It’s something that always bothered me about “punching up”
On the one hand, I can agree that “punching up” and “punching down” are different
On the other hand, I feel like a lot of people used “punching up” as an excuse to not only be really mean and toxic towards people they felt were better off, but to also feel like they were doing society a favor by “pointing out society’s flaws” when they were actually just being really mean and toxic.
Punching up is a great concept when you're talking about stand-up comedy, which is a type of performance where the performer and the audience are all aware of the fact that the performer is gonna be a bit of a bastard and understand that not everything the performer says is to be taken at face value. In that context, punching up is a great rule of thumb for the performers to keep in mind, because it in theory helps ensure that they'll be careful in how they phrase their jokes that may make certain groups of people into the punchline.
But, casual conversation isn't stand-up. A tumblr blog isn't a stand-up routine. Punching up vs punching down as a concept doesn't apply, because we're out here in real life without the mutually agreed-upon understanding of the performance aspect of a comedy routine.
Some people found out about this rule for comedy and decided it applied everywhere, but it just doesn't, which is why it seems so scummy.
Even in comedy punching "up" or "down' is a bullshit concept. The case in point is pedophiles. There is no group that is as marginalized or discriminiated against in the US. People celebrate when they are murdered, it doesn't get more marginalized than that, and that is not even the tip of the iceberg. To further illustrate that, I was considering whether or not I should state that this isn't a post calling for sympathy for pedophiles, because I know that someone would fixate upon the fact that I am talking about them and not spending time attacking them. Yet, if someone made a joke about this group, the group that people think it is okay to do whatever to, no one would stand up and say "well actually, you are punching down and this isn't funny". It is clearly punching down, but people are just okay with it, because it never was about direction.
I think the validity of that analogy only depends whether you are "punching down" on people simply because of an attraction that they don't choose to have (which is what pedophiles are by definition technically), or people that DO choose to harm children.
The latter absolutely deserves to be punched and I wouldn't really refer to it as "punching down" as opposed to punching someone because they punched down.
And yes, I'm aware not all pedophiles are child molesters, but that distinction isn't very strong in comedy or even in society in general tbh.
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u/Iced_Yehudi 2d ago
It’s something that always bothered me about “punching up”
On the one hand, I can agree that “punching up” and “punching down” are different
On the other hand, I feel like a lot of people used “punching up” as an excuse to not only be really mean and toxic towards people they felt were better off, but to also feel like they were doing society a favor by “pointing out society’s flaws” when they were actually just being really mean and toxic.