Too Soon?

Comedians are worried about whether it's okay to joke about the Coronavirus and quarantine. From Lauren Servideo, who makes video sketches for Instagram with characters such as a former college roommate who mumbles stoner conspiracy theories about coronavirus:

My mom has been texting me every day: “You have to make the people laugh!” Stage mom No. 1. But I realized, maybe that is my role in all this. I’m the clown that comes into the children’s hospital, I guess. I haven’t wanted to shift to make things upbeat. Most of my viewership can rely on things being kind of weird or dark. 

This eternal push and pull with comedy and people offended by it about subjects such as this are odd to me. Yes, a comedian can sound too harsh while trying to be funny and hurt someone's feelings. But meanwhile there are people in power who are doing things that are literally killing people. As someone who likes to be funny, I personally could never pull the trigger on a joke that really hurt somebody's feelings, but in dire times like these a little perspective is important. It's not like we don't know what's going on and then are blindsided by a joke. Be happy you're alive and able to even hear the joke. Relax, people.