Trying to make a joke that doesn’t offend anyone in 2018 pic.twitter.com/iXt7vcgtYc
— Comedy Unleashed (@UnleashedComedy) December 14, 2018
Offense culture is something I am still thinking about. It doesn’t have any obvious antecedents because in some ways we’ve developed new minds as a result of technological changes and informational abundance.
The nearest prior similar behavior I can find is dueling culture, tribal retribution cycles, and Edwardian-era review feuds — but none of these are really all that close to what we see now in how it effectively stifles expression and causes fear of saying the wrong thing.