The problem is, actual people that are abusive find this funny, in the same way that racist people often find racist jokes funny. Such people find this type of humor encouraging and reinforcing of their views, because it suggests a certain degree of social acceptability for the act.

I think the distinction between comedy on such subjects that are funny generally and those that are funny mostly to those either indifferent to or embracing of the subject is that for the former group, the subject must be portrayed either ironically, critically, absurdly or as a coping mechanism (black humor often falls in the later camp). That is such humor must call the act itself in to question. In the case of the later group, what is found amusing is the act itself. That is, they find the violence against the woman inherently amusing. Why does this matter? Because people who find the former amusing would have no reason to translate the humor into action, because the humor itself is inherently critical of the act being portrayed. In the later case, such humor is unselfconsciously reflective of actual abuse. Thus, it is perfectly conceivable that such people will find it just as amusing in real life, and indeed may find that it condones their behavior by suggesting social acceptance of the act. Thus, when a Jew makes a holocaust joke, we all know and understand that the joke is meant to be a means of coping with an unimaginable tragedy, and is perhaps meant to be absurd of ironic. Similarly, a non-Jew, properly setting up and contextualizing the joke to broadcast the underlying intent may even skillfully deliver such a joke (though as a matter of pure personal taste, I don't think I've ever been able to find such jokes funny, just because I find the entire subject traumatizing). However, when a guy with a confederate flag on the back of his pickup truck makes a holocaust joke, we legitimately question the intent behind the joke, because the joke may well be a "humorous" illustration of real malicious intent. Such a person would have to go the extra mile and be a very skillful comedian to win me over.

In this particular case, the only object of humor I can see is the abuse. What we are supposed to find funny is that a woman was beaten for stepping on a guy's shoes. That's it. There is nothing absurd about this because this sort of thing is well within the ordinary. Yes, part of the humor is that we do not expect this outcome in the context of the images presented, but there is nothing we can infer from the joke that would lead us to believe that the joke is meant to be critical of the act.

Of course, I am not in favor of censoring either, because I think the harm of censorship would outweigh any possible good (and frankly I doubt any good at all could come from it). Most people that make jokes, no matter how tasteless, are unlikely to ever act on them in a malicious manner. But it is an explanation of why I might find one joke about spousal abuse funny, and another totally tasteless. I understand that many other people, especially in this day and age, do not make such distinctions and seem to give a free pass to anything claimed as a joke. But in my view, if something isn't funny, it doesn't really matter if someone claims it is a joke. It is really bizarre to me that people seem to think these days that merely making a joke about rape is funny because the subject is taboo. But merely discussing a taboo is not enough to make a joke funny. The mere act of violating our sense of decency is not enough to be funny. There has to be some sort of humorous <i>why</i> behind it. In this case, the joke fails because the person that wrote it misunderstood how such situations can be presented in a humorous way. It was treated as if the situation was inherently humorous. It was an off the mark joke, simple as that.

If people want to make terrible unfunny jokes on the internet, as far as I am concerned that is their business. What I don't get is why people act shocked that other people don't find such jokes funny, and erroneously assume that it is because the poster lacks a sense of humor. Sometimes, the joke is just bad.

So yeah, that's my equally long and dry take on the issue.