I thought it might be useful to begin a thread where we can examine
the ways humor can take a bad turn and corrupt our boundaries.

Laughter in itself does not prove that we are amused, does not prove that we agree, and it does not prove that we consent.

Laughter is often triggered by:

Fear
Disgust
Shock
Surprise
Confusion
Insecurity

There's nothing like a shared joke to promote a sense of togetherness.

But...what kind of togetherness is it?

And...at whose cost?

What kind of togetherness is this?

You're thirsty you need water.

How about drinking poo water from the toilet?

You're horrified.

You have standards.

Good.

We are thirsty for humor.

Some humor is as vile as poo water.

We don't drink water from just any source.

We gotta learn better standards for humor.

In the midst of that shared laugh, too
often we are unable to step back and ask these questions.

Beware when anyone creates togetherness by getting us to laugh at and laugh against another person or group.

This is the first step to a predator turning a group into a cult. This is early stage in which predators select single person's as quarry for abuse.

Predators use jokes to prove and test boundaries. If we call them on it, we are accused of being too sensitive, lacking humor.

If we let the incident pass, the predator keeps probing, testing. Thus are boundaries subverted.

There has been a discussion on the Mooji thread on how one controversial guru allegedly uses shared laughter in ways that leave many people humiliated and intimidated.

In my case a long and costly relationship with a corrupt psychotherapist was fostered using shock humor and teasing.

What follows is a collection of earlier posts on this subject. I hope persons who read this will be able to add to this discussion.

Too often corrupt social exchanges begin with queasy teasing - and too many of us (including Corboy) stay silent because we fear being called prudes or are intimidated by accusations that we lack a sense of humor.

( The reply is, "What you've said is fake humor. Genuine humor doesn't hurt or shock anyone.")

Perhaps it is time to recognize that predatory, fake humor is used as a cloaking device.

A cloaking device to hide *nonconsensual* wounding weaponized power.

When someone has weaponized humor and forbids us to discuss what's behind it, forbids us to name it as hurtful, we must raise the alarm.

This is a situation analogous to a ball game where someone violates the rules, then tries to intimidate any attempt to stop the game and call in the umpire.

Weaponized humor is not genuine humor and it's perpetrator forbids victims and onlookers to protest.

When accused of having no sense of humor, we can reply, "Not at my expense, and not at Xs expense. You're getting us to laugh but this is shame and fear, not humor."

Weaponized humor is power abuse that refuses to be named.

Endure it in silence and we become numb. We become enablers. We become complicit. Worse, we may even join the ranks of the perpetrators.

To a surprising extent, humor is tied to energy exchange and social control.

So many people here at CEI have described cultmeisters using audience laughter as a means of humiliation. Here are some items from earlier discussions.



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2022 01:47AM by corboy.

Here is how the desensitization process/slippery slope began. Sudden
shocking jokes in the context of an ongoing relationship.

[www.cnn.com]

Quote

In the fall of 2016, Samantha's indie-rock-loving boyfriend changed. He started lifting weights and making jokes she didn't understand. When she finally Googled them, she discovered they were based on an elaborate, violent, white supremacist fantasy called the "Day of the Rope," in which people of color, Jews, gays and the "race traitors" who helped them, are murdered.
"I couldn't believe it," Samantha said. "We both knew so many people that fit that description." Her boyfriend reassured her they were just jokes. But then, she says, he looked her in the eye and said that he was a fascist, and that he couldn't be with anyone who wasn't.
She started researching the alt-right -- a movement that shaped old white supremacist ideas into ironic memes that spread online to a very young audience. The grotesque jokes on imageboards such as 4chan and 8chan were not her scene.

But she found something appealing in the white power activists who presented themselves as intellectuals, like Richard Spencer and Jared Taylor. Just a few weeks after her first online search, she became a dues-paying member of a white power fraternity called Identity Evropa.

That took her into the organization's chat-rooms on Discord, where some members spread similar messages to the ones that had shocked her not long before.

