Is it "bad" to make fun of people/laugh at their weaknesses?

Public mockery is a social attack; if effective it reduces the target's social standing.

Whether that's "bad" or not depends on its results, but the costs are neither illusory nor purely psychological; regardless of what goes on inside my mind when I'm being successfully mocked, there are social costs.

Whether that "matters" or not is similarly difficult to answer. If I'm not invested in the resources that such attacks take away from me, or am not aware of the attacks in the first place, then I don't experience them as losses... it doesn't matter as far as I can tell. And if I'm never in a situation where I would have used those resources to benefit myself or others, then perhaps it doesn't really matter to anyone.

But none of that is unique to mockery. Does it matter if someone takes my tuna sandwich? Maybe not. It depends.

But I suspect that in both cases, I'm more likely to have lost something valuable than not.

Of course, it's easier to be unaware of social penalties than to be unaware of other resource losses. A tuna sandwich is pretty concrete; it's easy to tell when it's taken away. Social standing is less tangible.

Also, signaling one's indifference to this sort of social attack can be a defense against it; indeed, sometimes the attacker loses social standing. That depends a lot on the attacker's and defender's initial standing, of course, but when dealing with peers a stance like you describe can be very effective, and cultivating actual indifference is one way of signaling it effectively, on demand.

Of course, when in situations where that style of defense doesn't work (for example, when the attacker is significantly higher status), actual indifference can be very costly.

It matters a lot WHO you are attacking. If you are mocking someone in a position of power, who can compensate for their weakness or eliminate it then you aren't doing them much harm. The jester mocks the king, the sadist mocks the peons. Making fun of the weakness of (for example) these folks is simply cruel.

Your supposition that the only harm done in making fun of anothers flaws is in that person's reaction to the taunting is incorrect. There are several theories and studies that show that the perception of an individual is influenced by the words another uses to describe their character. This often leads to the person to behave the way their harasser is expecting them to. People tend to live up or down to the expectations of others. Making fun of others for ones own enjoyment is harassment and is usually done to gain power over someone and to make one feel better about themselves. This blog is outdated and provides innacurate information and shows a lack of knowledge in the social sciences.

I don't know but I can tell you that what you said is all correct

Yes. The title question differs only in magnitude from asking, is it "bad" to kill people.

When I hear A laughing at B, it tends to reduce my estimation of A's character rather than B's.

Btw, why the scare quotes?

I feel like this question is a bit too general, you can make fun of people and their weaknesses as an attack, or as social bonding. So I want to say that it isn't bad in general.

When me and my friends go around making fun of each other, so long as none of the jokes are particularly harsh (like, if they focus on peripheral issues) then I don't feel like any status attacks took place, it seems like its just humor that happens to involve us.

In terms of the effect on others, I think this is very context-driven. Sometimes I am quite happy to be the brunt of a joke, other times not, and I wouldn't like to try to formulate a rule. I know that in face-to-face interactions I am least comfortable with jeering from complete strangers, and more kindly disposed toward those who I know well enough to jnderstand they don't mean to cause serious hurt, but there may be some bias there too in that those who care about me have learned which topics I find most hurtful and tend to avoid those. Online I generally take more care to avoid poking fun at others, but don't tend to react as strongly to others poking fun at me.

I do think that poking fun at others' weakness purely to make oneself look better actually makes one look rude, irrational and unkind. While I hesitate to label it "right" or "wrong" I would go so far as to say this behaviour is unwise if one values social status among people who in turn value politeness, reason and kindness.

Poking fun for other reasons (for example, to educate) can be less self-incriminating, but it is still going to be somewhat context-dependent. It is as well, too, to remember that our desired outcomes and the actual effects of our actions may not always match.