Blue jokes follow many catastrophes because a certain percent of the population can only take their tragedy sugarcoated with comic relief, and it is their only medicine. I am sure that tablespoons of it helps the pain go down, if these sufferers absorb it at all. So much of this silly parodying is deflection, a way to bounce the villain’s bullet back at him but this poo-pooing equates to more than nervous laughter. Too much of a good thing begins to draw attention to itself: Methinks the Sirs do JEST too much because, face it, no one was concerned that this guy spoke truth: who bought into this or believed his deranged mathematics? So if EVERYONE thought it an embarrassing joke, then who is all of this, let’s just say, postcoital I-told-you-so angst aimed at (weren’t we all pretty much on the same side: were there even two viable sides in this ruse)? Besides, gloating isn't a becoming look on anyone.
Another Comic Reliefer just posted another graphic cartoon with a Captain Marvel costumed dude doing a flying big-time-wrestler’s elbow smash on a depiction of Jesus and the caption read, “This is really why the rapture didn’t happen.” This falsely-proposed Armageddon wasn’t that big a deal so why the hangover—why all the residual joking? What’s the victory in continuing to persecute a sad and lonely old preacher doing his poor math to scare his eleven elderly followers? End of story—so why all these extra chapters? This dead horse is fleshless and its bones are sunbleached by now. (Is the caboose section supposed to be ten cars longer than the train itself?)
I say, let he who has never used controversy to seduce an audience throw the first stone. And, every group wants publicity for their events, but is it End of the World Guy’s fault that the press caught wind of it and flamed all our treetops with it? If it is truly an opposing faction’s aim (and I suggest that this is never the case) you don’t fan the flames with your own brand of idiocy, prolonging the coverage: the only way to quell a stupid idea is to ignore it, to kill it with silence.