Elon: Don't Make Jokes. You're Bad At It.
An Open Letter to Elon Musk
Dear Elon:
I agree with the sentiment in your post (above), but I am going to tell you something you need to hear: you’re not funny.
I don’t expect you to take my word for it, so let me explain.
You posted this on September 10, 2024 after Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris for president, signing it “Childless Cat Lady.”
This is some sick shit to say to a woman. As you must know that Taylor Swift is twenty years your junior and almost certainly finds you repulsive, this “joke” was widely interpreted to mean you would like to forcibly impregnate her.
As this “joke” was made during a time when women’s reproductive rights are under attack by conservative ideologues like yourself and more and more women are dying during childbirth, your words are cruel, callous and offensive.
In sum, after Trump posted a forged Taylor Swift “endorsement” and Swift responded with a correction and an intelligent, thoughtful call for civic engagement, you told 200 million people you want her to carry your child.
Do you get how that’s not funny, Elon?
You tweeted this on September 15, 2024 soon after it was discovered that an armed man had been stalking Trump near his golf course in Florida. You later deleted it, claimed it was “a joke,” and posted this:
You are in your fifties. The fact that it hasn’t occurred to you that whatever cabal of yes men, sycophants, and flunkies you surround yourself with isn’t representative of the world is troubling.
Either that, or it wasn’t actually a “joke.”
Please look up the phrase “stochastic terrorism.” Or, just look at what happened in Springfield, Ohio following a presidential debate when Trump amplified a false claim on social media that Haitian immigrants were “eating dogs and cats.”
When you suggest to 200 million people that you would like to impregnate Taylor Swift and lament that “no one is trying to assassinate” Kamala Harris, you are inciting “violent act[s], which [are] statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.”
That is, your “jokes” answer the dictionary definition of “stochastic terrorism.”
I have a whole file of your “jokes,” by the way. On November 7, 2022 you tweeted this after the competing Mastodon social media site went live and its servers failed.
I get that humiliating a struggling competitor is your happy place, but dick jokes? Really, Elon? You’re a 53 year old man making dick jokes?
On June 11, 2022 you posted this.
Heh. I get it. Hard not to get it, as the humor isn’t exactly subtle.
It’s just not funny. And I don’t mean “it’s not funny because the New York Times is sacred to me,” or “it’s not funny because I think Elon Musk is a tool.”
It’s just not funny.
I get it, Elon. You think the New York Times is “woke” and you inserted the word “woke” for “York” and used the same font. It’s not that I don’t get it.
Three Reasons You’re Not Funny
I give three reasons why you are not funny. I have additional ones, but you’re a malignant narcissist and there is no chance I can keep your attention that long.
Reason #1: Level of Difficulty
Taylor Swift signs a post “Childless Cat Lady” and you respond that you want to “give her a child.”
Someone stalks Trump with an AR-15 and you publicly question why no one is trying to assassinate the Vice-President.
“Mastodon” has three syllables and starts with “mast” just like “masturbate.” You think this is a brilliant insight and you throw in a screenshot with a pubic hair.
New Woke Times? This marginally amusing pun has been in the ether for years.
I knew guys in the ninth grade whose humor was more sophisticated. You’re a middle-aged man, Elon, and you’re embarrassing yourself.
Reason #2: Punching Down Isn’t Funny
All of your attempts at humor are made at the expense of others. When those attempts target vulnerable people, the result is cruelty rather than humor.
I anticipate your objection to this point: making fun of Taylor Swift, Kamala Harris, Mastodon, and the New York Times isn’t “punching down.” They are all wealthy public figures who can defend themselves and are thus fair game for satire.
I concede the misdemeanor attempts at humor involving Mastodon and The New York Times. Dick jokes and puns which target Paul Krugman and America’s newspaper of record might be tasteless and unfunny, but they are relatively harmless.
That said, you, X, and the GOP have created a world where powerful women like Taylor Swift and Kamala Harris are constantly targeted for violence, and “jokes” about “giving them a child” and “assassination” are not funny.
You own X, you have publicly endorsed Trump’s GOP, and the GOP has become a fifth column in the US. The GOP has been careening wildly to the right since Newt Gingrich, but before Trump it existed in a slightly more neutral moral space. Like, “we know we sustain systemic inequality that creates suffering but at least we aren’t openly fascist” moral space.
You and the GOP have become openly fascist.
X is one of the primary disseminators of disinformation for the fascist, GOP fifth column that is striking hard blows at the foundations of our democracy and which has caused a lot of suffering. I know you don’t care but a lot of us do.
So, yeah, it’s hard to laugh at your ”jokes.”
Reason #3: You Are Desperately Afraid of Appearing Vulnerable
Elon, tell me if you think this is funny.
Answer: This is not funny. Your boy Trump is publicly mocking a physically disabled man.
For the record, Trump’s July 2016 impression is an essentially accurate portrayal of an individual suffering from arthrogryposis.
Let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s pretend that while Trump’s mannerisms remain exactly the same in the video, those mannerisms are not mocking a disabled man but rather portray Trump telling an anecdote about his own life.
What if Trump was doing an impression of himself in a confused, vulnerable moment? Would it be funny? Maybe.
Why? Because the humor would be at Trump’s own expense. This makes the joke morally neutral (rather than morally bad like mocking the disabled. It bothers me I have to explain that.) and allows us to join in the fun by remembering a time when we were also confused and vulnerable, thus sharing our common humanity.
Let’s be clear: political humor is possible, even necessary. Watch Conan O’Brien’s visit to a Haitian elementary school, soon after Trump called Haiti a “shithole country” in January 2018 during a White House meeting.
In the image above O’Brien sits below the children, intentionally placing himself in an inferior physical position. He is not mocking them (Taylor Swift), gleefully amplifying a public failure (Mastodon), or calling for violence against them (VP Harris).
The target of Conan’s humor is always himself. He elevates his audience and encourages the children to put ribbons in his hair and laugh at him, his terrible French, and his pale skin.
As the children laugh at a silly man doing a silly dance, issues of race, class, and imperialism melt away. We witness Conan and these beautiful young people share a moment of vulnerability, humanity, and joy.
Laughter is an act of intimacy and most of us don’t wish to engage in intimacy with cruel people whom we actively dislike.
That, Elon, is why you are not funny.
In conclusion, not so much with the jokes. Stick to undermining 230 years of democracy and war profiteering.
And don’t bother banning me from X. My friends and I walked out of that online Nazi bar years ago.
Get it? I’m calling you a traitor, war profiteer, a Nazi, and I’m calling X a Nazi bar.
It’s just a joke!
Isn’t it funny?