Is it really making fun if it's true?

As I reread that title, I'm not even quite sure how to take it.

My initial point was to say that if poke fun at someone, particularly a stranger, about something factual, isn't that more of an observation? Therefore making me not a jerk, but instead aware of my surroundings by talking about it? It's not mean, it's clever and observant. Right? Right?

I read the title again and the opposite starts to feel true. Are you really *just* making fun if it's true, or is that when it becomes mean?

I guess that I should back up a second here.

I'm on the bus right now and there is this woman in her 50's across from me. I was going to write about her peculiar monochromatic outfit and her tendency to probe her nose as if she were in the bathroom instead of a what is effectively a roomful of people.

As I started to formulate my rant on this woman's curious choices, I felt the need to justify it with my title. That's when I realized that I was crossing over from being funny to being mean.

Sure, it might seem harmless and random on one hand, but if she were to have read what I was going to write, she probably would have cried.

I want to make people cry. From laughing. But not if someone has to shed real tears over it.

So, I ask you... Is it really making fun if it's true?