General Entertainment What the hell is wrong with comedians right now?

[SuperSpreader]

Maniscalco, Fluffy, Mo, all these people talk about is cancel culture and they all sound like a bunch of bitter boomers. They keep trying to bOtH sIdEs their routine to not offend anyone while complaining that people get offended. Like go back to telling jokes about funny observations not your bitter bitch takes on someone HYPOTHETICALLY not giving af about you. 

[Greatoneshere]

49 minutes ago, SuperSpreader said:

Maniscalco, Fluffy, Mo, all these people talk about is cancel culture and they all sound like a bunch of bitter boomers. They keep trying to bOtH sIdEs their routine to not offend anyone while complaining that people get offended. Like go back to telling jokes about funny observations not your bitter bitch takes on someone HYPOTHETICALLY not giving af about you. 

 

Yeah, a lot of the Gen X and Boomer comedians just haven't changed/grown up/matured/evolved with the audience and the times. But there's still plenty of great (younger) comedians like Bo Burnham and Taylor Tomlinson, etc. Plenty of excellent comedians out there right now whose jokes don't punch down and where they don't whine and complain. You can even be a dark, mean comedian and still pull it off: see - Anthony Jeselnik, who my wife and I both find hilarious even though his jokes are dark as shit.

 

A lot of people, older stand-up comedians maybe most of all, just don't like that they can't be "funny" assholes anymore. Look at Maniscalco and then Bo Burnham. I don't dislike Maniscalco or anything (don't really watch his stuff) but there's just clearly a completely different approach and attitude to jokes and people. Especially since these guys are now famous, they expect the laughs rather than earning them from the audience, and that's a failure on their part but they think it's a failure on audiences and the culture's part, which is hilarious because no one owes you a laugh.

 

I mean, I love dark humor - I'm down with dead baby jokes, pedophile jokes, or rape jokes. They just have to be done well and mocking the right person or group. I mention this because I was a huge Dave Chappelle fan. Saw all his latest specials, including his newest and most controversial on Netflix. And almost all of the ones on Netflix are pretty great except the latest where he goes on forever about trans people. And my biggest issue? It just isn't funny. Just going on a rant for most of your special on a soapbox is not comedy, and even if I hated what he was saying I wouldn't have minded as much if it had been funny and tongue and cheek, but alas, it was not.

[skillzdadirecta]

As someone who knows a fair amount of comedians and am working with one right now, I can tell u that a lot of them DO expect laughs and truly believe they are more insightful than they actually are. That said, I will give a comedian a pass on damn near ANYTHING as long as it's funny. If gen X and Booner comedians haven't grown up, millennials still need to learn that they don't have the right to NOT be offended. And if they are, just don't support that person. It's really that simple. As on outside observer,  it's kinda hard to be too sympathetic to either "side" to be honest. Both "sides" in the "issue" take themselves waaaaay too fucking seriously.

[Nokra]

Yeah, it strikes me as coming from a place of intellectual laziness. It seems to me to be far easier to latch on to trending topics (even those without merit) and make some shallow jokes for cheap laughs than to be original. 

[Remarkableriots]

How is this offensive?

[best3444]

Bill Burr is terrific imo. 

[Ghost_MH]

None of these comics are being cancelled. Like someone bitching about their stuff on Twitter isn't being cancelled. Who is? Chappelle keeps getting booked and just recently hosted SNL. These comics all sell out wherever they go. An actual sex offender like Louis CK is still selling out venues and is still writing and winning awards. That's super cancelled.

 

The complaints seem to be coming from older comics who are upset some of their older material isn't landing the way it used to...but that's like... normal. All comics hit a point where their content doesn't hit the same because it just doesn't connect with younger audiences. Instead of moving on, they've all latched onto...

 

[TheLeon]

56 minutes ago, Remarkableriots said:

How is this offensive?

It’s offensive to my comedic taste if that’s all he could get out of that premise.  And having some people mad at you on Twitter for wanting to eat Chick-fil-A isn’t “almost getting cancelled”. 

[stepee]

4 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

Yeah, a lot of the Gen X and Boomer comedians just haven't changed/grown up/matured/evolved with the audience and the times. But there's still plenty of great (younger) comedians like Bo Burnham and Taylor Tomlinson, etc. Plenty of excellent comedians out there right now whose jokes don't punch down and where they don't whine and complain. You can even be a dark, mean comedian and still pull it off: see - Anthony Jeselnik, who my wife and I both find hilarious even though his jokes are dark as shit.