"Like it starts as a joke where you laugh nervously. Then you kind of stop laughing, 'cause you're used to it," she said.

"And then you start to post it yourself, because you want to be a part of that. And it's this really quick, quick descension into that."

Our glory and our danger as human beings is our capacity to adapt.

In an earlier discussion on another thread, someone described someone's use of shock humor.

[forum.culteducation.com]

Quote

Posted by: liminal (73.109.57.60)
Date: February 22, 2019 08:29AM

Chuck Spezzano has several books out, including "What Men Don't Know About Sex-- That Women Could Teach Them".

This book is horrible. It includes an incredibly offensive rape "joke" that includes the death of the woman victim who was assaulted while in a coma.

According to the Spezzanos, independence is bad. We are supposed to be interdependent and do as they say. Criticisms of Chuck's vile jokes are said to be a sign of being "over judgemental".

I'd heard from survivors that Chuck regularly does his raunchy joke act as a way to control his followers. His act includes the claim that everything he says and does is okay because he has Italian heritage. Somehow that is supposed to excuse his crude sexualization of most everything.

But paging through this book, and especially coming across that "joke", really brought this all home to me.

Many other leaders of destructive groups and large group awareness trainings use this technique of veering off into vileness. Crude, rude, abusive statements designed I guess to draw followers closer? To keep them manipulated and less likely to leave?

Many gurus claim that they are using some form of "crazy wisdom" and that critics just aren't enlightened enough to understand.

Chuck and Lency have been doing this abusive b.s. for decades.

Another review of the book [https://psychologyofvision.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-review-of-what-men-dont-know-about.html]

I wonder what stories will eventually come out about the Spezzanos. Chuck seems to be describing over and over again a possible past of being abusive to women.

Corboy replied:

Quote

Yeah, verbal boundary tweaking. Shock talk.

A so called guru and crazy wisdom teacher named Lee Lozowick did this. I saw him speaking and behaving normally prior to his scheduled lecture.

As soon as LL began his lecture, he did rapid fire insults, jokes, generalizations, quick changes of topic and dirty talk. Classic confusion tactic. And an act. Only two people left the room..a woman who had confidence, and a much younger Corboy. I would have stayed had it not been for this one person who had dignity...and smart feet.

Icky people often use this shock talk as a way to test people. And am sorry to report that talent deficient people use shock and dare call themselves comedians.

Note: Tom Lehrer, Mel Brooks. Carl Reiner, Bob Newhart and George Carlin never used trash talk.

People who are offended, who leave...those people are the ones a teaser wants to be rid of.

That leaves people who do not protest, people who are afraid to be called prudish or judgmental.

Those are people who are easily controlled.

And if we remain for a long time with these prurient trash talkers, we get numb, we tune out our own misgivings, lose touch with our own boundaries

Then the teaser pushes the limits even more.

So, friends, stop feeling afraid when a bully calls you prudish or judgmental.

Heh, prudish and judgemental is quality control. Means our BS detectors work.

Date: October 05, 2018 04:05AM

A note about teasing and laughter and joking.

Teasing, joking and laughter do not create a safe relationship.

Teasing, joking and laughter are nuturing ONLY after a relationship has been
established and mutually negotiated as safe.

If you are led to feel safe in a relationship and suddenly the other person slips in jokes and teases that hurt and confuse, this is a (Corboys opinion) a WARNING SIGNAL TO STEP BACK.

A warning signal to step back and state that you feel hurt and demand this stop. If the person tries to confuse you or put you down, or claim you over reacted, GET OUT. Get out no matter how secure you were previously led to feel.

The real test of a relationship is whether you are respected *after* you have become trustful and emotionally involved.

In a genuinely secure relationship, joking and teasing never hurt. If someone feels hurt and says so, the other person stops at once and apologizes at once.

And...the hurtful behavior is not repeated.

The test of any relationship is how you are treated after you feel emotionally invested, not how you are led to feel during the courtship phase.

Too many abusers lead us to feel secure, then test us by sneakily teasing us, joking, making suddenly jabbing shocking remarks.

