"Cancel culture could wipe out comedy"

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Twitter isn't everything is it?  Fall wasn't published on twitter.  Facebook is not the social media world.  It doesn't matter whether you, personally, are a fan of any idea, its an idea, like The Helicopter Story.

Most of the harassment took place on Twitter and the leaders of it were Twitter power-users who had a large amounts of followers to instruct. Twitter lets people translate relative success, means and status into direct influence over people, its absurd and people can't just shut their eyes and walk away from it.

I find Twitter's ability to manufacture credulity by associating certain ideas with certain high-profile personalities terrifying. I don't think there's been much like it in history, where people can get instantly caught in a bubble where they believe everything a certain group of people say and disbelieve everything another group might say. Don't get me wrong, nowt wrong with sticking absolutely to one's principals, and I think partisanship is necessary, but the particular way Twitter allows personalities and status to override critical engagement is frightening. I don't use it because I know I'd get caught up in it myself.

(I'm not really even talking about social justice issues here, but the smaller scale examples like extent this seems to influential niche academic and research debates, eg.)

[Icehaven]

The stages of a showbiz career -

Who's Maureen Lipman?
Get me Maureen Lipman
Get me someone like Maureen Lipman
Who's Maureen Lipman?
Who's Maureen Lipman and why is she ranting about cancel culture?

[Harvey Milk]

I bet she'd hate Cum Town.

[peteprodge]

Turns out Maureen Lipman is a massive hypocrite.

[Zetetic]

I think we're all learning that the real cancel culture is having @Zetetic on ignore.

[idunnosomename]

Always disliked her, ever since Driving School.

such a non-entity i genuinely did think that was who she was for a decade or so

[BritishHobo]

The discussion in here is part of why I prefer to still call it 'public shaming' as in Jon Ronson's book. 'Cancel culture' as a term is just too loaded, on all sides, to be effective in a a debate.

My position would be that internet shaming is definitely an issue but that, as people have said in this thread, it's pretty much only ever an issue of consequence for YA/short story writers who are involved in Extremely Online circles on Twitter, or those random, genuinely fucked stories where some absolute nobody suddenly becomes 'the Main Character', as absolute unbearable cunts call them. In the world of comedy, where it's most widely-discussed, it basically holds no power whatsoever aside from whenever the odd podcaster turns out to be a sex pest. It's just incredibly famous comedians with massive platforms upset that the proles get a voice now.

[jobotic]

It doesn't matter if she's a hypocrite, she doesn't really think that cancel culture is a problem, she just wants to attack the left, like all those opponents of "wokism". She's doing a bit


Wonder if she thinks tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths from Covid is a "stain on Britain". Very much doubt it, they were nobodies after all.

[BritishHobo]

I'd love them to give an example of a joke they feel they couldn't say now. I think it would be very revealing of the types who complain about this shit.

The one that always sums it up for me is Jerry Seinfeld saying that college kids now don't like it when he's talking about a gay French king, and mimes limpwristedness. Just the most pathetic shit.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Funny this comes out the same day that the BBC announces it's recording an anti woke Radio 4 pilot with Andrew Doyle, Leo Kearse and more unfortunately, Tony Law.

https://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2021/12/22/49904/bbc_pilots_anti-woke_comedy_show?rss

[Huxleys Babkins]

*pulls steering wheel away*
WOAH WAOOOOOOOOOOOOOAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Tom Jones considers rewrite.

[Zetetic]

The discussion in here is part of why I prefer to still call it 'public shaming' as in Jon Ronson's book.

That suffers a bit from eliding a lot of different stuff together (which is something of a hallmark of Ronson's work - jam a bunch of half-thoughts together half-heartedly with your initial intuitions, job done), even if the common urge/behaviours at work are interesting on that basis.

I note in advance that what I'm about to link suffers from the common problem of trying to make sense of someone's death by pointing to a single event - I think that "public shaming", using the internet and modern mediums, might have been involved in this person's death, but I'm wary of too easily jamming it in with Fall's experiences, or Gilliam having to find a different theatre, or Louis CK's bad film being buried, John Roderick's disappearance from a few podcasts. (But I appreciate I haven't tried to bring out why I'm wary.)

[Autopsy Turvey]

Turns out Maureen Lipman is a massive hypocrite.

Are we to take this woman's word for it that Maureen Lipman "didn't know the content" of the play? She'd only be a hypocrite if she's arguing that peaceful protest against controversial art should be banned. According to all the news reports I can find, she was part of a Jewish group handing out leaflets counterbalancing the contentious Palestinian narrative of the play. Any evidence that she was trying to 'cancel' the performance is welcome, because these quotes don't seem terribly damning:

"I felt the Jewish voice should be heard. All I wanted to do was say there is another angle to this. The main point of the demo was to present an alternative version of the narrative of The Siege and to do it in a civilised manner.

