion, snowflake, get thicker skin!" and have done nothing to actually disprove that it's bigotry.

8. -snip-

1. Can you explain to me where I said the US made up the entire western world? I simply asked YOU what YOU were defining. While there is a general idea of some, many people have their own definitions of it, So I asked you to clarify

2. By that definition you seem to be ignorant of the meaning of my post as you apparently didn't read it thoroughly. And tossing a google definition as your only source proves my point. Many people define ignorance in many ways. I for example separate lack of intelligence and ignorance by saying lack of intelligence is the lack of a certain knowledge while ignorance defines having access and opportunity to have that knowledge but choosing not to care or listen, IGNORing the knowledge. But more to your post, you claimed that it is highly known -without sources of any kind- that a large geographical area of the world is by nature more ignorant. I was asking you what they are ignorant of. Are they ignorant of math or literature or science. You can't just be ignorant in general. Going by the definition you yanked off a less than a second google search, what is the information or knowledge you are highly aware of a large geographical area being ignorant to? These things need to be defined and then backed up with all this fact you claim you're using but have yet to provide. Oh you provided a lovely link, lets see what valuable info we have... 

Hmm.. an article undermining the idea of Asia as a whole and how to define it geographically and culturally. A bunch of opinion, some more opinion...

And I'm guessing this is the single source of info you're banking your well known knowledge on:

Quote

For example, it is quite common for people in the West, including fairly well educated people to lump together Indian and Chinese civilizations as representative of some sort of “eastern” mode of civilization.

one sentence about even WELL EDUCATED PEOPLE considering india to be part of the east with china. So literally nothing to do with your argument about the west being ignorant. Furthermore it says this is even thought of by well educated, or not ignorant, people. hmm....I'm beginning to think you have literally no sources for the broad statement of ethnic intelligence you consider to be widely known fact. 

3. If that joke falls within your opinion on what is bigoted, sure, but that's opinion again. Not an ounce of fact from your professional knowledge

4. Sure while were ignoring facts, let's go ahead and lump a dick joke with genocide and cultural oppression. I'm sure all the holocaust victims get extremely angry when a canadian jokes about his own small dick. That has to be the most vile kind of bigotry possible. 

5. You speaking your opinion is evidence of your opinion? Well gosh I've been doing debates all wrong trying to use facts and reason XD

6. Dude... Did you just call a scholarly journal a BOOK? Those are very different things. And that's a journal about foreign policy in Asia. Provide one statistic showing western ignorance, I'm begging you. Please prove me wrong that you just tried to mention a journal about asian foreign policy, call it a book, and still not reference a single quote or fact having anything to do with western ignorance!

7. That's because it's not a provable. Western countries are not all one type of person that is by nature more ignorant, that would be a RACIST, BELITTLING STATEMENT with no fact. I'm not making a rash claim that insults half the globe. You are, so you bear the burden of proof. Especially after claiming it's a well known fact. We haven't proved it because there's no way to prove an ethnic group smarter by nature or dumber by nature because there's no studies on that because no scientist wants to do an overtly racist study

8. I haven't used snowflake once, so I'll assume that last paragraph was meant for another person you forgot to quote

 

[MultiGamerClub]

Cant even joke about anything these days before someone takes offence for something peculiar that was referring to his wife? Oh man the internet probably isnt a safe place for you then.

[IPD]

I think this thread is nothing more than a snowflake SJW who created an account just to troll post and virtue signal.

 

I hope it at least helped him get laid with the blue-hairs he's clearly wanting to smash.