Negotiating offensive humour online

Abstract This paper investigates the negotiation of offensive humour through ‘only joking’ claims made by participants on the social media platform Reddit. Metapragmatic claims of jocular intent can be added to a post containing offensive humour pre-emptively or after a reaction by another participant. In both cases, the participant making the claim tries to show that problematic humour in the post is not meant to give offence, and that they should not be held accountable for such an intention. Using corpus methods and close analysis, we analyse indicators of jocular intent (e.g., “just kidding”, “take a joke”) to find out how offensive or problematic humour is presented, perceived and negotiated. The findings show how claims of jocular intent can be accepted or rejected after a negotiation of the offensiveness based on subreddit community norms. Offensive humour is negotiated verbally and through the upvote/downvote affordance of Reddit, indicating the ascription of accountability.