RockyR wrote:
why is it always a joke?
It's a joke because most of the "mainstream" folks can't sleep at night without confirmation that the Earth is still flat. Any little deviation from what they think the norm is is met with derision so that they can feel like they have control over their existences.

In reality, they don't. No more than anyone else. They stay trapped inside whatever little worlds they've constructed for themselves from their prejudices and ill informed presumptions, and I pity them.