Continuation of our series on laughter today. Or rather, what no longer makes you laugh. Imitating an accent, painting your face black, stretching your eyes to imitate an Asian person… Words or behaviors that were previously normalized and which sometimes triggered laughter. These behaviors have not completely disappeared today, but the new generation, more aware, wants to raise awareness and try to make them disappear. On TikTok, which has more than 1.5 billion users, these behaviors are still very present and widely reported. So on these same networks, other voices are raised to denounce them and try to educate young people.
On TikTok, these young people denounce the racist jokes they experience and see on social networks. Among them, Sid, an activist committed to issues of discrimination. “ I don’t know until what year we’re going to have to say it. It was never funny. And it will never be funny 400 years of slavery “. She is a specialized educator, and on the networks, part of her job is to denounce racist jokes and behavior.
“ It’s my daily life, every day, honestly, I have between twenty and fifty identifications on comments. I don’t even have a qualifier, but they are discriminating, and on all social networks, so it’s starting to attract people. »
These racist jokes abound, and above all, they are not controlled by social networks.
The inaction of social media platforms
“ We will report to the platforms and the platforms will do nothing. For example, I tried yesterday morning, four times, to report a video where a person was wearing black face, so black face, and the girl in question explains that it’s humor, that we’re dressing up. in Bob Marley, then we continue. The social network does not delete. The person does not question himself. She makes it visible. But what is actually happening? »
And, the more views a video has, the more money it makes for its creator.
“ How I explain to a teenager that it doesn’t happen if he realizes later that it’s going to happen 1 000 euros with a video where he discriminates against women, where he discriminates against black people. Visibility equals money, and there are people who are ready for anything, and we end up with a kind of competition for who has the most horrible joke, references to the camps. It shocks me. »
So with her outspokenness, a touch of sarcasm and a lot of pedagogy, she points out the jokes, calls out the authors and explains to her thousands of subscribers why they are denigrating and hurtful.
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Laugh at discrimination, no
Here, it is on the question of disguises that Sid focuses on his social networks. “ Even if people say that it’s too much, that it’s tiring, that there will always be more, that in any case it’s humor, that we can’t say anything more, it’s not Seriously, I don’t care. I know that there is always a person who may have built themselves up by saying “ah ok, actually this is not normal” and just for that reason, I think we have to do it. We put more energy on young people. And if we can leave them something respectful, it’s better. » Sid is convinced of this.
“ We can clearly laugh at lots of things. We can laugh about our failed haircut at the hairdresser. There are plenty of funny things in life, without needing to address discrimination or being hurtful. In any case, I believe in it. That’s what I have left, hope anyway. » she says, laughing.
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