Is Everyone Really Laughing?
I use three quick questions to test whether “just a joke” is actually landing as intended:
Is everyone laughing?
Are they laughing on the inside as well as the outside?
How do you know? What evidence do you have?
These popped into my head after seeing exclusion brushed off as “banter”. A group of new grads assumed their chat jokes were harmless and shared. They later discovered—expensively—that not everyone was in on it.
Humour can connect, or it can isolate. If you don’t check the impact, you’re guessing.
Over to you: how do you tell when a joke is truly a joke?
