"Just Joking" Justification

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He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking Can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding —They Might Be Giants, "Your Racist Friend"

One source of humor which comedians have used as a reservoir of material are contemporary stereotypes, be they sexist, racist, homophobic, or otherwise. When humour is used to excuse behaviour that others find offensive and inappropriate, you have just encountered a "Just Joking" Justification. Never mind that this seldom soothes the sting; the original barb hurt, after all. See the Real Life section below on the overlap between this trope and emotional abuse.

These can range a very wide gamut, from people getting upset at Michael Richards' (Seinfeld‍'‍s Kramer) infamous n-word tirade at a heckler, to people getting upset when they don't realize Jon Stewart's jokes about Jewish conspiracies are actually deconstructive parodies (and he is Jewish). Your Mileage Will Vary on whether any given "Just Joking" Justification is hysteria on one side, a weak excuse on the other side, or a combination of both. Frequently features as an excuse for invoking Mars and Venus Gender Contrast.

When this is not an act of deliberate cruelty, it is often an instance of And Stay Out! You may also consider this as a form of justification for when an attempt to Cross The Line Twice results in Dude, Not Funny. Not to be confused with I Was Just Joking. Also see Parody Retcon for when this is applied to entire works.

Compare Ha Ha Only Serious.

Examples of "Just Joking" Justification include:

Advertising

• Coffee shops offering a "skinny" option to help women "get that bikini bod"—whose defense against claims of fat-shaming was "our female employees came up with it/thought it was funny."

Anime and Manga

• Detective Conan: Whenever Kogoro makes one of his off-the-wall, no-basis-in-fact accusations and it gets shot down, he will frequently backpedal by saying he was just joking.
  • Ai Haibara also always tag this to the end of anything that is actually real.
• Darker than Black played with this. November 11 used to drop a comment somewhat disturbing for everyone present and add "Just joking" immediately. It's sufficiently annoying to other characters that it gets several Ironic Echoes throughout the series.

Comic Books

• Bergelmir (Loki's brother) tries to pull one to cover his ass after attempting to trick Lucifer into being honor-bound to kill himself.

Bergelmir: It was joke, morningstar. A joke only. I've something of my brother's humor, after all. Lucifer: Take me to the ship. Or I'll show you what makes me laugh.

Fan Works

• In Dragon Ball Abridged, Krillin tries to use this to explain cutting off Freeza's tail, after Freeza undergoes the final stages of his Villainous Breakdown.

Krillin: What did I do? Freeza: Remember my tail!? Krillin: Can't you take a joke? Beat Screaming, and an explosion.

Film

• In the Adam Sandler film Jack and Jill, Jack (played by Sandler) has a mexican gardener whose only purpose in the movie is to make tons and tons of horrifically racist Mexican jokes ("We just got over the border!" "This is by son Juan, my other son Juan, and my daughter Juanita.") and follow them up with "I'm just KEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDING!".
• The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie makes fun of this briefly. After mind-controlling just about all of Bikini Bottom, Plankton is arrested. C'mon, he was just kidding.
• Aladdin and the King of Thieves. Genie has made what could be seen as an extremely insensitive joke (that Aladdin isn't really required for a wedding to happen). "It's a joke! (deadpan) I do that."
• Mother Gothel from Tangled uses this quite frequently when talking to Rapunzel.

Gothel: "Ah, Rapunzel, how you manage to [pull me up the tower with your hair] every single day without fail... it looks absolutely exhausting, darling." Rapunzel: "Oh, it's nothing." Gothel: "Then I don't know why it takes so long! Ohohoho, darling, I'm just teasing!" Rapunzel: "Eh-heh... So, mother, as you know, tomorrow is a very big day-" Gothel: "Darling, look at that mirror. You know what I see? Is see a strong, confident, beautiful young lady. Oh, look, you're here too. Ahahahaha! I'm just teasing, stop taking everything so seriously!"

Literature

• Romance of the Three Kingdoms abuses this trope horrendously. If a lord says something to upset a favoured retainer, they usually claim it was a joke. Even if the statement that upset the person wasn't funny at all.
• From The Bible, Proverbs 26:18-19

Like a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death is one who deceives their neighbor and says, “I was only joking!”

