Some people think jokes are just insults you’re not allowed to get mad about. They still think yo-mama jokes are sincerely about their mother. But ‘it’s a joke, stop crying’ had the right observable effect, so nobody noticed… until they started defending outright bigotry and threats. ‘It’s a joke!’ ‘That’s satire!’ and ‘They’re being sarcastic!’ get pulled out at random, despite being wildly different concepts in-practice. All they know is, we used those excuses when they got mad at Jon Stewart, so if they’re not allowed to play it back at us then we’re not playing fair.