peaches

Nope. It's such a stupid argument, it pisses me off every time someone calls Techno racist for it

I talk at length about it here - but I'll give you the rundown. This is the joke Techno made:

Now, I'm not saying it's comedy genius. I'm not even saying he's not a secret bigot; I don't know the guy. But I do know how to read, and clearly no one on Twitter ever picked up the skill

I just had an argument on there about this actually, and they always say the same thing. The joke is racist, Techno says all Asians have covid, burn the pig, etc etc. BUT if you actually listened in 6th grade English class, you'd know that there's more depth to text than the little letters in front of you

Okay I'm being too snarky so TLDR: Techno's joke isn't racist because it's a joke that puts down racists. Not Asians themselves. He's saying that the stigma surrounding the race because of covid can be used to the people's advantage - that we can weaponize their bigotry against them. Slash lighthearted

“...I'm probably gonna retell this joke, so no one make fun of me if I retell it on my channel, but I was thinking like, horrific racism aside, think of how powerful it must be to be an Asian right now....”

link: https://youtu.be/swL0vG6UiMM at 13:52

Right before he makes the joke on the topic, he already acknowledges the racism towards Asians and calls it horrific. Horrific, meaning he finds it terrible that people treat us this way and condones this form of racism. 

OP is so right in saying that the joke pokes fun at racist people who believe in the stigmas surrounding Asians because that’s the literal truth. The people that claim he’s being ignorant of the problems Asian people face by making this joke clearly didn’t listen to the actual recording because he literally acknowledges the existence of those problems three seconds before. 

I don’t know if people didn’t listen to the whole quote, don’t understand the implications of him saying that, or just choose to ignore it, but even without knowing he said this, the joke still isn’t racist or insensitive.

It is satire. Satire: the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity, particularly in the context of politics and other topical issues. Please think of what the joke actually is before twisting it into something it’s not.

This is all Roleplay, what the characters did does not reflect the actors’ state of mind and personality. 

TW: emotional manipulation

Following the event of Tommy’s suicide, there were a distinction between Tommy’s emotionally heavy streams in Logtedshire and Tubbo’s more light-hearted streams in L’Manberg. While Tommy spiralled down to depression, Tubbo kept himself busy with various projects for L’Manberg. He kept a friendly relationship with Dream and didn’t come to visit Tommy because he didn’t think Tommy would want him there and to not anger Dream. 

Those things hurt. 

In contrast to Tommy’s open emotional spiral, Tubbo’s pain was a lot more subtle because it was hidden under a facade that he put on, not to fool the audience, but to convince himself that he had a reason to do what he did. He was forced to make a choice between two opposing ideals that couldn’t be reconciled: his loyalty to his best friend, who would give up the world for Tubbo, and his loyalty to his country, who was already still hurting from various wars. Either way he chose, it would hurt him deeply. Either way he chose, it would end up with someone other than himself getting hurt also. 

So he chose the option where the fewest people get hurt, namely himself and his best friend. At least, that was his justification. 

When people feel this kind of pain between clashing ideals and choices, they would do things to reduce the pain. There are usually two roles in this type of scenario, a “perpetrator” and a “victim” and how people react to the situation depends on which role they internalise for themselves. Tommy, clearly, identified himself as a “victim”, which manifested in the way he was in disbelief that Tubbo exiled him. But Tubbo identified himself as the “perpetrator”, the one who made the decision and the one who caused pain. (This is not a discussion on whether or not their identification of their roles are the correct and objective interpretations of the situation, because their situation was not clean-cut into “victim” and “perpetrator” and neither of them are completely at fault or without fault).  

There are usually two ways a perpetrator react to situations like this: they either deny or justify what they did, or they own up to what they did and then tried to move on as fast as possible. Tubbo clearly did not deny nor move on from what he did, because he expressed regrets at exiling Tommy. So he tried to find ways to justify it, because it hurt and he wouldn’t be able to deal with the pain without an attempt to reassure himself that what he did was necessary for L’Manberg. That was why he spent so much time on different projects, being a lot busier than he was before the exile. It was both a way to keep his mind off the exile and to reassure himself that he really cared about L’Manberg. Tubbo was desperate and lonely, and we didn’t see it because he hid it so well behind the presidential facade. He exiled Tommy for L’Manberg, so to strengthen that justification, he put everything into building and improving L’Manberg. 

This also explained his attitude toward Dream and Technoblade. He exiled Tommy to appease Dream, so he couldn’t immediately turn on him because that just made the exile seemed pretty meaningless and unnecessary. Dream even provided Tubbo with more materials to justify his choice, by officially recognizing L’Manberg, following their rules, and even being friendly and helpful toward Tubbo. Dream was a master manipulator, and he was using Tubbo’s pain and loneliness and uncertainty to drive it in deeper that what he chose was right, and that exiling Tommy was the best choice. He manipulated Tubbo’s pain to drive Tubbo and Tommy more apart. Dream also put himself as a not-immediate threat to L’Manberg, and everyone in the cabinet, not just Tubbo, could see that. But Quackity and Fundy wanted a fight: and who else was a “threat” beside Dream? Technoblade. 

Now here’s the thing about justification: people go to great length to justify their choice, and it is a slippery slope downward to more and more extreme choices. For Tubbo, it started with exiling Tommy to keep the peace, and it moved to agreeing to execute Technoblade violently and without a fair trial. Quackity and Fundy, with their hatred for Technoblade and their wants for vengeance against him, provided Tubbo with more justification. They reassured Tubbo that this was for L’Manberg’s safety, and that killing Technoblade was the only option they had. Tubbo had already lost his one and only support system, and it was exhausting to be forced to make nation-changing decisions over and over again, against forces bigger and more powerful than he could take on. But it was all for L’Manberg, and Tubbo had no other choice or power but to descend down that path that will ultimately destroy the country and what it stands for.  

He did all of that, and still he didn’t feel justified enough to be allowed to see his best friend. 

Then the events Dec 16th happened, and everything turned a 180 and now the Butcher Army are fighting Dream. One of Tubbo’s biggest inner conflict was to appease Dream or to be with Tommy, and now he doesn’t have to appease Dream anymore, he could go see Tommy. He finally felt like he made a decision that was *enough* to let him see his best friend whom he wronged.