Any one does this to you, CALL THAT PERSON ON IT.

Otherwise, if you let this continue, if you ignore this or back off after complaining, you will get accustomed to this sneaky shit abuse. You will adjust to it, dull your self to it, disown your gut warnings.

An abusive teacher or therapist can closely numb you by getting you trustful then by jabbing at you here, there, and interspersing it with radiant smiles, soulful eyes, laughter, bogus warmth, ersatz soulfulness.

Do not permit hurtful teasing or joking to ever become part of a relationship, no matter how wonderful it seems to be at other times.

Your boundaries will be subtly compromised.

God forbid if a therapist does this to you, you'll be in for a world of shit - and worst of all will by paying for this to pattern of harm to continue.

[forum.culteducation.com]

Cultic Gurus Using Their Laughing Audience For Social Control

"People don't remember what you say, they do remember how you make them feel"

- advice getting along in life.

"Feelings, they're just feelings..." Popular song.

We need to examine the use and abuse of laughter and giggling by gurus.

Years ago, there was a disastrously narcissistic man in our social circle.

Women really fell for him. Then, when they realized the awful truth, they
could not get away fast enough.

Part of what made this guy so seductive was that he had cultivated
a most beguiling giggle.

Giggling is a common guru trick.


It is disarming when a power holder giggles.

Getting people to laugh disrupts their doubts. A laughing audience is also a
fearsome audience. You want to stay safe, laugh with the crowd, not find yourself the butt of the audience's and the guru's - laughter.

The Laughing Audience as Accomplice to the Guru

A thought question. Just what would Moo be without that laughing audience as his accomplice, eh?

Giggling is also a space filler, a useful way to dodge questions.

Maharishi was a giggler. One guy at a cult recover conferance told us that
during his time in TM, he said he estimatd that through his unpaid labor, he'd earned a hundred thousand dollars for TM and its giggling guru. (His words)

It is disarming when a power holder giggles.

Giggling is also a useful way to dodge questions.

A list:

Poonja (aka Papaji)

Search term:s Poonja laughter

[www.google.com]

Search terms: Poojja giggling

[www.google.com]

Quote

When she returned to Lucknow she shared how difficult the journey was in satsang with Papaji. He smiled and replied, 'I wondered why you wanted to teach in Bodhgaya,' as his famous giggle echoed around the satsang hall.

[kosi.co]

Maharishi Maheshi Yogi (TM) He was known as the Giggling Guru. It may be that other gurus have appropriated his technique.

[www.google.com]

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (Art of Living -- he stole his modus operandi from Maharishi)

[www.google.com] is a common guru trick. It is disarming when a power holder giggles. Giggling is also a useful way to dodge questions.sri+ravi+shankar+giggling+laugh&oq=sri+sri+ravi+shankar+giggling+laugh&gs_l=psy-ab.12..33i160l2.36482.38809..41336...0.0..0.165.869.0j6......0....1..gws-wiz.......33i299j33i22i29i30.SLjo506q5-I

Rajneesh (renamed Osho after his scandalous downfall)

This dude played satsang audiences like a violin.

Quote from transcript:

[www.oshoworld.com]

Quote

I have known one person who does not need to be tickled. Just from far away you make the gesture, and that is enough. Here there is also one person, everybody knows her. She is sitting so buddha-like, but just if I do this right now…

(The Master jiggles his fingers in a tickling gesture towards Avirbhava, who shrieks in surprise. Each time he "tickles," everyone roars with laughter, and the Master himself is chuckling behind his sunglasses. He alternates his tickling gestures with a series of hand movements to calm us down…Until the next outbreak of laughter.)

And where is Anando?

(The Master, spotting Anando, begins to jiggle his hand in her direction and is laughing himself. More waves of laughter.)

That is Anando, I could see.

This is the only way buddhahood arises: the master has to tickle. Now do you see the effect? I have not even tickled Avirbhava, neither have I tickled Anando, and you are all laughing!

