The Humour Club discussion

Hi, I got a weekly email from a site dedicated to helping indie writers to succeed and today's topic was how sensititivy readers are as important 2019 as beta readers. All this discussion is due to YA Blood Heir book. What I want to ask is, what do you think about sensitivity readers? And do you think them important at all?

I'm a bit worried for Humor. She has been ostracised, sensored, and seen as the enemy of the people. I fear that in the rise of the authoritarian world, humor has to go hiding. Instead, forgiving for a bad joke or even for a good one, the initial reaction in our current social media world is hatred accompanied by the age-old activity: witch hunt and then silence due to fear of being misunderstood and the fear of speaking up.

I watched today this old thing from 2015:
YouTube, Ted talk How one tweet can ruin your life by Jon Ronson
I don't think things have changed in three years at all. If you see what happened to the writer of the YA book I mentioned, and how the accusations have been blown out of proportions and some of them even proven false, yet, the book is not in print. It has been silenced at least for now. And I wonder how a humor book can survive? Does the difference between audience matter or are we doomed?

K.A. wrote: "...I wonder how a humor book can survive? Does the difference between audience matter or are we doomed?"

Hiring a sensitivity reader, whether your writing is dramatic or humorous, is a phenomenally stupid waste of money.

Consider, Shakespeare's plays, properly performed, have all sorts of thoroughly rude jokes in them. Are women picketing his grave?

Humor, by nature, surprises us out of our comfort zone. The appropriate response is to laugh or give a little 'that-could-have-been-phrased-better snort and move on.

Next.

RE the TED Talk: Twitter is based on what is happening right now. Immediacy is their stock and trade, which to me, makes them inherently flawed. Seriously, who hasn't made an impulsive remark that they later regretted. Most often, this DOES NOT represent how one truly feels.

I frankly don't care what UpYourWazooInLosAngeles thinks about anything. It's true — why just his\her name has offended me so deeply that after reading or skipping their tweet, I may take my usual afternoon nap and get on with my life.

In truth, no one is Adolph Hitler except Adolph Hitler, and no one is Mother Teresa except Mother Teresa. (Still saintly if you haven't read Christopher Hitchens' book.)

I've posted and reposted jokes that I thought were marginal, questionable, and even ones that I thought were a bit rude. Why? Because they made me smile, chuckle or laugh, and others may have the same response, brightening their day just a little bit. I never give the "thought police" a single thought.

As long as one is in an appropriate venue (Don't read Playboy in the front pew of a church service.), let the people who take offense fend for themselves...or get a life.

Where are the adults in the room????

I had no idea there was a specific book behind the “sensitivity reader” business. I also assumed that it was a decent idea (with a stupid name) for those who write characters who are of other races from yourself. You know, since I don’t really know much about being a black woman growing up in East LA, I might ask someone who has that experience to check the character and see if I’ve written anything stupid.

On a more serious note (sorry—that’s kind of anathema here, isn’t it?), if paying someone to check their characterizations is what it takes for writers to include some characters with some diversity, maybe it’s not such a bad idea. I know I’ve struggled with how to include people of color in my books without making an ass of myself (I’m not so worried about giving offense, but I really dislike looking like an idiot).

Though I admit that my absurd suggestion that I would lend my BFF my makeup if I had any had less to do with a failure to understand black women than a failure to understand makeup. She’s probably still laughing at me.

I agree with Jay on the matter that hiring a sensitivity reader is a waste of money if you consider the nature of humor and even his remark on Shakespeare, but then again Rebecca makes a good point saying about not always knowing what it is like to be a diversity member and not making an ass of yourself as a writer.

It is not Blood Heir book per se that is behind the sensitivity business, but it brought it on the surface. I have gathered it is something used more on YA book market.

But back to the nature of humor. Jay is right about how it surprises us out of our comfort zone, and I would add that not everyone can handle that. Thus if using a sensitivity reader or even starting to censor your own jokes might be harmful if the aim is to please all. You can't please everyone, and we will end up with such a road to losing our zest. I'm afraid that we are already losing some of that zest, we are taking everything too seriously, causing more harm than good.

To the TED Talk, I hadn't thought about immediacy being Twitter's and other social media outlets' bread and butter, but now I feel like I have missed a red nose which I have been looking all this time as a shade of pink. I agree with it being flawed. The whole system is preying on us and those impulsive comments we do sometimes when our mouth (or fingers) move before our brain are extra butter on the market. I was shocked by how much money Jon Ronson estimated Twitter made from the misery of that woman. It is something we users should understand. Maybe it would make us think about things differently.

To answer the hypothetical question where are the adults in the room? They are ignoring what is happening around them, or their voice is being drowned under all the useless clatter with GIFs.