Comedy doesnt cleave so neatly, and nor does society. Look at them basically going DOh! Not once, not twice, but three and four times in a row as they rush to rattle off whatever. Rogan is half a conspiracy theorist: he has the curiosity but not the commitment. Can you tell me that? Oh, and also there was little mention of current comedians slave-like adherence to the woke agenda. Not funny really, not interesting or otherwise enlightening, but perfect for a generation of people that cant be arsed to read anymore.
Tik Tok and Twitter: the land of no context that was enough me.
Was any one seen leaving the audience?
While old-fashioned one-liners and wry observations are doing just fine, many of the innovations in comedy are in the realm I call post-funny. Of course each individual host will have a leaning, like any human.
Its about attempting to ascertain the facts and openly discuss the issue. Because the only way I can tell my truthand put tension in the room is with anger., Comedians increasingly want to be philosophers. Wow, what pseudo-analytic mainstream-spewing nonsense that is.
The real reason that comedians stopped being funny is that some time ago they decided their job was to convert people to the secular religion of Liberal-Orthodox.
Rogan and Brand raise an interesting question: does the privilege of comedy apply even when youre not doing comedy?
This bias in targets allows some agendas to go unexamined and unchallenged on the comedy circuit.
Rather than establishing a point of view and crafting it into a routine, they offer a muddy, non-committal version of anything goes in which misinformation is simply another interesting idea for the open-minded to consider
Wokes have no sense of humour, let alone about themselves, hence why they are so good to laugh at.
It may be somewhat pretentious for comedians to claim they are speaking the truth to power, rather than just been funny but as the saying goes, the truth is often said in jest and speaking the truth is no longer permitted on a range of subjects.
But she cant resist lying to try and make people do what she wants.
I also find it problematic that almost all comedians take the same political stance;certain views and people are beyond criticism, whilst others are not only fair game but almost compulsory game.
These minnows try so hard to get public figures (blue ticks) on their side, to add extra weight to the pushing.
Maybe Pfizer / Moderna are anti vaxxers too?
Good point.
But he [Rogan] has that particular blend of scepticism (towards mainstream expertise) and credulity (towards anybody challenging it), so he becomes a conduit for false information, even when hes not explicitly endorsing it..
Besides, why ruin a good walk with a podcast?
Which in this case is a concern that comedians are challenging the narrative. She claimed that she needed to live her truth.
youre not wrong. So Rogan, Carr, Chappelle are the living statues that the minnows, because of their offended uncomfortableness, will huff and puff to try and topple them. you could be onto something JP, the 2 minute laugh, Gadsby as Emmanuel Goldstein , the party approved avatar for the correct thinking audience to vent their cognitive dissonance from all the contradictory nonsense they hold to be true. If people think Jimmy Carr is funny then he is.
Have you actually listened to Joe Rogan?
I had seen Hicks sensational Channel 4 special Relentless earlier that year but I was unprepared for the rock-star electricity in the room. They did a spot on takedown of Have I Got News For You. Comedians should be free to switch lanes, but when Al Franken runs for the US Senate, or David Baddiel writes Jews Dont Count, they arent doing so as comedians and they are making a choice. Still not a fan though.
Some of the most acclaimed comedian-fronted projects of recent years including Master of None, Feel Good and Bo Burnham: Inside see laughter as a secondary concern. Well maybe modern comedians are post funny. Interesting essay. whether Rogan himself is an anti-vaxxer (he claims he isnt) is a moot point if he is sympathetically conversing with vaccine sceptics to an audience of millions.. Said comment is always left wing and the audience remind me of performing seals. Over the weekend, Whitney Cummings tweeted: Comedians did not sign up to be your hero. Just not from Rogan. Remember, Im not saying it to be mean: Im saying it because its funny.. They get the emotional release of laughter but without anything comedic actually taking place. The laughs aplenty?
As soon as someone mentions their truth you know its time to switch over. Come on now.
The most exciting stand-up comedy show Ive ever seen was Bill Hicks in a student union in the autumn of 1992. Certainly the open-minded want to hear other than mainstream opinions.