(More "tickles" and more laughter ensue.)

This tickling is called, in the sutras, The Great Transmission. I have not even touched…

(He "tickles" several people, laughing, and everyone is carried along with him again.)

The master can only create a device. The device has no logical connection. Now do you see why you are laughing? Of course Avirbhava, at least, is tickled from far away—remote control. But why are you laughing? I have a remote control…

(The Master demonstrates his remote control on Avirbhava, and we all laugh some more. He laughs, and then motions to her to be still.)

Calm down. Just sit like a buddha…close your eyes (He giggles)…look inside.

(Another burst of laughter.)…

You have just seen it. Do you want to see it again?

(The Master begins to "tickle" again provoking waves of laughter, with a few chuckles from him.)

I have two remote controls—one for Avirbhava and the other for Anando. Wherever they are in the universe…just tickle and they will laugh. And with them, others will laugh for no reason at all.

I want you to understand: enlightenment is so light, so loving, so peaceful—just like a laughter. The theologians have made it so heavy, so burdensome, that people ignore it. Enlightenment should also be entertainment at the same time.

Corboy moralizes) "Entertainment". Disciples' children neglected. Antelope Valley Oregon intimidated. Salad bar poisoned with bacteria by Raj disciples to sway election turnout in favor of the ashram. Entertainment, indeed.

An anecdote by a man who visited Muktananda - and had the independance not to be intimidated.

Quote


[www.kundaliniconsortium.org]

I can’t remember if he asks for questions, I just remember my hand being in the air at a particular moment and his pointing at me. The noise level drops to zero as I stammer forth. Can’t remember my exact words, only a paraphrase:

“I recently spent one year in isolation, meditating. During this time hidden channels in my body were awakened…and eventually energy streamed into a place…a location in my head…that I can only call the third eye. Now, it continues on its own without my intervention, and my head cracks while it does…”

The Guru interrupts me. His acolytes turn their faces expectantly, as if ready to savor his reaction. My fellow floor sitters turn to stare at me.

“It is not possible. The head does not crack. There are no muscles in the head…” replies Muktananda.

Giggles and titters, as if the crowd were saying, “You don’t know that, stupid? Everyone knows that!”

“Then something is cracking in every room I’ve occupied…”
“It wasn’t your head.”

“It must have been the radiators then,” says someone in the crowd.

More derisive laughter. I’m not so much annoyed by people laughing at me as by the complete refusal to accept the possibility of a head cracking. That’s what growth is all about, from infancy to maturity—the head changing imperceptibly over time.

“That is impossible; the skull cannot crack,” he continues.
“But can it change its shape?”
“That is another matter.”

He whispers to someone behind him in a light green robe. Everybody rises. Question time is over.

In his denial, is he saying that it didn’t happen to him so therefore it couldn’t happen…period? I don’t put any limits on the power inside me.
Obviously, once maturity is reached, cracking might be difficult, but not impossible. Being him, I would have wanted to hear more. Being me, I believed he could look at me and see my inner workings, and therefore know I was telling the truth.

So, I am disappointed, but not much. It only reinforces what I’ve learned. I figure I need a few experiences like this to learn to ignore conventional wisdom.

(deleted for brevity - Corboy)

Good for you, I say to myself while walking into the bistro across the street from the ashram. You got laughed at and you deserved it. Now wake up, continue on your way, and forget conventional wisdom—even from the mouths of the so-called enlightened.

Muktananda

[www.google.com]

Gurumayi

[www.google.com]

Frederick Lenz III (aka Zen Master Rama)

[www.google.com]

Amma Ammachi

[www.google.com]

Andrew Cohen

Quote

The "A" List of Andrew Cohen: A Catalog of Trauma and Abuse, Hal ...
www.integralworld.net/blacker3.html
Jul 18, 2013 - Read also: "Andrew Cohen and the Fall of the Mythic Guru in an Age of ..... ridiculing, laughing at, insulting and dismissing other teachers, ...

