[llm_nerd]

The world has loads of shitty, stupid people who will embrace something without understanding nuance or "good humor". South Park deserved blame for that because they operated as if everyone was in on the joke, when there are loads of people who took it literally as a message that it was "fair game" and targeting people was socially acceptable. Another reply notes that kids are cruel, and this simply isn't generally true: Kids are cruel in an environment where cruelty is their "in", or where they think cruelty will save themselves from cruelty. Having an easy, socially prevalent way to target some subgroup is a lazy option to be cruel, and South Park helpfully served one up.

There are loads of situations like this where people have an over the top rhetoric that is based upon the notion that everyone is in on the joke, when some subsection of the population simply isn't.