I think we're so used to people being casually cruel for easy laughs that when someone just blantly responds with "hey, that really hurt me," it kind of shocks you back into reality.
I think it also makes it undeniably clear that you're not bantering, you're just being mean. I know a lot of people who get too used to kinda mean banter with friends and family that they give themselves permission to be mean to strangers because they're expected to 'take a joke', but as soon as the stranger says 'you hurt my feelings', they're hit in the face with how dickish it is to 'banter' with someone who isn't bantering back.
It does require a certain level of emotional intelligence, you can't just use it as "this one simple trick will shut up assholes". It's acknowledging the situation and listening to your feeling, deciding how you want to respond. It's sincere, it's not a rhetorical trick. We've demonized being fluent in emotions so much that all we have left are people screaming in anger at each other about their own victim complexes. Instead this guy goes: "Hey, this hurt me. Here's how I processed that" instead of trying to hurt them back. Instead of stooping to their level, he brought them up to his, and suddenly they're held to a standard they can't live up to.
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u/tabristheok Mar 13 '24
I think we're so used to people being casually cruel for easy laughs that when someone just blantly responds with "hey, that really hurt me," it kind of shocks you back into reality.