Roasting and Bullying- Which is What?

Roasting has been doing rounds all over social media for a long time now. As much as I could track the trend it came from Reddit where users showed their consent to satire by holding a sign called "Roast Me". However, now the meanings have changed. Discussion about consent has taken the backseat and we all have almost forgotten about it.

I, myself have watched numerous roast videos and have enjoyed it until a few days back when I saw a video mocking Indian and Pakistani singers be it because of their disparate names or because of their poles apart singing skills. This took me back to childhood memory lane where the elderly taught us not to make fun of someone because he/she is different from what we have seen. The video made me ponder:

Will it be okay, if someone will do the same with me on a platform with thousands of people watching it, commenting on it, and enumerating different thoughts?

The answer was a straight "NO".

So, I took the help of social media and asked my friends about the difference between roasting and bullying only to understand if I am being hyper-sensitive about it.

Here is what I found:

1. Internet:

Source: Google

Roasting is severe criticism and bullying is to intimidate. Although, the meaning does not talk about consent and impact on the receiving party which in both cases very much put the receiving party at a psychological disadvantage, giving more power to the roaster.

2. Conclusion of what my friends said:

While some chose to skip the topic, a lot of conversation went around the intent and the impact of roasting and bullying. Only 1 or 2 individuals talked about the consent of the receiving party. One of the popular opinions was more like advice to the receiving party which talks about not taking jokes too seriously.

3. Where is my stand?

I stand with consent. I strongly believe roasting ambits bullying if it does not involve the consent of the recieving party. And we need to understand this now more than ever.

While a lot of us classify roasting as humor. We need to understand that humor is very subjective, what may be funny for me, can be insulting for the receiving party. We, definitely need to be more sensitive towards people especially when mental health has been such a big fiasco.

I don't understand, what is the point of being the advocate of mental health if we ourselves are contributing towards hampering it?

With the above question, I'll leave you to think about it. Let me know your thoughts on the same.

Love,

Sakshi