It was going well until that point when it showed that they hadnt actually researched this article but relied on hearsay of the majority. Hannah Gadsbys Nanette was a Netflix sensation in 2018 precisely because Gadsby deconstructed her duty to make people laugh: I must quit comedy. Rogans (and Brands) success is based on not establishing a point of view, or playing the old limiting partisan games. Even in a stand-up environment, though, Chappelles disclaimer isnt enough. Hear! Not immune he was to rubbing his hands together in glee, when savouring his moment of having pulled the wool down over the boys eyes, they being none the wiser.
This writer is behind the curve.
In his self-deprecating response, Rogan said: Im not a doctor, Im a fucking moron and Im a cage fighting commentator whos a dirty stand-up comedian who just told you Im drunk most of the time and I do testosterone and I smoke a lot of weed. But Im equally unconvinced by the just jokes defence. You can, if you wish, revel in swill.
The apparent disappearance of Ed West from the roster (which I missed, otherwise I would never have subscribed) was a portent, I feel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1P_Uw3S1Hg Hence the observation that audiences of some comedians (comedians) do not laugh at jokes, but rather applaud utterances. You dont have to be an expert to know that the experts are lying to you. Her routine is like a form of provocation. Twitter storm?
Im equally unconvinced by the just jokes defence. There used to be places called The Comedy Store and you could go and see unfamous comedians take the stage & be funny.
But then, I did the same thing when faculty began including my pronouns are in their email signatures, not realizing they were dead serious.
I dont buy the popular binary division between comedy that punches up (good) and the kind that punches down (bad).
Twitter is a far off land where no such sympathy is needed. But the standard moralistic response to this insinuation of hypocrisy and bias is You must only punch up, never down which effectively takes most identities out of the firing line.
Lenny Bruce wasnt a comedian; neither Hicks; nor Carlin; nor Kinison; nor yet any of the other profane, immature, contemptuous, demeaning, negative so-called comedians.
All the rest is packaging and fluff
His ensuing book, Revolution, was a peculiar mix of rehab memoir, New Age mysticism and solid policy proposals from Left-wing thinkers such as David Graeber and Thomas Piketty, liberally salted with self-deprecation: Im not Noam Chomsky, youve probably noticed; Im happy to be Norman Wisdom.. Problem is, most of them just arent funny. It doesnt matter.
But he [Rogan] has that particular blend of scepticism (towards mainstream expertise) and credulity (towards anybody challenging it), so he becomes a conduit for false information, even when hes not explicitly endorsing it. Such veracity is the future of media. still consider themselves revolutionary. Just as a musician has more freedom in a protest song than in an essay, or a film-maker more liberty in a drama based on a true story than in a documentary, the criteria are relatively clear.
Do they even think for a second about what theyre saying?
This is an excellent essay, imo.
We shouldnt listen to him, we should listen to Fauci with his decades of experience iner, government bureaucracy.
who is paying Russell? In the context of his recent Netflix special, its still, I think, grotesquely misjudged but Carr goes on to talk about the forgotten victims of the Nazis and why he made the joke.
I got to this point in the essay and realised: this was the only thing the author really wanted to say.
Yeah, so the guy who helped developed the mRNA vaccine is an anti-vaxxer. During the pandemic, Brands obsession with political alienation and challenging official narratives has led him a long way from Piketty. In the case of the present Spotify controversy, whether Rogan himself is an anti-vaxxer (he claims he isnt) is a moot point if he is sympathetically conversing with vaccine sceptics to an audience of millions.
Joe Rogan for president in the next ten years? Harry and Paul is an honourable exception. Today he would be a mad prophet of the airwaves, comedy manager Jimmy Miller says in Cynthia Trues Hicks biography American Scream.
I dont see the appeal.
Comedians who express political opinions through the discipline of stand-up (a discipline which inevitably tests and sharpens those opinions) are also making a choice. Bruce was twice tried on obscenity charges, while Carlin was arrested for disturbing the peace when he performed his celebrated routine Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television in 1972.
