People Are Actually Paying to be Mocked in Comedy Roasts

New in party trends: Normals (gluttons for punishment) are hosting their own roasts/inviting their friends over to shout mean things at them. How fun!

As reported by the New York Post:

Take-down toasts are everywhere — from a recent skit on “Inside Amy Schumer,” in which a dying child is roasted as his Make- A-Wish, to Lena Dunham’s big-time barb against frenemy Howard Stern during his 60th birthday roast at Hammerstein Ballroom in January.

Now, regular joes are getting in on the act.

Being mean. So hot right now.

Thanks to the success of the roasts broadcasted on Comedy Central (because those are never hard to watch), regular people are hiring joke writers, renting out theaters and subjecting themselves to public ridicule.

Here’s the catch, though — roasts are rarely funny when professional comedians are the ones participating, so the chances of things going well when its your finance bro Josh delivering barbs about how you need to lose weight or have sex more seem pretty slim. In fact, it might be the perfect recipe for hurt feelings and broken friendships because a lot of us actually take ourselves more seriously than we’re willing to admit.

Take this poor teenager who was left a sobbing mess after her parents hired comedian Mike Fine to host a roast for her birthday (disclaimer: Fine was not the cause of her tears):

When Fine was hired as roast-master for a Sweet 16 last year, the birthday girl quickly dissolved into a puddle of tears after she was caught in the cross hairs of her unhappily married parents’ mudslinging.

As Fine tells the Post, “People don’t realize there’s an art and a skill to be able to tell someone to go fuck themselves in a way that they’ll appreciate.”

Exactly, and it’s an art and a skill that most people don’t have, so please don’t try it unless you really think you know what you’re doing. And even then reconsider.