• In the Captain Underpants book The Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space (and the Subsequent Assault of the Equally Evil Lunchroom Zombie Nerds) George, Harold and Captain Underpants jump out of a UFO and land SPLAT on the ground... or not; the narrator was kidding.
• In The Screwtape Letters, Screwtape discusses this as a method of tempting a person to be a Jerkass. After all, they might not realize their jerkassery is hurtful if they—and better yet, all their friends—see it as just a joke.

Live-Action TV

• A rare example without overtones of racism or outright cruelty: on The Dick Van Dyke Show there was an episode where Jerry Helper (the next door neighbor) was going around saying The Alan Brady Show—on which Robert Petrie (Dick Van Dyke) worked—wasn't funny. He told Rob he was "just kidding" but kept on doing it. Rob was quite upset.
• In Toshiie to Matsu, Oda Nobunaga attempts to pass off a particularly tasteless move (displaying the gold-plated skull of his sister's dead husband, and ordering her and her new fiancee to drink from the skullcap) on his part as a joke.
• Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm makes frequent use of this (usually as a last resort if he needs something from whoever he offended).
• In the Hannah Montana episode "Judge Me Tender", a Simon Cowell parody character issues one of these, then immediately retracts it, after saying both Hannah and the judge for whom she was filling in were boring.
• An episode of Malcolm in the Middle has a new neighbor boy spreading malicious lies about Malcolm, turning the entire neighborhood against him. When Malcolm confronts him, the kid says, "Hey, it's just a joke. Lighten up," and continues doing it.
• [[The Office: Michael Scott often finds himself caught in these after an egregious faux-pas or a joke in really bad taste.

Music

• As evidenced by the page quote, They Might Be Giants have expressed opinions on this trope.
• There's also The Smiths' "Bigmouth Strikes Again":

Sweetness, sweetness I was only joking when I said I'd like to smash every tooth in your head Sweetness, sweetness I was only joking when I said by rights you should be bludgeoned in your bed

• In the "Weird Al" Yankovic song "I Was Only Kidding", the singer tries to use the line to justify telling someone that he loved her. As abrasively as possible. He gets shot.

When I said you could always trust me, When I said I'd never leave you flat, Well guess what? I was only kidding, baby, I can't believe you fell for that! (you're so gullible!)

• In Barenaked Ladies song "The Flag" it's used with pretty dark overtones.

The phone rings, it's early, it's seven o'clock. He says I'm sorry that I woke you but I just had to talk. You know, last night, remember when I tried to choke you? I didn't mean it, I was drunk, it was only a joke.

New Media

• This is actually a classic troll tactic.
  • From Flame Warriors: Not a particularly powerful Warrior, Evil Clown will attempt to avoid defeat by accusing his attacker of having no sense of humor.
• The users at the Snopes message board have agreed on a rule of thumb: any joke that requires you to use this phrase isn't funny.
• The Onion: Come On, Lighten Up, I'm Just Being A Total Asshole.

Newspaper Comics

• Get Fuzzy: Bucky occasionally says "I'm just sayin'..." after insulting humans and dogs, eventually prompting this exchange:

Satchel: "Bucky, you're a jerk!" Bucky: *Stunned Silence* Satchel: "Hey, I'm just sayin'!"

Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends

• In one version of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, after the piper has gotten rid of the rats, the mayor claims he was only joking about the payment. If you've heard the story, you know how that turned out.

Radio

• During one episode of the Big Finish Doctor Who audio dramas, Peri and Erimem are currently posing as two princes who are supposed to be dead, and are as far as they know, stranded due to a temporal mishap. Erimem suggests suicide (to save the timeline) is the only answer, but then pretends she was just joking when hearing Peri's shocked response.

Recorded and Stand Up Comedy

• Some comedians, such as Russell Peters, have received criticism for this.
• The author of the Stuff White People Like blog speaks on Sarah Silverman thusly: Get it? It's not offensive, because when she says racist or sexist things she knows they are offensive. So it's okay.
• Michael Richards stepped far afoul of this one when a heckler got him so flustered he went on a racist tirade that was so Dude, Not Funny people started walking out. He later said he was trying to shock the hecklers into silence by Crossing The Line Twice, but most people think he forgot to cross it back.
• Subverted by Jeff Foxworthy in one of his stand up acts. After making a joke about having cats stuffed by a taxidermist...

