The stand-up comedy has revealed a vivid instance of how violations are perceived differently among collective identities. This distinctive comedic performance has remained controversial and unique, for the joke usually has a lead to racism or sexism. From one aspect, it encourages people to speak out and discuss things they couldn’t talk about in life through jokes. On the other side, this is also the reason why comedy jokes cannot appeal to more receivers apart from its existing target groups.

I designed an evaluation kit for 20 people who share different identities to visualize their emotional status towards several comedic performances. It was interesting to find out, most of the audiences feel the situation more violating when the joke refers to themselves; Male and female generally have opposite impression towards stand-up comedy; Identity of joke tellers is also an affecting element of audience’s evaluation of violation.

The outcome of this project is an algorithm system entitled “Butt*Teller*Audience=Violation,” which is based on conceptualizing speculative ideas about how the violation is perceived. In the aspect of design, I used magnifying lens as a metaphorical visual language, to indicate how situations can be exaggerated by certain group of people, for advocating and incubating a social and cultural revolution among the globe.