 

A lot of people, older stand-up comedians maybe most of all, just don't like that they can't be "funny" assholes anymore. Look at Maniscalco and then Bo Burnham. I don't dislike Maniscalco or anything (don't really watch his stuff) but there's just clearly a completely different approach and attitude to jokes and people. Especially since these guys are now famous, they expect the laughs rather than earning them from the audience, and that's a failure on their part but they think it's a failure on audiences and the culture's part, which is hilarious because no one owes you a laugh.

 

I mean, I love dark humor - I'm down with dead baby jokes, pedophile jokes, or rape jokes. They just have to be done well and mocking the right person or group. I mention this because I was a huge Dave Chappelle fan. Saw all his latest specials, including his newest and most controversial on Netflix. And almost all of the ones on Netflix are pretty great except the latest where he goes on forever about trans people. And my biggest issue? It just isn't funny. Just going on a rant for most of your special on a soapbox is not comedy, and even if I hated what he was saying I wouldn't have minded as much if it had been funny and tongue and cheek, but alas, it was not.

 

Whats wrong with Bo?

[Greatoneshere]

31 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

Whats wrong with Bo?

 

Nothing at all - I'm saying Bo is awesome and Maniscalco can be aggressive.

[stepee]

Just now, Greatoneshere said:

 

Nothing at all - I'm saying Bo is awesome and Maniscalco can be aggressive.

 

ahhh ok! I was gonna say he’s an example of someone who owns his shit,

[Greatoneshere]

2 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

ahhh ok! I was gonna say he’s an example of someone who owns his shit,

 

I did say in the first paragraph of my post that he is a great example of a great comedian currently.

[Mercury33]

4 hours ago, best3444 said:

Bill Burr is terrific imo. 

Came here to say this. He’s my favorite comedian right now. He’s able to straddle these lines flawlessly while being legitimately clever and funny. 

[SuperSpreader]

8 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

millennials still need to learn that they don't have the right to NOT be offended. And if they are, just don't support that person. 

 

Ok Boomer. 

 

I'm not offended, there's nothing to be offended about because it's just a bunch of gramps on stage complaining that times have changed without saying anything clever about it. 

[IdeaOfEvil]

It was years ago when I read Jon Stewart saying something akin to, "It's a sad day in the world when people are looking to the comedians to give us answers." And I think it's just that a lot of modern comedians are wholeheartedly subscribing to the opposite of that mindset who want to think that they're bigger and more important than they actually are. Because it's those professional griefers who won't allow the world to laugh at the type jokes that really push the edge of "funny and offensiveness" because they alone think it's morally wrong - which defeats the point of comedy to begin with. And that's why we have a lot of garbage comedy coming from garbage people who spend more time arguing why you need to like their brand of humor rather than them actually being funny to begin with. But maybe that's just their plan? "If I'm not funny enough, I'll try and bring down better talent to my level through arguing and shaming."

 

Still, look at guys like Joe Rogan (who I don't think is particularly funny) who has to deal with large swaths of backlash because he finds and promotes offensive humor as being funny while those same unfunny griefers want to make him responsible for their perceptions of what's wrong in this world. And God bless him for always saying, "Don't listen to me. I'm an idiot," because he's in that same Stewart mindset of not thinking that comedians (or people who exist in the spectrum of comedy) should be responsible for the serious fuck ups that the rest of the world wants to put on their shoulders. Plus, comedians of old have always thought that - whether it was Carlin, Patrice, Stewart, Rogan, or Norm. Hell, years ago Patrice gave a legendary Fox News interview where he went up against some ridiculous "woman who knows what the world needs" and called her out for her b.s. statements about comedy and how there needed to be boundaries set around it as a whole. But guys like him got drowned out, and this current "ridiculous world" of a loud vocal minority being offended got to take over. Thankfully, though, there a handful of guys out there that didn't cave in - Bobby Lee, Theo Von, Anthony Jeselnik, Tom Segura, and Andrew Schulz. And while I do like those guys and their current work, I still find myself going back and listening to older comedy stuff from Howard, Oppie and Anthony, Carlin, Murphy, Pryor, Tosh, and Blanc (etc...) just because they talk all sorts of shit that doesn't have some set rules placed around themselves. With the old stuff, if it's funny then it's funny. If it's not, then try again - no apologies needed. Simple and sweet.

[SuperSpreader]

7 hours ago, Remarkableriots said:

How is this offensive?

 

That was lame as fuck and shouldn't have been part of his routine. 

[SuperSpreader]

7 hours ago, best3444 said:

Bill Burr is terrific imo. 

 

Love him and Schlesinger, they're opposites. Karen and Krampus, but if anyone else calls her Krampus I'm going to have to rip their throat out. 