Quote

What Happens When Your Guru Disappears? - The Daily Beast
[www.thedailybeast.com]
Mar 27, 2015 - The controversial American spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen did just that about ... accompanied by his particularly annoying, cackling laughter.

Some have identified differences between dominent status laughter and
laughter from those of lower status.

[www.psychologicalscience.org]

Have a look at this.

could it be that an incentive for group laughter around a guru such as Moo
is to gain status by laughing in the same way Moo laughs?

You have not reached his level of realization, but at least you can match his laughter -- and feel safely a part of the laughing satsang audience -- not
be isolated and laughed at.

quote:

Quote

high-status fraternity brothers produced more dominant laughs and fewer submissive laughs relative to the low-status pledges. Dominant laughter was higher in pitch, louder, and more variable in tone than submissive laughter.

Previous research, published in Psychological Science, demonstrated that holding a position of power can influence the acoustic cues of our speech. The voices of individuals primed with high-power roles tended to increase in pitch and were, at the same time, more monotone. Listeners, who had no knowledge of the experiment, were able to pick up on vocal cues signaling status: They rated individuals in the high-power group as being more powerful with a surprising degree of accuracy.

Findings from the fraternity brothers also showed that low-status individuals were more likely to change their laughter based on their position of power; that is, the pledges only really broke out into dominant laughter when they were in the “powerful” role of teasers. High-status individuals, on the other hand, maintained a consistent pattern of dominant laughter throughout the teasing game.

In another study, the research team tested out whether naïve observers could detect an individual’s status based just on their laughter.

A group of 51 college students was randomly assigned to listen to a set of 20 of the laughs recorded from the fraternity brothers. Each participant listened to an equal number of dominant and submissive laughs from both high- and low-status individuals. Participants then estimated the social status of the laugher using a 9-point scale.

Indeed, laughers producing dominant laughs were perceived to be significantly higher in status than laughers producing submissive laughs.

“This was particularly true for low-status individuals, who were rated as significantly higher in status when displaying a dominant versus submissive laugh,” Oveis and colleagues explain. “Thus, by strategically displaying more dominant laughter when the context allows, low-status individuals may achieve higher status in the eyes of others.”

Keeping control of a roomful of people, getting them to laugh, is a SKILL.

You have to learn it, practice it. Its showmanship.

[www.bbc.com]

Quote

I'm intrigued by how comedians co-ordinate the responses to their routines from the stage.

It's also difficult to learn to have the confidence to leave a pause for the audience to laugh, and to cope if they don't.

Comedians are very sensitive to the way that laughter can grow and fade in a room, and leaving a space for laughter to happen at all is a real skill.

Kiri Pritchard-Mclean, a stand-up comedian who also teaches comedy, points out:

"It takes a lot of confidence to stand on a stage and do nothing while the audience laugh - and it is hard to learn to come back in at the right point - not to trample on the laughter or wait too long and lose the momentum of the room."

Here is something to look at. Does gurus do this same thing with satsang audiences?

The Art and Science of Comedy

[www.thecut.com]

Quote

Dean said he started analyzing audience laughter and found that a good, solid laugh usually comprises an initial burst, then a pause for breath, then a rise to a peak. He teaches his students to come in with the next joke just as the peak has passed, like Berle did. That’s the first principle, which he calls classic timing, or one-liner timing.

The second principle involves what’s called tagging your jokes, adding a quick verbal redirection after the punch line, once or even several times. For instance, Dean said, he might say, “For Father’s Day I took my father out. It only took seven shots.” After the audience laughs at that, he might add something like, “Most people don’t get their priest that drunk.” That’s a tag, adding a new twist that surprises the audience and keeps them laughing.

Normally you don’t want to interrupt laughter, but tag timing is different, Dean said. The key is to deliver the tag when the audience is taking its breath after the initial burst of laughter. A good comedian can ratchet up the laughter with repeated tags and even begin to train the audience to hold its breath, to anticipate the tag like a dancer anticipates a change in a drummer’s beat.