What do I know? he says in a recent video defending Rogan. In 2009, just as the format was becoming mainstream, Marc Maron launched the interview show WTF and Joe Rogan recorded the first episode of what became The Joe Rogan Experience.
Its all gone a bit pear-shaped, the business of entertaining a crowd. And so whatever someone wrote anywhere on the internet at any time since it was invented can then be cut up by a sufficiently motivated individual into contextless chunks and reassembled into a monstrous argument to suit their agenda and chucked into the oft-putrid stream. Rogan uses this trick, too. Or perhaps hes already doing that. Hed be on HBO, interviewing people, saying whatevers on his mind.
Its our job to be irreverent and dangerous, to question authority and take you through a spooky mental haunted house so you can arrive at your own conclusions. To which Marc Maron replied: Maybe add to be funny to the list.. No, youre rattled. I have a pretty good idea of the answer to both.
And they were tolerated in this principally because there are enough people out there willing to let someone billed as a stand-up comedian choose instead to give a light tirade about politics with a few jokes thrown in, while the rest of us just switched off the TV whenever they appear.
or here in written form
Two early podcast networks, Earwolf and Nerdist, were established by comedians; Nerdists Chris Hardwick compared podcasting to the comedy LP boom of the Sixties.
To me, the comic is the guy who says Wait a minute as the consensus forms, Hicks told the New Yorker in 1993. Theyre not trying to be philosopher-comedians or even just comedians; they parrot ideological snippets of the latest brand of progressivism and are spectacularly unfunny.
In 2013, Brand abruptly transformed himself from verbose dandy lothario into revolutionary seer in a Newsnight interview with Jeremy Paxman in which he urged people not to vote.
Which is partly correct. This is one of those pieces that starts by pretending to be a thing and then morphs into the thing it really wanted to be in the first place. As Norman Doige discusses here; In the UK, Hicks was acclaimed as the stand-up who might define the Nineties but back in the US he felt stuck.
He apparently also knows more than Malone, pinning his colours to the mast I spotted the same excerpt as Orson and had already copied it: so he becomes a conduit for false information, even when hes not explicitly endorsing it. Not on your Nelly.
They dont even say alleged misinformation. Last April, Dr Anthony Fauci criticised him for advising young, healthy people not to get vaccinated. Whatever it is that these self appointed and self important pundits are doing, without the impulse to make an audience laugh, it isnt comedy. I find a lot of commentators, not just comedians, take this point of view, it doesnt matter what the person says so long as its not coming from the establishment.
The dreaded term anti vaxxer sneaked in there.
Its about attempting to ascertain the facts and openly discuss the issue.
And encumbered by snide left wing sneering. The only thing the author didnt consider (or not that I noticed) was why so many modern comedians have sold out.
With a successful podcast, a comedian can circumvent the usual gatekeepers and build a cultishly loyal fanbase without even having to leave the house or and this is crucial worry about being funny.
It clearly didnt shock the audience in the room, nor the huge number of people who watched the special during its first six weeks.
Twenty years on, Hicks, who died of cancer in 1994, wouldnt need an HBO deal; he would be hosting a podcast. I find it obscene when Rogan himself is so unremittingly dull and his comedy is so entirely lacking.
I wonder if the writer of this article approaches conversations in real life as if giving a lecture with a thesis?
I find it hard to believe in depth conversations with that range of people could be called not interesting. As for the role comedians play in this world start with enclosed link. An email from the companys Legal Counsel to give him a call to discuss the issue and not absolutely not do this on email, made it apparent how companies (and probably now institutions of all types) are terrified of putting into writing anything that they would embarrass them if made public. What do you mean exactly by not interesting?. I can imagine a chat with a cage fighter might be boring to most people, but Ive listened to conversations with US Generals, North Korean defectors, astrophysics professors, Texan mayors, dissident fugitives, elite sportsmen, famous musicians and billionaire inventors. I was referring more to Rogan himself.
As Kliph Nesteroff explains in The Comedians, some critics didnt consider what Bruce was doing to be comedy at all. Whats happened to debate and reasoning? Either you made up your mind hastily in bias, or some other reason got in the way of the facts. I have to say that repeating of the given propaganda did detract from what is otherwise an excellent piece of writing. Rogans (and Brands) success is based on not establishing a point of view, or playing the old limiting partisan games.
