DaveGorman

Dave Gorman · @DaveGorman

23rd Nov 2010 from Twitlonger

@asleepunderenon I disagree on your interpretation of the definition. If I was leaning against a wall in such a way that you could only see one leg that would be deceptive. It would not be a deception on my part. It certainly couldn't be described as a humorous or mischievous deception - both adjectives that imply intent. "Usually taking the form of a fabrication of something fictitious or erroneous, told in such a manner as to impose upon the credulity of the victim." Fabrication. Impose upon the credulity. That definition is all about deliberately misleading someone for a prank.

While being deceptive and being a deliberate deception are different things it doesn't even follow that because-the-judge-found-it-menacing-it-was-therefore-deceptive. To my mind the judge has shown that she has not understood the medium by which the message was sent. What she has found 'menacing' is something that does not actually exist. It is her understanding of twitter that has deceived her not the message itself. Nobody who actually saw the message in context felt menaced by it. A judge, who failed to understand the context decided that if she had seen it she would have felt menaced by it. That's different.
The fact that you found the Spartacus stuff amusing is irrelevant. That's not the tweet. Nor were you the audience for the tweet.

Some of the reaction to this thing seems to me to be wilfully misunderstanding the use of the word 'joke'. If someone says, "If that builder doesn't turn up in the next half hour I'm going to bloody kill him!" they're merely expressing their anger in a hyperbolic way. If you said, "Are you really?" the reply would be, "No, of course I'm not, I was joking." That doesn't mean "I was telling a joke". It doesn't mean that they thought it was a great gag, a one liner, a zinger that would floor the audience. It purely means, "No. I wasn't being literal."

We all use the word 'joke' in this way at some point in our own lives and yet I've lost count of the number of people who react to this story with a withering "well-it-wasn't-a-very-funny-joke-was-it?" I don't think that's the point of this "joke". It wasn't meant to mislead. Nobody thought it was. It wasn't a prank or a hoax by any definition. It was a hyperbolic expression of anger. And it was understood as such by everyone who saw it - including the airport staff and the police - and it was only when it came to people who didn't understand the medium (or for that matter punctuation!!!) that they decided, not that they were menaced by it but that they could imagine other people would be that it came to this ridiculous end.

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