For the rest of the article, go here

[www.thecut.com]

[www.cpr.org]

Quote

Perhaps more than other any other art form, comedy cannot exist for its own sake. Comedy requires a bond between performer and audience. And if either ingredient sucks, comedy doesn’t happen. But just as in real cooking, the container you put your ingredients in has some influence on the soup you’re creating.

Room size is very important. It needs to match the size of the audience. Too small an audience in too large a space does not work.

And, keep distractions to a minimum.

Quote

"A bad space can be large or small, but the key ingredient is usually layout. An audience needs to feel comfortable to loosen up enough to laugh, and they need as few distractions as possible."

Here is a description of what this comedian regards as the best space to do comedy.

Quote

I realize that calling something "perfect" can seem too bold. But I believe perfect spaces for comedy do exist. A perfect space is small enough to be intimate, with minimal distractions.

In this final clip, I’m telling the same joke I told in the first example, to perhaps forty people. But you can see how conducive this space is to comedy energy.

Sounds like a satsang set up, doesn't it?

Quote

For one thing, the seats are almost on top of one another. There is no elbow room. If you’re sitting next to someone, you’re almost on their lap, which does wonders to break the ice between strangers. Another big factor is the space’s low, almost cave-like interior, with its stone walls and low ceiling that seem to magnify even a small crowd’s laughs.

This is the club that Dave Chapelle was in when he said: “You people are lucky. You know you have the best indie club in the country right here.”

Comedy can inhabit any space, from tiny back rooms that seat ten people, to world-class performance spaces such as Red Rocks Amphitheatre. But the layout of a room can tell you what to expect before the first audience member ever steps across the threshold.

A Look behind the Curtains of Stand-Up Comedy:
Psychology in Stand Up Comedy

[theses.cz]

Note the phrase 'illusion of intimacy

Quote

1.3.1 The Venue and the setting

The venue the performance is taking place at has a great deal of factor to contribute with.

The comedian has to work with the given venue and the way the space is set up, the size
and seating of the audience, and the general nature of the space (Quirk, 2011).
According to Lee (2012) comedy venues – such as night clubs – tend to emphasize the
illusion of authentic communication. The venues support the illusion of closeness between
the audience and the comedian since this setting stimulates the feeling of intimacy and one on-one
conversation between the audience and the comedian. Since Stand-Up gigs come in
all shapes and sizes (Quirk, 2011), larger venues – like sports arenas – use jumbotrons or
other screening devices to capture the comedian’s emotions and mimics so even the furthest
seats can engage in the feeling of closeness (Lee, 2012). The size does, however, moderately
alters the dynamic of interaction (Quirk, 2011).

To this Quirk adds: “A successful room will usually show some evidence of an attempt to influence
the responsiveness - and even the behaviour - of the audience. The space is laid out to direct the
audience’s attention toward the performer and enhance excitement about the gig. Occasionally,
perception of commercial success is also managed by the layout of the space. The dead space in the room is minimised and the audience are prevented from becoming comfortable enough to be sedate, so that energy may flow more easily into laughter. (Corboy italics. Note how most satsang set ups are exactly like this.)

These efforts are usually subtle and audiences are
rarely aware of the way that both they and the space have been arranged to encourage responsiveness.
These activities are, nonetheless, common practices orchestrated specifically to influence the behaviour
of the audience” (Quirk, 2011, p. 229)
The room will change the attitude and overall act, the comedian must adjust to its
conditions (Quirk, 2011).