, the Lockdown only resulted in reducing mortality rates by 0.2% Im watching re-runs of Seinfeld at the moment. So information given by amazing and highly published doctors and scientists like Malone and McCullough, is misinformation not for any reason than the TV or some unqualified fact checker at Facebook said so. I also find him funny.
The number of comedians who step away from that path and have anything approaching an original or radical thought can be counted on one hand.
Many intelligent peoplehave been brainwashed to just repeat whatever the given narrative is. Of course each individual host will have a leaning, like any human.
I think what you are referring to is called clapter.
Copies can still be found in dark corners of the web. Brigstocke is a prize Pr!ck.
But he has that particular blend of scepticism (towards mainstream expertise) and credulity (towards anybody challenging it), so he becomes a conduit for false information, even when hes not explicitly endorsing it.
Hicks had a bit where he absolutely pays out on comedians who do commercials. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfEkp_TFvY0 But back then the comedy business just hadnt matured. Well said sir. In the case of the present Spotify controversy, whether Rogan himself is an anti-vaxxer (he claims he isnt) is a moot point if he is sympathetically conversing with vaccine sceptics to an audience of millions. Are you amused? I used to like Andrew Lawrence but he managed to get himself cancelled after England flopped out of the Euros for refusing to worship at the altar of BLM. But credit where credits due hes made a great success of his show.
After all, whats funnier than a guy STILL TRYING frantically to hide the little girls panties his new french girlfriend sent him for some strange reason from France?
Many comedians are highly intelligent and podcasting is an obvious option when the wokesters and Twitter mobs are constantly offended and baying for blood.
But he has that particular blend of scepticism (towards mainstream expertise) and credulity (towards anybody challenging it).
And while the packaging and fluff was really well constructed (I especially liked the line on Lenny Bruce not being afraid), for me the stakes are simply too high this time. Sometimes the funniest thing to say is mean. If you want to hear unkind remarks about gipsies and travellers just ask the public.
This is one of those pieces that starts by pretending to be a thing and then morphs into the thing it really wanted to be in the first place.
And not only that, but a perfect vehicle for corporations who are only too ready to hand over squillions of dollars of ad revenue to the bloke.
Im not a respected source of information, even for me..
Sympathetically conversing with vaccine sceptics? This can make them rather pompous.
I also find it problematic that almost all comedians take the same political stance; certain views and people are beyond criticism, whilst others are not only fair game but almost compulsory game.
Well, we cant have that, can we?
The muddy non-committal version might be the very medium in which that rare species discerement might grow.
Every week we take an honest look at the unfolding shambles that is Britains departure from the EU. I also agree with your points. Rather than establishing a point of view and crafting it into a routine, they offer a muddy, non-committal version of anything goes in which misinformation is simply another interesting idea for the open-minded to consider and pushback is establishment intolerance of free speech. Nor on your telly.
And it seems to me that the underlying operating principle being used is that people the audience of millions so-to-speak cannot be trusted to interpret what they read or hear on the internet. There are dick jokes coming up.. If not he isnt. But I think there is a difference between the category antivaxxer and vaccine hesitant.
Joe Rogan for president in the next ten years? Podcasts can take many forms but usually they are conversations. The important point is that we all allowed this to happen, either by approving of the change, or ignoring it and just doing other things. She would be appalled if her kids got media call advice on the internet but she is one the key reasons people do.
With Bruce a smile is not an end in itself, it is invariably a means, wrote the critic Kenneth Tynan.
The first great philosopher-comic was Lenny Bruce. I agreed with Stewart that Crossfire was a toxic travesty of debate but notice how he positioned himself. You can do both. and who is paying Howard Stern?
id recommened this guy, he English and does wee sketches, i think hes a stand up too but i havent seen that, he has a blade runner parody which i wont spoil but cant recomend highly enough. They went right for BBC sacred cows and sneering BBC presenter.