serial killer jokes

I wanna talk about “edgy” humor.

Socially, I don’t care. I’ll make the most horrendous jokes. If people don’t like it, we don’t have to be friends. I’m cool with that.

But when it comes to your company or your personal brand… things are different, right?

If you want to be generally more likable and not chase people away, maybe skip the pedo jokes. I don’t take such risks for my clients unless they specifically tell me they have no soul. I mean, unless they specifically tell me they like "offensive jokes.”

Most brands should probably stay away from inappropriate stuff.

But it depends on what we’re talking about. Joking about death can be “dark”, but it’s not necessarily inappropriate.

There’s a way to make dark jokes. If you do it well and you’re OK with some people not liking it, that’s your call. Just consider asking for feedback first and think of the potential repercussions (which can be pretty bad).

Dead Happy is a life insurance company in the UK.

They use dark humor a lot. Death is second on the list of people’s biggest fears (after public speaking), so if you approach it lightly without being an asshole, it can be a great way to stand out.

Dead Happy understood this. Until…

They ran an ad featuring an actual serial killer.

If you ask me, it’s funny. But I hope I would know better than to run such an ad.

So what happened?

People got mad.

The ad got banned.

They apologized.

That being said, they’re still around.

I don’t want you to think “Oh no, I won’t dare to make jokes now.”

Can you abstain yourself from putting an actual serial killer’s face on your ad? Do you understand how bad that would look?

If yes, you’ll be fine.

It’s not just about serial killer jokes, though. You might also want to ask yourself: Could this be interpreted as sexist or racist?

You never know these days.

*proceeds to go into an anti-woke rant and then subscribes to The Daily Wire*