[SuperSpreader]

6 hours ago, TheLeon said:

And having some people mad at you on Twitter for wanting to eat Chick-fil-A isn’t “almost getting cancelled”. 

 

Image tagged in i was murdered

IMGFLIP.COM

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An image tagged i was murdered

 

 

[Greatoneshere]

Bill Burr is absolutely fantastic, no question, he does not fit into the OP. 

[SuperSpreader]

This vegan cracked me up jn

 

 

 

 

[Kal-El814]

12 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

Bill Burr is absolutely fantastic, no question, he does not fit into the OP. 

 

I love Bill Burr, I’m occasionally concerned about his fanbase who I do not think always appreciates they’re in his crosshairs… but whatever. He does “aggrieved white man” about as well as it can be done.

 

Also as it pertains to the OP… there’s nothing “wrong” with comedians, it just happens to be lucrative right now to bitch about being canceled, so a lot of them are doing it. There are plenty of comedians who aggrandize what the profession is despite most of them getting on stage and saying whatever the current version of, “take my wife… please! Try the veal,” happens to be. Guys like Louis CK cashed in on “being real” and that was a big thing for a while, now it’s “woe ie me” and that’ll stick until it doesn’t. Some comedians are more talented than others so their mileage will vary, but… it is what it is.

[Greatoneshere]

3 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

I love Bill Burr, I’m occasionally concerned about his fanbase who I do not think always appreciates they’re in his crosshairs… but whatever. He does “aggrieved white man” about as well as it can be done.

 

Agreed, some of his audience are chuds where his commentary goes over their heads (see: American History X, Fight Club, etc.) but that's on them, not Bill Burr of course. He always has excellent radical left arguments that come from the right, it's great.

[SaysWho?]

Got to interview Lewis Black this year, and he's still the man.

[Greatoneshere]

17 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

Got to interview Lewis Black this year, and he's still the man.

 

Lewis Black is another who does not fit the OP. He's great, love all his stand up specials.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

I think there’s a number of things going on. 
 

A lot of these comedians are funny people and can make funny observations. But they don’t live a life that relates to their audience any more. Also some of the same type of punchlines don’t play over like it did when they were coming up. As if “dude was acting gay” or “can you believe this dude was trying to be a lady?” would go over as well today as it would have 20-30 years ago. 

So you have a situation of a comedian punching down. They think because they’re black or Latino that their fame and wealth doesn’t matter. As if they won’t get a gig or be fired because of their race at this point. They can’t realize that unlike when they were young they are privileged. They’re not an “every man” any more, and some of their jokes come from a place of ignorance. 
 

They also seem to think that being a comedian gives them a pass on anything they say. Like they’re immune to criticism. When often times the joke just isn’t very funny. Then it just sounds like them being a bully. I do think no subject should be off limits to comedy, but that doesn’t mean that anything done in the name of comedy is a free pass. 

 

[SuperSpreader]

Exactly right. A lot of it is just eye roll cringe and they think they've triggered people. Comedy is supposed to make us uncomfortable sometimes so they think we're just not getting it. They're in a echo chamber. 

[SoberChef]

As a life long lover of all things comedy, I don't have the slightest idea what the OP is going on about.

[Spork3245]

Every comedian thinks they have the insight and intelligence of George Carlin when he was once in a lifetime. 

[BloodyHell]

On 12/8/2022 at 1:54 PM, skillzdadirecta said:

As someone who knows a fair amount of comedians and am working with one right now, I can tell u that a lot of them DO expect laughs and truly believe they are more insightful than they actually are. That said, I will give a comedian a pass on damn near ANYTHING as long as it's funny. If gen X and Booner comedians haven't grown up, millennials still need to learn that they don't have the right to NOT be offended. And if they are, just don't support that person. It's really that simple. As on outside observer,  it's kinda hard to be too sympathetic to either "side" to be honest. Both "sides" in the "issue" take themselves waaaaay too fucking seriously.

This. The outrage I’ve seen over comedians like Chapelle and Gervais is absolutely ridiculous, but their response has been pretty dumb too.

 

but the idea that those comedians “haven’t caught up” is ridiculous. They have a right to tell whatever jokes they want, and people have a right not to go watch.

 

but it’s those “boomer comedians” that people pay hundreds of dollars to see, not some kid whose first priority is not to offend. So how about we let both sides tell the jokes they want to, and let capitalism decide.

 

If people hadn’t tried to literally silence chapelle and demand his special be taken down, I wouldn’t take a side in this. But when groups start trying to decide what jokes I can hear, instead of just speaking out and voting with their dollars, I’m automatically on the other side (unless the other side is some Kanye shit).

