Playing With / "Just Joking" Justification

1 Following

Basic Trope: A character offends someone and justifies it by saying they were joking.

• Straight: Alpha Bitch Alice offends Bully Magnet Bob by talking about how Bob is a loser, but claims that she was messing with him.
• Exaggerated:
  • Alice threatens to push Bob off a cliff, but she justifies it by saying that she was joking with him and then whines about how "overly sensitive" Bob is.
  • Alice says something absolutely horrible to Bob, causing him to burst into tears. Alice still tries to justify it by saying she was joking.
  • Too Funny to Be Evil.
• Downplayed:
  • Alice says that Bob is an idiot and tells him that she was joking.
  • Alice says she is joking, but acknowledges later that her joke went too far, and that it was pretty tasteless.
  • Alice says something that isn't actually offensive, only something that a cloudcuckoolander would say — but, when others look at her strangely, she claims she was just joking.
• Justified:
  • Alice doesn't want to take responsibility for offending Bob.
  • Alice wants an excuse to insult Bob and get away with it.
  • Alice has a bizarre sense of humor, and she really was joking.
• Inverted:
  • Alice compliments Bob, but then says that she was joking.
  • Alice tells an obviously over-the-top joking statement, but Bob takes it too straight. Not helping Alice's case is her sarcastic affirmation of the seriousness of the joke.
  • Alice makes a sarcastic suggestion, but when Bob takes it seriously, Alice claims she was serious too.
  • Alice insults Bob, who tries to take it as a joke, but Alice tells him that she is dead serious.
  • Alice makes a serious comment — but Bob, who doesn't take Alice seriously, responds with, "Haha, that was a good joke!"
• Subverted: Bob waits for Alice to say it was a joke, but she says he's serious.
• Double Subverted: It then turns out Alice was just prolonging the joke.
• Parodied: Alice actually does push Bob down a cliff, then shouts that it was just a practical joke. Bob laughs as he falls to his death.
• Zig-Zagged: It's completely unclear how serious Alice was.
• Averted:
  • Alice means what she says about Bob.
  • Alice and Bob are Vitriolic Best Buds, they know the things they are saying are jokes without having to justify themselves.
  • Alice takes full responsibility on insulting Bob.
• Lampshaded: "Hey, since when did the 'just joking' phrase become an excuse for anything?"
• Invoked: After being insulted, Bob pretends to find the remark funny, only to give Alice a subtle Death Glare. Alice realizes her only option is to pretend to "agree" with Bob that he was joking.
• Exploited: When Alice figures out Bob is dumb and gullible enough to believe it whenever he's told a remark at his expense was meant in jest, he completely buys it with full earnest.
• Defied:
  • Bob calls Alice out, saying that you can't go around saying whatever you want and getting away with it by using "I was joking" as an excuse, especially if you weren't actually joking and are just using that phrase as a catch-all "Get Out of Jail Free" Card.
  • Bob could also point out that there are some things that decent people don't joke about, and Alice crossed a line whether she was joking or not.
• Discussed: "You can't even tell a joke these days. Someone will take it seriously, and the 'just joking' explanation is only gonna be seen as further offense due to so much abuse and misuse."
• Conversed:
  Claire: "You ever notice that stuff that Alice always pulls when she says something that gets her a bunch of angry looks and she's like, "Bro, I was just joking, chill," except when someone else sucks as much as she does and agrees with them and all of a sudden, she meant it?"
  David: "That's a classic example of Schrödinger's Douchebag. Someone who is always saying something insulting and is at the same time swings between joking and not joking, depending on the reception they receive."
• Deconstructed:
  • No matter how much she excuses herself, Alice's odd sense of humor manages to drive others away.
  • Alice really wasn't joking, she meant to insult whoever he was talking to — and saying she was just joking is a Verbal Backspace that she is not even trying to feign sincerity about.
  • When Alice says she's just joking, she gets a bullet in the face before she even manages to finish her sentence by Bob, who finds her first joke to be too offensive for him and Alice's justification being a flimsy excuse to avoid the responsibility of being insensitive to others.
• Reconstructed:
  • Alice decides to find those who would be fond of her humor.
  • Alice decides to tell Bob her jokes while doing her best to avoid offending him.
• Implied:
  • After Bob gets mad at Alice calling him a loser, Alice insists she wouldn't call him a loser, but doesn't say why.
  • After every jape and insult, Alice slips and stumbles in a seemingly strategic manner, clearly using her drunken state to justify the remarks.
• Played for Drama: Alice is being abusive to Bob and tries to excuse her remarks of verbal/psychological abuse as jokes. Bob spends much of the plot conflicted, asking himself if he should break it off with Alice.