More:

[theses.cz] Page 94

Quote

Group dynamics in Stand-Up Comedy

Tracing these ideas back to Stand-Up Comedy, group dynamics is one of the factors why
people tend to join in and laugh, when the rest of the group laughs. One could argue this
is due to a certain degree of conformity the individuals in an audience are prone to. This is
presumably the reason why producers put laugh tracks into some TV-shows (Lockyer &
Myers, 2011). To be added though: “However, it is often clear for an attentive viewer that
something is amiss - the ‘audience’ laughs too aggressively or the timing is wrong. This clearly
illustrates that audience responses are not just bland, predictable and uniform, but that they are
sequentially sensitive and precisely timed to the witnessable performance in progress” (McIlvenny,
Mettovaara, & Tapio, 1992, p. 230).
Theatre will sell their tickets seating all of the audience members next to each other so
even if the show is not sold out, the audience is seated as a group and the influence of group
dynamics will increase. Theatres might also “paper the house”. They will give away free
tickets to cast members who will distribute them to friends and family (Downs, Wright, &
Ramsey, 2012). Still bearing in mind the simple idea of contagious laughter and that the
more people around the individual are enjoying the show, the more likely the individual
will join in and enjoy themselves (Provine, 2001).
In addition, he says it is crucial for the mere sound of the laugh not to escape the room, if
however the ceilings are high or the crowd half-empty this will happen and it will be to no
benefit. Furthermore, Quirk’s study states, that greater comfort makes the crowd more
passive which is unwanted.

More opportunities for Google research on this interesting topic here.

[www.google.com]

Here is another discovery:

Audience receptivity and expectations for the comedian are fostered by the compere or host - the person who faces the audience, makes opening remarks, gives background on the performer, praises the performer, then brings the performer, the comedian, the STAR, onstage.

Now, as you read, substitute 'guru' 'master' 'teacher' 'sage' for 'comedian' or 'act'.

A Look behind the Curtains of Stand-Up Comedy:
Psychology in Stand Up Comedy

[theses.cz]

Quote

The introduction – the acquisition of initial credibility – of Stand-Up comedians is often
done by comperes who act like an anchor for the show. They host the event and provide
the audience with information about the upcoming or past act, they secure the continuity
between acts, which may completely differ one another. Essentially, they ensure the
coherences of the whole show. However, one of the most important tasks the compere is
entrusted with is the aforementioned introduction of the acts – comedians. The basic
outline, which must not be, but in most cases is included, resembles the following:

- Contextualisation in which small details of background are offered about the
comedian

- Framing of response that directs an audience towards greeting the comedian with a certain attitude

- Evaluation of comedian by the compere as he or she passes comment on the
performance skills of the comedian
- Request for action from the audience by the compere – usually for applause
- Introduction of the comedian by the compere
- Audience applause
(Rutter, 2000, p. 466)

From the Scary Mommy 'Confessional' section

[www.scarymommy.com]

Quote

Confessional #24902626

I've learnt that when someone says something really mean and doesn't backtrack or apologize, they are looking to see how much shit you're willing to take.

If you don't call them out, you will be their new bitch.

Great to see this thread today and read about these topics.

Here’s my little bit towards it, through observation as usual.

Laughing is such a social thing, often if we’re not laughing in with a specific group, especially in this sort of instance where persons are often seeking somewhere to belong or fit in, not going along with the laughter brings up fear that we will not belong to the group, of ostracism - it is like a sort of stepping out of line because let’s face it, in these groups you must adhere or get out.. that is the narcissistic wish.

To get you out? Humiliation. This is the manipulation tool used to make it excruciating for you to be there amongst those that you have been humiliated in front of. This is usually because you have been spotted or seen to be one of those who will not stay in line and do the duty of the narcissistic order of the group.

Finally, to wrap both of these observations together, the behaviours could be considered as an unfortunate, needy assertion of power over others beyond the necessity of the childhood classroom, only these are the ones who cannot teach with children because they wouldn’t get through the vetting, although many sure do.

Needs are fine, we all have them, though some are meant to be transcended in youth, so if observed in adulthood then it must be questioned. The role and the behaviours do not match up.

Note: if you don’t get out? This is where those boundaries are eroded that are mentioned. If we’re working on ourselves we will be looking at overriding humiliation because it is some kind of test or a (seen as unwholesome) part of ourselves that must be overcome. Of course, that is “ overcome” only to be able to survive and belong in the group, and is absolutely not worth rescinding the boundary for.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/2020 08:40PM by facet.