 

 

[BloodyHell]

On 12/8/2022 at 1:00 PM, Greatoneshere said:

 

Yeah, a lot of the Gen X and Boomer comedians just haven't changed/grown up/matured/evolved with the audience and the times. But there's still plenty of great (younger) comedians like Bo Burnham and Taylor Tomlinson, etc. Plenty of excellent comedians out there right now whose jokes don't punch down and where they don't whine and complain. You can even be a dark, mean comedian and still pull it off: see - Anthony Jeselnik, who my wife and I both find hilarious even though his jokes are dark as shit.

 

A lot of people, older stand-up comedians maybe most of all, just don't like that they can't be "funny" assholes anymore. Look at Maniscalco and then Bo Burnham. I don't dislike Maniscalco or anything (don't really watch his stuff) but there's just clearly a completely different approach and attitude to jokes and people. Especially since these guys are now famous, they expect the laughs rather than earning them from the audience, and that's a failure on their part but they think it's a failure on audiences and the culture's part, which is hilarious because no one owes you a laugh.

 

I mean, I love dark humor - I'm down with dead baby jokes, pedophile jokes, or rape jokes. They just have to be done well and mocking the right person or group. I mention this because I was a huge Dave Chappelle fan. Saw all his latest specials, including his newest and most controversial on Netflix. And almost all of the ones on Netflix are pretty great except the latest where he goes on forever about trans people. And my biggest issue? It just isn't funny. Just going on a rant for most of your special on a soapbox is not comedy, and even if I hated what he was saying I wouldn't have minded as much if it had been funny and tongue and cheek, but alas, it was not.

But they can be funny assholes. A small twitter echo chamber might attack them for it, but they are still selling out stadiums, something most (not all) “progressive comedians” can’t do. So instead of making material that can compete, they want to censor others speech to fit their ideals. 

[SuperSpreader]

49 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

but it’s those “boomer comedians” that people pay hundreds of dollars to see, not some kid whose first priority is not to offend. So how about we let both sides tell the jokes they want to, and let capitalism decide.

 

This is exactly my point. These guys are standing in a full stadiums complaining that they've been cancelled, it's ludicrous! I'm not offended by the comedy, I'm annoyed to see people I liked turn into old man yells at sky.

 

But yes your premise is correct, I can choose to no longer see them because capitalism, aka cancel culture. 😅 Exactly what they're complaining about. 

[Keyser_Soze]

Letting capitalism decide:

 

[BloodyHell]

45 minutes ago, SuperSpreader said:

 

This is exactly my point. These guys are standing in a full stadiums complaining that they've been cancelled, it's ludicrous! I'm not offended by the comedy, I'm annoyed to see people I liked turn into old man yells at sky.

 

But yes your premise is correct, I can choose to no longer see them because capitalism, aka cancel culture. 😅 Exactly what they're complaining about. 

Oh, the complaints about canceling are ridiculous, but can we not pretend that the point of the outrage over Dave’s special wasn’t a concerted effort to ruin his career? 
They wanted his special pulled, and him ostracized. The general public just didn’t care. So complaining about those people is valid. Claiming they’re “cancelled” is ridiculous though.

 

it’s kind of like the Hogwarts Legacy and the games press right now. They really want to destroy this game, but it’s popularity won’t let them. The whole of gaming “journalism” has a single mind, and it’s been twisted and locked in the bowels of Resetera. 

[Greatoneshere]

1 hour ago, BloodyHell said:

But they can be funny assholes. A small twitter echo chamber might attack them for it, but they are still selling out stadiums, something most (not all) “progressive comedians” can’t do. So instead of making material that can compete, they want to censor others speech to fit their ideals. 

 

The problem isn't that they still are selling out stadiums, they are, but that they aren't funny anymore whenever they get on a soapbox and they are mostly riding on their reputation and good will from their earlier work. Doesn't mean they aren't as funny as they used to be, but whining about cancel culture when you clearly aren't being cancelled since you're selling out stadiums is pretty disingenuous. It's not a good look and makes me like the comedian less, that's for sure.

 

And making jokes that punch down is just a bad thing to do. It's why It's Always Sunny works and why Chappelle's rant about being a TERF doesn't.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

And making jokes that punch down is just a bad thing to do.

I am curious as to why you believe this. It feels like the sort of thing that has caught on in internet chatter about comedy in the last 10 years, but I haven’t seen anybody actually articulate why a joke can’t be funny (the actual job of a comedian!) if you are “punching down”.