45 Funny And Polite Memes That Don’t Laugh At Anyone’s Expense, As Shared By This Facebook Page

Like beauty and taste, comedy is subjective. So there are always going to be certain individuals pushing the idea that offending audiences is inevitable in comedy. According to Ricky Gervais, “You can’t make a joke that someone, somewhere, won’t find offensive, so you shouldn’t try.” But is that true? Is every single joke going to hurt someone’s feelings? Well, one group that’s questioning that idea is Kind Humour. 

This Facebook group was created in 2015 by Sheryl Hill and has amassed an impressive 159k members since then. We got in touch with Sheryl via Facebook, and lucky for us, she was happy to have a chat with Bored Panda about the origins and the spirit of the group. “I started Kind Humour about eight years ago--although I didn't know at that time that ‘Kind’ was what I was looking for and that our ‘Humour’ would be international,” she noted. 

“The first few years, I kept the group small and personal by only accepting member requests from people who correctly answered the membership questions. It was at this stage that the group voted to be clean and polite,” Sheryl explained.

Sheryl shared that in May 2022, Facebook changed the definition of public groups, making them now include almost all applicants. “I decided to grow the group by featuring members' top posts (chosen based on the extent to which they are in the spirit of the group and the most popular),” the Admin explained. “We now feature top posts roughly two months later– which is why I have three accounts (Facebook had a bit of indigestion when I started scheduling over 1200 posts on one account).”

Sheryl noted that this also meant the group needed clearer boundaries in order to work towards the goal of ‘humor-at-no-one's-expense,’ given that an increasing number of the people who saw their posts were not familiar with their rules or style. “We continually learn from Posts That Go Wrong– aka our mistakes!” Sheryl says.

Sheryl also says that moderation is essential to having boundaries that protect the spirit of kindness, so members feel safe in being playful. "Our mods agreed they would like to see our group grow, and they do a LOT of work every day making it happen!” 

“One of our several secret weapons (but not very secret) is our rules, with which we try to describe to others what happens in our group,” the Admin continued. “Excellent posts are also essential to maintaining group spirit."

"I confess that I got nervous when posts began pouring in last spring, and I reacted by limiting posts," Sheryl admitted. "Well, that was a bad idea! I apologize to members who became discouraged, and I hope you will try again!”