Twitter is no longer a safe space for comedians to make jokes—however innocuous—about anything deemed problematic by social justice warriors in search of the next outrage.
Comedian Jen Kirkman, who has a comedy special on Netflix, “I’m Gonna Die Alone (And I Feel Fine),” and who often shares political humor on the social media platform, made a few jokes about her support of Hillary Clinton. Kirkman wrote, “I LIKE that Hillary has murdered a lot of people.”
This upset many people, notably the self-proclaimed social justice warriors who harass and bully anyone who provokes their ire—many of whom took her to task for her tweet, which they believed was directed towards the civilians who died in Afghanistan, Syria, and other conflicts overseen by Clinton during her tenure as U.S. Secretary of State.
In response to the outrage, she responded by saying: “Afghans who have died can’t see the joke so to justify it would be weird. I’m not gonna talk to a corpse.”
Anyone who’s followed Kirkman’s deadpan humor or even taken more than a minute to glance over her Twitter account will note her dry, sarcastic wit and realize that she doesn’t truly believe Hillary ever murdered anyone. Her provocative remarks were intended to rile up the people who were already primed for outrage. There are many who truly believe Clinton should be held personally responsible for the deaths of civilians in the Middle East and Afghanistan, which they insist were purposefully targeted, but Kirkman clearly isn’t one of them.
But that apparently didn’t matter. Words like “abhorrent,” “reprehensible” and “problematic” were cast Kirkman’s way along with a host of other hyperbolic statements about how it’s impossible for anyone to laugh at those sorts of jokes because “innocent people are being killed daily.” Some expressed their anger with her jokes by telling her to die.
Given how some people read too much into her jokes, she responded by saying sarcastically, “Yes. I said I am glad HRC killed so many people of color,” which made them even more outraged, because some people are only capable of operating in a single mode.
This isn’t the first time Kirkman’s run afoul of the outrage mongers, who were equally offended with a tweet she made this time last year. In that instance, it was an anti-war joke that was taken the wrong way: “I think it would be fun to go to war with Iran. We always go to Iraq. Try something new for once.”
Kirkman attempted to explain the nature of her jokes, in that they were not intended to make light of anyone who died. The jokes, she says, were intended to convey the fact that no one in their right mind would vote for someone who actually murdered many people.
Responding to those who were outraged, the comedian took Twitter social justice warriors to task in a long post. “This isn’t a ‘fuck the haters’ situation,” she wrote. “It’s a rather newer phenom on Twitter, where people who don’t follow someone pass around something they don’t like, investigate their tweets from years ago, and continue to bully, harass, threaten.”
“This is what’s happening to me. I’m not a VICTIM,” declared Kirkman. “I am explaining to well-meaning people telling me to ignore that this isn’t just a few things. It’s THOUSANDS and it hasn’t let up for days. Every single thing I do invites hundreds more people calling me a ‘cunt,’ telling me to delete my account, that I need to apologize to dead babies.”
Taking the social justice warriors to task, Kirkman continued, “I normally like to interact with people here and I can’t even check my @’s because they are so gross and violent. This is INSANE. This is a group of people who don’t want to be called “social justice warriors” (and me even writing this will invite more insane hate) but who spend their time online mob mentality shaming people – and it won’t stop.”
If you run a search on Jen Kirkman’s name on Twitter, you’ll find hundreds, if not thousands of angry comments directed to her expressing outrage over her sense of humor. Tweets range from mild remarks calling her terrible, to ones labeling her a “racist” and even death threats. There were more than a few misogynistic rape threats made against her. “Louis C.K. should have facefucked you that day, you whore,” wrote one outrage warrior.
Kirkman has since deleted her tweets, including her response to the social justice warriors, but her castigation continues unabated with no end in sight.
It’s dangerous to tell jokes these days, and having the audacity to do so will earn you not only criticism, but a whole lot worse—showing yet again that some people simply shut off their sense of humor unless it’s done for the purpose of “punching up” at imaginary oppressors, and they’re extremely proud of it.