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Image of person walking along a railway track: overreaction or sensible?

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Greenback

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Humour, particularly satire, is very subjective. You'll often find that for every person roaring with laughter at this type of joke, there will be at least one who is outraged. Sometimes I'm in one camp, sometimes the other. Whichever it is, it's really not worth my time going public with my reaction. I simply move on. Like buses, there'll be another joke along in a minute!
 
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urbophile

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I can understand people who have had bad experiences being upset but satire is not meant to be completely inoffensive
It's meant to hit the target though. In this case it misses, by offending the victims or relatives of victims and failing to attack those responsible for cancelled trains.
 

Pete_uk

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Yeah, I can see how some would be upset but then if you never put out anything humorous because someone might be upset then you would never have any humor.
 

jon0844

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I count 8 people moaning about it. If 8 people in the world moaning about something is enough to “warrant thinking twice” about anything we live in very sad and worrying times.

On Twitter, you have to extrapolate. Therefore 8 people represent the views of at least 8 billion people.

One moan, if from the right person and if it gets enough likes, can change the world. Or so people think, rather than a lot of social media is people living within little bubbles that aren't representative of the real world.

Take the example of offence taken over M&S choosing to put underwear on display in a window next to smart business suits for men in another. Two totally different displays but near enough to have made a tiny number of people accuse the store of promoting smart clothing for men to be successful, and women to wear frilly knickers because they're sex objects (implying the idea is for women to wear said underwear and nothing else to work or something).

I think that just as ASA and others consider where an advert is placed in terms of suitability, and we have guidance on TV where some channels can show content at different times than others because of who their audience is, we need to consider that the Daily Mash that is well known to be satirical can probably not lead to people copying what they see and read. If it was, on the other hand, part of an advertisement or placed in a magazine aimed at children or something, that would be totally different.

It's about context IMO.
 

RLBH

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The Daily Mash is usually spot on with its satire. But I don't think this one is either in any way funny, or in good taste. There are many other ways of satirising the disarray and inefficiency of our railway system without that. However I remember once seeing a cartoon of a whole trainful of commuters walking in train-seating formation along the track. That was funnier because it is surreal and because no-one would be likely to emulate it IRL.
I've heard of such a thing actually happening with a bus cancelled due to severe weather. To the extent of the scheduled bus driver leading the walk, and 'passengers' getting off at their 'stop' and doubling back towards side roads they'd just walked past!
 
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If this article supposedly encourages people to walk on the railway then so be it, it's called natural selection.
 
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