The joke about smooth sharks has never been funny to me, partially because "insisting on something wrong and making fun of the other person for trying to correct you" was constantly used against me when I was an (autistic) kid and as a teenager I often assumed people were arbitrarily lying to me when they made innocuous statements. I was afraid to respond sincerely to anything and often ignored advice and information people gave me because of the chance it could be a joke at my expense.
It's even more grating in this case because people explicitly say they think the joke detects and entraps people who are already "annoying" and "need to be the smartest person in the room."
(Never mind that the "outcome" is entirely contingent on subtle differences in context and how social rules in the exchange were followed; the person that said honey is made by putting bees in a bee grinder got ridiculed even though they were doing the same thing—confidently asserting something stupid on the internet.)
The other reason I hate the "sharks are smooth" joke is that it obscures the reality that sharks are literally covered in teeth. They evolved from teeth, they are morphologically teeth. TEETH
See, this is interesting to me
Because I do tend to find that kind of joke funny
But this made me question why that is because you're right. Its mean. And it likely disproportionately targets autistic people
And its something that I had people use against me growing up
Like there was this one time in middle school where this girl who I considered a friend at the time but was really more of a bully, told me she didn't think wolves were related to dogs. To this day I have NO idea if she was just trying to fuck with me or not. But dogs were a special interest of mine. So I could NOT let it go. I conducted a survey at school to ask people whether they thought dogs and wolves were related. The response was unanimous that, yes, wolves and dogs are related. But she was still adamant that they weren't. I made her watch documentaries with me about dogs and wolves on Netflix and YouTube. I could not understand what she wasnt getting. I thought that maybe it just wasn't being explained cleary enough or maybe she didn't trust the sources I was pointing her towards so I needed to find one that she did. Eventually I gave up trying to convince her but it took weeks before that happened.
And thats not the only time thats happened
But I think the main difference between that time and the other times for me personally was that the other times it was people who were ACTUALLY my friends who were doing it
And they would always try to clue me into the fact that it was a joke. Either by being straight up and telling me it was a joke or by just saying increasingly more absurd things until I picked up on it.
And ive done the same thing to another friend. There was an anime id been watching (I wanna say Ranma 1/2?) And there was this one scene where they were talking about how if you tap something in just the right spot it'll just completely fall apart. I thought that was funny and would be cool if it were true. So the next day I very confidently asserted this information to my friend. She was very confused. And very patiently tried to explain to me why that was impossible. But eventually picked up on the fact that I was joking when I started tapping our table in different places to make it fall apart. And it became sort of an inside joke for the rest of the school year.
.........im not entirely sure where I was trying to go with this but let me see if I can find it again
I think the reason I find the smooth shark joke funny is more cuz I think just repeatedly insisting something as true despite evidence to the contrary is funny and not so much because I think the people trying to correct them are annoying or deserve to be ridiculed. Clearly this is not how a lot of people are viewing those interactions and that definitely needs to be addressed.
Personally, I dont see a reason to continously correct someone saying something that theyre insisting as truth even after being presented with evidence and providing no actual evidence of their own unless you genuinely believe that the person believes what they're saying and can't pick up on whether they're joking. Not because of a need to be right but because YOU wouldn't want to have incorrect information so youre trying to help provide correct information. And if the other person doesn't make any attempt to clue you in on the joke it can be incredibly frustrating that they keep insisting that theyre right. Especially if its a topic you care about (and ESPECIALLY if you're autistic and its your special interest)
And in my experience most of the people who would be labeled as someone who "needs to be right" usually are autistic or at the very least have difficulty recognizing social cues. Even the ones who maybe act like dicks about it are usually only acting that way because its happened to them a lot and they dont understand why and are fed up by it. Now that doesnt excuse any verbal abuse they may throw at the other person (something else ive observed) but I think its important to keep in mind that not everyone can pick up on social cues. Even after repeat experiences. Especially if no one has ever bothered to explain it to them.
And that they still might not find it funny after having it explained. And that's ok! Ridiculing them for not getting it or not finding it funny after its been explained is not. Not everyone has to find everything funny but they still deserve to be clued in on the joke without being made fun of for not getting it.
Yeah. I think another huge reason this stuff is so icky and distasteful for me is that when I was young I was surrounded by a lot of people that believed in conspiracy theories and pseudoscience, some of it scary and harmful.
If someone confidently asserts something weird or insane and argues with people who correct them, it's always going to seem plausible to me that they actually believe it.
I had an argument with a friend in high school where she was saying that Democrats were spraying chemtrails from planes to give people in republican states diseases and I thought she was joking and she wasn't. Also most people I knew in high school believed the earth was 6,000 years old and that evolution wasn't real. I knew a guy that thought transgender people were possessed by demons
I'm unfortunately aware of so many strange beliefs that are connected to very disturbing conspiracy theories