A post where I ruin the joke

Before we become self-righteous and look down on people, we should engage in a bit of critical thinking.

"I just had a job interview at Walmart and they showed a video of me stealing."

When you think about this joke for a minute, it makes no sense for several reasons. (Bear with me, I actually do have a point.)

First, why would Walmart (or any other store) bring someone in for a job interview when they know this person has stolen from them? They are basically wasting this person's time, and the time of the manager conducting the interview, by pulling what is essentially a prank on someone. Bring her in, humiliate her, and then deny the job. It is very unprofessional behavior. It could also be potentially disruptive if the person being interviewed and ambushed lashes out in anger over the humiliation.

In addition to wasting company time that could be used in a more productive way, there is likely a legitimate applicant who was denied an interview because store management decided to waste time "owning" someone and humiliating her. There is not unlimited time for interviewing applicants, after all.

"Well, Scott does not have a sense of humor and is over-analyzing a joke that has been posted by many different people on social media." While my sense of humor may be lacking, I have a better sense of humor than people who take these jokes literally and share screenshots in order to humiliate the original comedian. It represents a deep cynicism that does not improve anything, and the laughter generated is the laughter of a schoolyard bully.

So here is my point. This stuff - these "self owns" - are all over social media. Many of them are jokes, not to be taken literally. Before we become self-righteous and look down on people, we should engage in a bit of critical thinking and, more importantly, have some charity in how we engage with this content. Would we want people "throwing shade" on us because we made a joke? Maybe we should have some charity before taking things literally and jumping straight to the condemnation.

People say social media is not real life, and to some extent that is true. But there are real people behind these accounts, and the fact that there is a computer screen and hundreds of miles separating you from the subject of your derision does not negate your obligation to be charitable and discerning about what you see and read. The more people do that, the less reason there will be for humorless scolds like me to write four hundred words picking apart a one line joke.