
What I Saw When I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society (2014) - uxhacker
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/i-crashed-a-wall-street-secret-society.html?mid=facebook_nymag
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wyager
News flash: people with similar interests tend to socialize.

Rich wall street people are still just normal people, and it would be weird if
they didn't have industry social events.

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rayiner
The homophobic jokes suggests they are not normal people, but rather terrible
ones.

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coldtea
Only if you can't find similar homophobic jokes being told by, say, 60% of the
population...

Jokes are irreverent. You don't have to be a "homophobe" to laught at such
jokes, you could just as well be gay or a gay marriage supporter etc -- you
just laugh at the mechanics of the joke (the word-play, the twist of the
punchline, etc).

Same with all kinds of jokes. You don't have to be a serial killer or a sadist
to laugh at jokes about murdering people or black humor in general. You don't
have to be an atheist to laugh at jokes about religion. You don't have to be
an bigot to laugh at jokes about the Irish -- Irish themselves laugh with such
jokes (and similar for other ethnicities).

You just have not to be all righteous and/or PC.

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PeterWhittaker
Yeah, you pretty much have to be a homophobe to laugh at a joke that
disparages homosexuals, just like you pretty much have to be a misogynist to
laugh at jokes that disparage women, a racist to laugh at jokes that disparage
whatever race is the target of the joke.

Oh, sure, you will find "in joke" types, where members of one group will tell
jokes in an ironic kind of way for their own amusement - but I guarantee you
that that will be seen as controversial and far from universally accepted
within that group.

Of course, you also get groups telling the jokes that disparage them in such a
way to identify the group that would have told the joke originally, as a way
of bad mouthing that original group. That's just as bad, just as sleazy.

There is plenty of humour, plenty of belly rupturing spit out your beverage
humour, without disparagement.

There is never any need to disparage or be sophomoric to get a laugh. Ever.

Was this post humourless? Good. So are racist, misogynist, and homophobic
jokes.

~~~
coldtea
> _Yeah, you pretty much have to be a homophobe to laugh at a joke that
> disparages homosexuals_

Strange, because many gay friends of mine laugh at those and even make them.
In fact lots of famous gays are notorious for this kind of disparaging humor,
against other gays but also against everybody.

And I often laugh at jokes about a kind of handicap I have. Heck, I often MAKE
such jokes about that thing. Also consider most comedians making jokes about
their shortcomings, insecurities, appereance, etc).

It's part of having a sense of humor.

> _There is plenty of humour, plenty of belly rupturing spit out your beverage
> humour, without disparagement._

Not that much as you think. In almost every great comedian (and I'm not
proposing a "no true scotscman" here: check the top-50 commercially or
critically accepted acomedians of all time) you'll find all of these kinds of
jokes you condemn about all kinds of groups.

> _There is never any need to disparage or be sophomoric to get a laugh.
> Ever._

No, you can also tickle people. But being disparaging or somophoric is another
great way. Heck, Aristophanes, probably the most celebrated comedy writer in
the classics, had fart jokes and silly puns in his plays...

~~~
coldtea
Case in point. Here's a great joke about rape:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3xoiShfknA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3xoiShfknA)

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redwards510
It sounds like an episode of The Simpsons, not real life. People who
accumulate more wealth than they would ever need consider themselves better,
smarter, more evolved than poor people. They should prove it by setting a good
example and showing empathy for their fellow man. Instead, they laugh at the
idea that your grandmother lost thousands in her 401k due to their addiction
to amass more money than they need.

If you need money to feel good about yourself, you should re-examine your
priorities.

EDIT: Also, what is with the cross-dressing? Do they dress as women to
humiliate because they consider women lesser beings?

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freshhawk
I've completely forgotten where I read it but the most convincing sociological
explanation for old school secret society cross-dressing I've heard was along
the lines of:

1\. These are cultures with very conservative ideas about gender and gender
roles. Someone who cross dressed in their regular life would be shamed and
excluded. It's considered degrading.

2\. Since it's such a "bad" thing to do, when you are with your other high
status peers it signals status to confidently do it anyway, as a joke only, to
show that you are so confident in your position that you can even get away
with cross-dressing.

When you live at an extreme the normal status rules apply less and less to
you, while the middle class engages in conspicuous consumption for status
reasons, the upper classes can engage in conspicuous anti-consumption for
status reasons. When you are high status enough, you can just ignore the
normal rules because you are so comfortable and confident in your position.
And this fact is something to show off with conspicuous rule breaking.

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blfr
Previously
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7256960](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7256960)
(104 comments)

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xacaxulu
Interesting, but totally unsurprising. Any time you get a group of elites
together, this sort of fun is fairly common. In my opinion, tf it was really
anything more than just a roast/goofy party, the reporter would never actually
have made it in.

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mattzito
Should be tagged as (2014).

