Stand-up comedians’ performed narratives about offended audiences

Abstract Contributing to recent work on reflexivity and metapragmatics in stand-up comedy as well as recent studies of offensive humor, this article places narratives at the center of inquiry, by focusing on four popular anglophone stand-up comedians’ performed stories about audiences that were offended by their humor. While revealing a range of different narrative types, the analysis of stories told by both “safe” and “edgy” comedians alike illustrates recurring themes such as: the ahistorical construction of offense-taking in response to comedy material as a recent phenomenon, portrayals of offended audience members as humorless, and the attribution of responsibility to mass media as well as bloggers and social media users, who are represented as fomenting exaggerated reactions of audience outrage. Through these performed narratives, all four comedians embed reflections on reception to their own work within their sets.