[General] catchy, so is AIDS - joke???

[qwerjnk]

Could someone help me to understand a joke?

I am watching on British teen-drama series "Skins" now, then I saw the following chat:

Emily: "Naomi - Get to know me!"
Naomi: I thought it was quite catchy.
Emily: Yeah, well, so's AIDS.
[They laugh.]

Here the situation above:
Emily and Naom are both sixth-form gay students in Bristol, and an election for their student president is coming. Naomi will run for it and Emily is helping her.


Here my questions:
HIV/AIDS is a transmitted disease; is this why it is called "catchy"?

But if that so, why can it be a joke? Since AIDs is a serious disease and HIV+ people likely suffer in people's bias, using "AIDs" for a joke is intolerant in Japan. I mean, at least I have never seen a good character's saying it on Japanese television series. Is it not such "taboo" disease anymore in England?

My other question is: why Naomi's line is in past tense?
I thought it should be "I think it is quite catchy" if Naomi has just listened it. Then I conjured up an idea that there may be some famous slogan of AIDs using "get to know me" sentence in England. But I couldn't find it on google...


Thank you for reading this post. I hope someone would reply me

 

[Rover_KE]

Yes, it's a joke in bad taste. Some people have a twisted sense of humour. AIDS has never been a taboo disease in the UK.

This is quite a mild joke compared to some of the tasteless pranks I've seen on Japanese TV.

Without hearing more of the context, I agree that "I think it is quite catchy" would be better.

Rover

 

[Raymott]

Could someone help me to understand a joke?

I am watching on British teen-drama series "Skins" now, then I saw the following chat:

Emily: "Naomi - Get to know me!"
Naomi: I thought it was quite catchy.
Emily: Yeah, well, so's AIDS.
[They laugh.]

Here the situation above:
Emily and Naom are both sixth-form gay students in Bristol, and an election for their student president is coming. Naomi will run for it and Emily is helping her.


Here my questions:
HIV/AIDS is a transmitted disease; is this why it is called "catchy"?

But if that so, why can it be a joke? Since AIDs is a serious disease and HIV+ people likely suffer in people's bias, using "AIDs" for a joke is intolerant in Japan. I mean, at least I have never seen a good character's saying it on Japanese television series. Is it not such "taboo" disease anymore in England?

My other question is: why Naomi's line is in past tense?
I thought it should be "I think it is quite catchy" if Naomi has just listened it. Then I conjured up an idea that there may be some famous slogan of AIDs using "get to know me" sentence in England. But I couldn't find it on google...


Thank you for reading this post. I hope someone would reply me

The joke is this:
Emily says the slogan, as if she doesn't like it.
Naomi says that it's quite catchy (and is implying that therefore it's good. A catchy slogan is a good slogan because people remember it and say it to themselves)
But Emily says that AIDS is also catchy. Since AIDS is not good, she is demonstrating that, just because something is catchy, it is not necessarily good.
They are not laughing about AIDS. They are laughing about the cleverness of Emily's explanation that a catchy slogan is not necessarily a good slogan.

Naomi uses the past tense because, I presume, she made up the slogan. It means, "When I thought of the slogan, I thought it was quite catchy", or "When I first heard of the slogan I thought it was catchy, so I decided to use it." In this case, it implies that she still thinks it is catchy.
The slogan has nothing to do with AIDS.

 

[qwerjnk]

This is quite a mild joke compared to some of the tasteless pranks I've seen on Japanese TV.

hahaha... Japanese comedy shows are almost full of garbages or nothing.

And thank you for replying, Rover

 

[qwerjnk]

Emily says the slogan, as if she doesn't like it.
Naomi says that it's quite catchy (and is implying that therefore it's good. A catchy slogan is a good slogan because people remember it and say it to themselves)
But Emily says that AIDS is also catchy. Since AIDS is not good, she is demonstrating that, just because something is catchy, it is not necessarily good.
They are not laughing about AIDS. They are laughing about the cleverness of Emily's explanation that a catchy slogan is not necessarily a good slogan.

Naomi uses the past tense because, I presume, she made up the slogan. It means, "When I thought of the slogan, I thought it was quite catchy", or "When I first heard of the slogan I thought it was catchy, so I decided to use it." In this case, it implies that she still thinks it is catchy.
The slogan has nothing to do with AIDS.

Hi, Raymott

Your interpretation does fit to the chat scene. How smart you are!!! I had never thought about it in that way before. And I think it can also be a hidden message of "lesbian relationship is not catchy; but it does not mean it is not good." The two girls have not entered into any lesbian relationship before, and Naomi still cannot accept the sexuality of herself; that's the problem between them so far.

So no famous phrase of "get to know me" for AIDs exists... hahaha, my imagination! There is no scene of Naomi's slogan in the episode, so I guess I missed some lines in another episode... or it's just a part of unseen scenes.

Your explanation is very helpful. Thank you, Raymott!:up::up::up:

 

[Raymott]

Hi, Raymott

Your interpretation does fit to the chat scene. How smart you are!!! I had never thought about it in that way before. And I think it can also be a hidden message of "lesbian relationship is not catchy; but it does not mean it is not good." The two girls have not entered into any lesbian relationship before, and Naomi still cannot accept the sexuality of herself; that's the problem between them so far.

Yes, it's possible that there are other subtexts as well. I haven't seen the show, so I don't know.

 

[qwerjnk]

Yes, it's possible that there are other subtexts as well. I haven't seen the show, so I don't know.

It's a nice show so it may be fun to watch it. "Skins" is very popular in UK, and after the season 4 on-aired, 7000 people went into its new cast audition, that's I heard of. For me it is my current best TV drama after "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles." I like the shows kind of young people's fighting for something.