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...should offer a critique of persons, places, institutions, and/or ideas that pose some threat to society. In a sense, it weaponizes humor in an effort to draw attention to a problem.

This is why historically, satire has been a tool of the powerless and the marginalized. We mock world leaders, governments, and oppressive traditions not only because it’s amusing, but because it’s a way of calling out corruption and incompetence among those who have the most control over our lives.

...satire entails a considerable power imbalance between speaker and target and usually comes from the bottom up. This is why, as Jezebel writer Lindy West points out, at company parties it’s the boss who’s roasted, not the custodian. For people in positions of power to mock their subordinates isn’t funny, it’s tasteless.