Jeff: Did I offend someone in the audience? It's a joke. I have two cats. (Beat) One on either side of the fireplace.

• Mike Birbiglia had a stand-up in which he talked about a girl he dated in college. She constantly would say belittling things to him and then add "just kidding!" at the end. After he realized that she had been cheating on him with several other guys, he tells how he just wished she'd have been there to say "just kidding!" to that.
• Larry the Cable Guy does this a lot, in and out of character.
• Ricky Gervais has been accused of this, such as here.

Video Games

• In Batman: Arkham Asylum, Joker (of course) pulls one as one of his looping taunts after beating challenge mode.

The Joker: While you fighting I've had everyone you love BRUTALLY MURDERED! hehehe... Only joking.

• • Of course, with the Joker, you never can tell....
• In Mass Effect 2, your shipboard AI, EDI, will attempt to crack a few jokes, but ends up append these comments with the phrase "That was a joke" when the people listening don't find it funny, or are afraid she's gone rogue.
• The Tales series likes this one. At least once every game, one of the characters will reveal their tragic and touching emo backstory with fanfare... and then, having elicited sympathy from the rest of the party, they'll proceed to claim they were "just kidding".

Western Animation

• The Simpsons:
  • Krusty the Clown on The Simpsons deconstructs this after an offensive bit by outright saying, "When you look at me like that, it's a joke."
  • Following Sideshow Bob's Heel Face Turn in "Brother From Another Series", he remarks that he still just might have the urge to kill Bart Simpson, only to quickly add "Joking, joking!" when Bart gets frightened.
• Casinko, an episode of Sealab 2021 contains a heavily referenced song entitled "We're only joking". [1]

Real Life

• This is one of the typical excuses offered for the emotional and psychological torment inflicted by bullies.
  • More generally, it seems to have become acceptable shorthand (at least among the sort who assume that anyone else would do the same) for "I Lied."
• Comedian Andrew O'Neill references this trope in his video I'm not being racist but... . In summary, he demonstrates that the phrase renders anything suspicious and disturbing.
• Humorist and U.S. Senator (DFL-Minn.) Al Franken has used the term "kidding on the square" to refer to a type of "joking" that's subtly, or not-so-subtly, serious in its intent.
  • Strictly speaking, that's more what Discordians call "Ha Ha Only Serious", and is an entirely other thing. Ha Ha Only Serious uses jokes to get across a serious message, whereas this trope is about using humour as an excuse to be gratuitously offensive.
  • "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke" is part of the SubGenius dogma, but trying to justify it as "just a joke" is one of the few sins. The inversion of this trope is Ha Ha Only Serious.
    • "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke" only applies when you were joking right from the start, though.
      • No, "fuck 'em if they can't take a joke" applies when we're kidding but we're serious anyway. The "fuck 'em" part still stands, and that's the whole joke.
      • There was an Irish comedian who would end his act with "We never mean to offend anybody, but fuck you if you can't take a joke."
• Thomas Edison is said to have commissioned his archenemy Nikola Tesla for a considerable sum and, when Tesla finished the work and asked about this mythical payment Edison had mentioned, just told him, "You don't understand our American humor."
  • This happened before they were arch-enemies, and when Tesla was still working for Edison's company. Edison supposedly had promised a large sum for a person who could solve a specific problem in the design of a component, but after Tesla had done just that, Edison noted that without a written contract such promise is worthless.
  • Tesla then asked for a relatively small raise on account of being Edison's most useful employee. Edison refused. Tesla resigned.
• Since this type of humor has become more popularized and people think they can hide behind it, it's been fairly common for newspaper columnists, for instance, to write straight editorials that are blatantly bigoted and then when they're called out say, "It was obviously meant to be satire!"... only to completely fall down when the time came to explain exactly what they were satirizing and why it deserved it.
  • It is quite easy to fool people by beginning insults with "No offense, but..." Smart people would get Fridge Logic immediately. The key word here is "but."
    • As Bastard Operator From Hell put it,

"Unless you're a thicko. I can't stand thickos. No offense."

