You have to laugh

From time to time people comment on EBF’s Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo or other social media platforms that we shouldn’t use humour when exposing Britain First’s bullshit. The argument usually goes something like this…

1. Britain First is a horrible organisation
2. The threat Britain First poses is very serious
3. So laughing at Britain First is inappropriate
4. Laughing at Britain First cheapens the argument against them
5. When EBF laughs at Britain First we sink down to their level
6. So we should only post serious things.

This blog post is our response to people who want to suck the humour out of what we do.

First – this is our campaign. It’s up to us how we run it and we appreciate that most of you are part of our HUGE team. But – that said, there’s no harm in explaining ourselves from time to time so here goes…

1 Britain First is a horrible organisation

Too right it is. We know that because we spend hours every day trawling through the sick, twisted comments on their website and dealing with BF trolls in the inbox and on the EBF media pages. Yes – we know how vile Britain First is. What’s your point?

2 The threat Britain First poses is very serious

Of course – why do you think we invest so much of our time, for free to combat them? Why do you think we put ourselves and our families at very real risk from these violent neonazis by doing what we do? What’s your point?

3  So laughing at Britain First is inappropriate

Don’t make us laugh. Britain First is a bunch of vicious, small-minded, antisocial, uneducated thugs led by pompous oafs who take themselves far too seriously. Laughter and ridicule have long been recognised as effective weapons against that sort of self-important fuckwittery. Anyway – when you spend so much time exposed to their disgusting malice a little humour is vital.

Humour is also extremely good as a medium on social media. Humorous posts get shared. They get viewed by people who haven’t the time to read our reasoned blog posts and infographics (we provide plenty of those too). EBF isn’t about intellectualism – it’s about exposing. We want to expose the fash to as many decent Brits as possible.

Humour is way more effective than long-winded explanation in reaching a wide audience.

Some people like (and share) humour. For others it’s lengthy articles. Still more prefer obscenities. We try to cater to all. If you think humourous posts are beneath you then we say bully for you. But EBF is about wide social media coverage. It’s not about you.

4 Laughing at Britain First cheapens the argument against them

Stop being so bloody pompous. If we don’t use humour we lose over half our audience. Social media’s like that. Funny memes work. As we said above – this is about awareness-raising. It’s not about pleasing you, personally.

5 When EBF laughs at Britain First we sink down to their level

If you really believe that laughing at Jayda’s latest hair extension or taking the piss out of Stevie Lewis’ inability to stay upright is as bad as calling for the widespread slaughter of civilians then you really don’t have the intellectual wherewithal to understand serious posts anyway. Get over yourself.

6 We should only post serious things

Get over yourself (again). Are you really saying that we should ignore the needs of most of our audience just because you prefer to live in a humourless world. That really is too pompous and self-important for words.

Humour works – would you really want us to stop using our most effective awareness raising tool just to appease you? We think that raising awareness and making it harder for our Muslim neighbours to be victimised is more important than pandering to the humourless.

PS – Some people might think this blog post is a little too strongly worded

Tough! If you think this can be done better without humour you’re welcome to try. We’ll support any page that attempts to combat Britain First. Start it up and send us the URL – we’ll promote your humourless page to our own followers if you like. But this is our platform and we use humour because it works. Not only that…

The biffers hate it!  😉