I was a late-night writer. Colbert’s cancellation hurts American comedy – and sanity | Jill Twiss
www.theguardian.com
If our overlords can’t handle being joked about on late-night TV, we don’t need new shows. We need new leaders

The thing about jokes is that they require a shared base of knowledge. A shared reality. If I tell a joke about a commercial and you’ve never seen that commercial, the joke isn’t going to go over very well. Losing late night shows is one more step toward losing a shared reality, and that to me is terrifying.

There is a moment every New Yorker knows. It happens when you’re on the subway and someone does something particularly insane: an 83-year-old white lady raps, or a man in a three-piece suit publicly clips his toenails. And then you catch the eye of someone across the train – they raise their eyebrows and you raise your eyebrows back. And then you feel a little better. Because someone else saw what you saw and they can confirm that it’s something.

Late night hosts like Stephen Colbert do that on a larger scale. They’re our way of saying: “Hey, this is crazy, right? RIGHT?” In this world of algorithmic bubbles and blatant lies and deepfakes, late night television is a place you can gather at night and say: “Yes, this happened and it is fucking weird.”

Here’s another thing I like about jokes: the basis of jokes is truth. I’ve written books, speeches, game shows and news articles and I’ve never been fact-checked as hard as I was when writing late night television. Jokes just don’t work if they’re not based on something true.

I don’t mean to beat the Colbert drum (and, trust me, I’m perhaps posting 5% of what I run into about this imbroglio), but what this cancellation suggests is very, very dark for the media.

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
    12·
    11 days ago

    As a centrist US person who doesn’t consider themselves political, I don’t know, this has got me really nervous about how far leftwing cancel culture has gotten, I think we should worry more about how extreme leftists are in the US, can we spend more time handwringing about that?

    It is honestly really scary. What if they attempted a violent coup?!?!? Imagine if that happened and we just basically categorically ignored leftism as an existential threat to the United States in the wake of it and pretended to be terrified of rightwing movements that were entirely uninvolved instead. Look I don’t want to be bigoted but this is confusing and I want a simple narrative so I am leaning towards just becoming a conservative and turning off my critical thinking skills.

    Anyways I am just asking leftists to join us centrists in comprimising with fascists! Trust us, it will definitely work!

    /s

    • Powderhorn@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
      1·
      11 days ago

      What the hell is this? The right has already attempted a violent coup, and you’re both-sidesing this?

      And cancel culture? Who has that hit so far? Hint: It’s not the crybaby right. Are you really attempting the argument that Colbert is to the right of centre and thus this somehow counts?

      If you’re not a bot, which I question from absurd talking points, this may not be the community for you.

          • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
            2·
            11 days ago

            Hey, my bad, I have a really dry sarcasm, I edited my comment to include a /s.

            To be clear, I meant that with a very bitter sarcastic tone because I believe the opposite but hear those violent lies trumpeted at me 24/7 by the society around me.

            • Powderhorn@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
              2·
              11 days ago

              No worries. There’s a lot of shit flying around these days, and it can be difficult to detect sarcasm in such situations. There are people who actually believe what you said, and absent context, discerning which way a piece goes can be difficult.

              I apologize for my comment and appreciate the clarification.