• T-Shirt Hell was premised on this.
  • Funny story, no, it wasn't. That's actually their sense of humour and the aforementioned shutting down the shirt shop was a hoax to drum up sales and support.
• Infamously used by Jack Thompson to back out of his challenge to video game developers, when they actually created a violent video game to satirize themselves like he challenged them to. When he wouldn't make the donation to a charity as promised, the folks behind Penny Arcade footed the amount in his name. For which he sued them for harassment, and tried to have them arrested.
• The Internet. "lol jk". 'Nuff said.
• Sarah Palin said that Rahm Emanuel's usage of the word "retarded" was offensive. When a controversy erupted, Rush Limbaugh chipped in and said "In today's politically-correct society, there's a big deal if you call a retard, retard". Sarah Palin ranted against Rahm and said that he had offended "all of God's children with mental disabilities", but then said that Rush's comment was okay because it was "satire."
  • Stephen Colbert then joined in, saying that his comments were just satire, and said on TV: "Sarah Palin, you're a fucking retard."
  • One episode of Family Guy had a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of an Alaskan governor's mentally handicapped child. Sarah Palin took offense to this, and replied with her usual reaction. The actress who played the character is herself mentally handicapped, and responded to Sarah Palin with "my parents taught me to have a sense of humor about my life, instead of parading me around the country for pity votes."
• Mary Bale, the woman who threw a cat into a very deep trashcan, leaving it trapped in the dark for FIFTEEN HOURS defended her actions by saying "'I did it as a joke because I thought it would be funny". Anonymous thinks it is good she has a sense of humour, it likes a laugh itself.
• South Park seems to get immunity from criticism (at least since it has become popular) for piling all kinds of political incorrectness and Dead Baby Comedy into what is ostensibly a kiddie cartoon show while older cartoons with material only about half as offensive (such as the infamous "Censored Eleven") are never shown on TV (sort of a reverse Grandfather Clause, if you think about it). The justification is apparently something along the lines of "Well, Trey Parker and Matt Stone don't really believe in that stuff and are actually mocking it, so it's okay." Well, how do you know that older animators didn't do likewise?
• Very common excuse for misogynistic or otherwise discriminatory remarks, like "jokingly" saying that you'd like to rape a woman, and then blaming her for overreacting/being hysterical/having no sense of humour when she calls you out on it.
• PETA attacked Super Mario 3D Land on the grounds that Mario's Tanooki Suit promoted wearing fur. They resorted to "just a joke" after facing the Internet Backlash.
• Blizzard Entertainment used one of these after blizzcon 2011. When people were attacked or otherwise belittled for their alliance pride following a (archived and old) video of Greg "Corpsegrinder" getting ganked in PVP and saying a slur of homophobic insults and wishing suicide on them, a community manager tried to say "It was just a joke." when the company was under fire and threatened with being reported to the homosexual rights committee for encouraging homophobia. The flames took a good while (and an official apology from corpsegrinder and Blizzard's CEO) to die down.
• Stewart Lee, in this article, deconstructs this attitude and the recent reputation it has for symbolising a comedian as being 'brave' and 'non-PC'. He does it humourously, but underneath the humour is the point that sometimes this defence is sometimes just used by the comedian to handwave being a bullying jerk.
• Talib Kweli "educated" his opponent with a tweet going «So, you’re unaware of the fact that nazi Germany had a wall called the Berlin Wall [...] Nazi lover». After a few hundreds of responses expressing great surprise at such an... innovative version of the events, he claimed "being facetious", and began to answer the following replies with a screenshot of this new wall of text and "guys, guys, calm down". After 5 days he deleted it — but of course, by that time there were more than enough of archives and screenshots to laugh at, including press.
• The White House staff routinely backpedaled on Former US President Donald Trump's more outrageous and controversial pronouncements with a "Just Joking" excuse. A few examples:
  • In June 2020, when Trump proudly announced at a rally that he had ordered a slowdown of COVID-19 testing in the middle of the pandemic, the White House quickly declared that he had been joking.
  • Likewise when in April 2020 Trump solemnly recommended that the American people should inject disinfectants and drink bleach to cure COVID-19, the White House helpfully clarified that he was being "sarcastic".
  • Similarly, the White House excused his fervent declaration that Democrats were "treasonous" and "un-American" for staying seated during his 2018 State of the Union speech as "just joking".
  • Given that Trump shows no evidence he even possesses a sense of humor, it's amazing how many jokes he told from the Presidential podium that nobody noticed until his staff pointed them out. Trump would also occasionally subvert his staff's efforts by contradicting them and insisting he really was serious.