Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/21/best-ways-to-reply-to-an-insult-according-to-a-neuroscientist.html
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I would just stick with “Yeah, well, the jerk store called and they’re running out of you”. No better comeback is possible, no matter what scientists may claim.
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No, no. The best response here is, “I know! The guest list has really gone to shit since Brexit.”
Bonus points if this conversation takes place outside of the UK. The more time they spend thinking about what you said, the more of a victory it is.
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“OK, boomer.”
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OK boomer is best used on Gen Xers who are so out of touch they try to explain that they aren’t actually boomers.
I haven’t heard that in a while but it’s sweet.
(I am an X)
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It’s beautiful because it hits each of these strategies at once. In addition to being an obviously derisive category membership ascription, it highlights a perceived flaw of the insulter in so doing, and it’s firmly established in the joke-response canon by this point.
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It’s firmly established in my children’s vocabulary to respond to any helpful suggestions from their father!
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The real key is just being quick on your feet mentally, because overthinking what they just said to come up with the perfect comeback means the interaction will already be long past. I think Al Jaffee comics taught me to just hurl it back them with more vitriol.
“Yeah, I imagine lots of things confuse the shit out of you, Einstein.”
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Honestly, all these insults already make the insulter (is that a word?) look like a asshole. I mean, what adult walks up to someone at a party and non-ironically asks why they are there? (Unless there’s a damn good reason why you shouldn’t be)
You might as well go full-on Socratic and start investigating their logic - “Oh, why do you think I shouldn’t be here?”, etc. until they leave you alone
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Yes!!! The greatest comeback of all time. Case closed.
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See also:
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“Fuck off!” never goes out of fashion.
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“How appropriate, you fight like a cow” also always works.
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the Jaffee “snappy answer to stupid questions” that I love most was
“mind if I smoke?”
“why, are you on fire?”
unfortunately, with smoking indoors becoming verboten in my teens and adulthood, that means I never got to use it. curses! how dare health-consciousness defeat my snarky comeback!
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