Why is being mean ok if its 'banter'

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Similar to the previously asked question why are people mean, but this is a little more nuanced and ive observed it in a lot of places.

While driving home today listening to the radio the presenters were talking about some show they were at, one in particular seemed to be bragging about his jokes that were funny but based in a mean or derogatory beginning. Je even justified it at one point by saying that all the crowd were laughing.

It made me wonder at the time, does it become ok because its part of an event, hosts on tv ect?
I see the same thing in conversation between people where they use something derogatory, insulting or embarrassing to start their conversation at the expense of the other person, then it turns around into a 'your my buddy' conversation and everyone laughs and gets along.

Most of the time i can fake my way through both sides, but it doesn't seem right to be mean to someone who isnt already being mean to me, so i stopped doing it a while ago.
Maybe its because i was too good at it? My insults became direct, accurate and eficcient but rarely taken well, the level of insult was too high?
Yet if i were to take insult to something said and stand up for myself all of a sudden everyone says to chill out and im the one in trouble for being offended?

Society is confusing...
(Sorry for the rant)

No, you were not good at it. If banter is done among friends the point is not to truly hurt anyone's feelings. Your problem was not being too good at it. Most of the other people probably knew how to come up with something truly hurtful as well. They merely didn't say it, because they knew what was hurtful and that being hurtful wasn't the point. Your problem was not understanding the nuances.

Friendly banter shows that people are close. They do no longer need to be as careful and rely on the politeness you need when interacting with strangers. It indicates that people feel secure in their friendship and no one needs to constantly walk on egg-shells. It is generally understood that they appreciate each other in spite of any flaw of another they may point out and that they do not have a low opinion of the other person.
It is not about making fun of truly hurtful things, but of the kind of quirks and short-comings everyone has some of and that a person with healthy self-esteem does not feel too embarrassed about. It also takes into consideration who is present and might hear it. Some topics may be fair game among a group of friends but not if the mother of that friend is present. The interaction is usually supposed to be fun for everyone involved.

However, bullies can use 'it's just banter' as an excuse even though their intention is to hurt. Not everything framed as banter has to be benign. People who mean no harm will usually adjust the amount of banter to the reaction of the other person. If someone always reacts deeply offended and angry to the slightest thing that can make their relationship to others more distant, though.

I agree with NorthWind on how people do it when they're close/comfortable with somebody. It meant as insulting if it's entirely one-sided, but it's banter when there's a give and take, as in you can dish a friendly insult as well as take an insult. Would you agree that friendly banter is an opportunity for people to say they're not perfect and that makes them feel more human and connected with the other person they're in conversation with?

Sometimes conversational "banter" is cultural. The WWII generation would often insult each other in the work place. If someone from the next generation objected, he would be criticized for not being able to "take it". I think that this particular practice was derived from the movies and radio of their generation. In a similar way, many people adopt conversational banter from media today that is equally (if not more so) unkind.

I think I have gotten more sensitive with my banter with experience and age (less testosterone poisoned brain maybe). I would occasionally come out with horrendous zingers and then think that what I said was terrible. However, I wouldn't apologize afterwards. This was mostly at ages 20-30. At a younger age I only remember one confusing incident. When I was riding bikes with a friend, we met a kid from a foreign country. He must have been trying to make friends because he initiated conversation with us. Somehow I said something made him get upset and leave and my friend also thought I had insulted him, but I don't remember saying anything bad.

Banter is the verbal form of play-fighting. Nice people won't hit any harder than they expect to get hit back.

There's a fine balance. It can be difficult. To some it comes naturally. My mom hates it and gets confused often..and my dad is always doing it...

It's probably more the other way around. The movies reflect how folks act. Its not that folks are imitating the movies.

I have always noticed it going from movie to the street. Clever lines are re-told ad nauseum. After seeing how Archie Bunker was regarded on the tube, all similar men lost respect. People imitate what they admire. Spanish is pronounced differently in the New World, because everyone in Spain began imitating a King with a lisp. It was "the King's Spanish."

While banter is a verbal form of play fighting, the wounds it causes are less obvious, so it can be a lot more harmful when repeated.

Male “Banter” and insulting people but not meaning it is an art that NT`s are good at, get it wrong and you risk a punch in the face, but get it right and it’s a building block to friendship.

Jordan Peterson went into this on one of his videos, about men not automatically giving respect to each other when they first meet, I suppose it’s an inbuilt Darwinian thing.

Watch the the barber shop scene in the Gran Torino movie to get an idea. (see link)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74I7Nl1mKig

Yeah. Its a fine line.

Some folks do it right and can pull it off. Some not so much.

Guys do it with each other to bond. A couple of low level supervisors doit with me and it actually does cause me to bond with me - because I "get it". And do it back. But another supervisor, who had anger issues, and was quite a bully, would also do it. The trouble with this guy was that ...he sounded exactly the same when he was being friendly and when he was being malicious. So you couldn't tell which was which. He would try to "play the dozens" with you to bond with you one day, and be really malicious the next day. And my aspie inflexibility may have had something to do with me and this not getting along by causing me to misread it when he was trying to be friend. But I wasn't the only worker who trouble getting along with this guy.

But even folks who pull it off are taking a risk. One of the above to two who "do it right" doesnt ALWAYS do it right. Once he addressed a young lady at the start of the shift by saying "the district manager warned me that you will try to leave early to go to a doctor's appointment". He was really saying "I know that you have to leave early to go to a doctor" but he HAD to make I into a convoluted joke. She just nodded and said nothing. It was obvious that she undertood but didn't give a rats because she was not in the mood to joke around (and her bad mood was probably related to why she was going to the doctor). The room went quiet - like everyone else could see the he had messed up by saying that.

Humour is never without risk. It depends on very fine nuances of delivery, and also on cultural commonality. Overall, I'd say that the possible rewards are much bigger than the risks, which have closer odds. One can turn teasing around just by exaggerating the behaviour to the point that you can laugh at it yourself, thus providing general entertainment and no rewards for meanness.