"After the appalling disruption of the Jerusalem Quartet last month by pro Palestinian activists I felt it was important to show my support both for the freedom to present and the freedom to dissent in a manner which doesn't punish the artists."

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/maureen-lipman-joins-protest-outside-theatre-staging-the-siege-1.66745

[Harvey Milk]

I suppose the 'hypocrisy' would be that if a group of left-wing activists were doing the same - protesting a controversial play, even peacefully, outside a theatre - Lipman and people like her would take it as further evidence of cancel culture and how certain sections of the UK have become too easily offended by challenging art.

It's all hypothetical, of course, so we'll never really know, but it wouldn't be surprising. You don't lose much by assuming that most people are going to be inconsistent when it suits them.

[BritishHobo]

That suffers a bit from eliding a lot of different stuff together (which is something of a hallmark of Ronson's work - jam a bunch of half-thoughts together half-heartedly with your initial intuitions, job done), even if the common urge/behaviours at work are interesting on that basis.

I note in advance that what I'm about to link suffers from the common problem of trying to make sense of someone's death by pointing to a single event - I think that "public shaming", using the internet and modern mediums, might have been involved in this person's death, but I'm wary of too easily jamming it in with Fall's experiences, or Gilliam having to find a different theatre, or Louis CK's bad film being buried, John Roderick's disappearance from a few podcasts. (But I appreciate I haven't tried to bring out why I'm wary.)

That's why I prefer to use it really, because it doesn't necessarily imply any ideology or agenda beyond people getting too angry online and forming a mob. I think it's useful precisely because it shows the different levels and nuance, and the way that the impulse to shame a behaviour online can escalate to this, no matter how justified.

I think I mostly agree with you that I probably wouldn't count any of the comedy stuff under 'public shaming', with the exception of something like Bean Dad (where it became about how he's a Bad Person, and the digging up of his old tweets).

[Ron Maels Moustache]

It doesn't matter if she's a hypocrite, she doesn't really think that cancel culture is a problem, she just wants to attack the left, like all those opponents of "wokism". She's doing a bit


Wonder if she thinks tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths from Covid is a "stain on Britain". Very much doubt it, they were nobodies after all.

Yep, a pure grifter just like all the "anti-woke" mob.

[peanutbutter]

I'm not sure what the right way to deal with anyone over the age of 70 shiteing on about this stuff is. Such a massive amount of the issue is that they're just totally incapable of grasping how different modern media is to what they had in their careers. It never seems to come with any kind of elaboration that they get how the world has changed beyond "cancel culture".


That's even before you factor in how closed off discussion on Israel seemed to be until recent years and how much that's surely impacted some older people's viewpoints on Palestine. For someone who seems to generally be quite good at remaining diplomatic she has said some fairly dodgy comments about Palestine and pro-Palestine sentiment over the years; I find it hard to imagine that she'd view a pro-Palestine peaceful protest as being remotely similar to her one at that play.

[shoulders]

Not only the usual trivally disprovable nonsense, but also utterly hypocritical in the case of Lipman given how much she's tried to interfere in others' speech, including protesting plays and refusing to work with people for having expressed criticism of the Israeli government.

Yep, and all from an obsolete rancid gasbag whose work of merit is from a very long time ago.

What's noticeable is how these people never fail to find a platform to say this crap but rarely if ever expose themselves to a challenge or right of reply.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Funny this comes out the same day that the BBC announces it's recording an anti woke Radio 4 pilot with Andrew Doyle, Leo Kearse and more unfortunately, Tony Law.

https://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2021/12/22/49904/bbc_pilots_anti-woke_comedy_show?rss

oh wow "Unsafe Space" oh wow so edgy

oh wow I hope they smear black boot polish all over their faces and prance around yelling "two genders" in a camp gay voice

that'll really show the woke special snowflakes won't it

[Endicott]

One or two of you are giving Lipman too much rope. She's always been a rancid right winger, and being 70+ is no excuse. She knows what she's doing. As does Cleese.

[Kankurette]

Why are right-wing comedians so unfunny?

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Why are right-wing comedians so unfunny?

Because their "humour" consists of meanspirited shit like calling a teenage girl ugly, or longwinded rants about how stupid the special snowflakes are.

[Fry]

Why are right-wing comedians so unfunny?

I've always assumed that its because they are shit comedians using "right wing" as a selling point because they can't get by on the strength of their comedy alone. There are probably plenty of actually funny right wing comedians who are funny enough that they never have to bring their politics into it to get attention.

You can see the same thing in some left wing comedians too tbh.

[Mr Banlon]

Why are right-wing comedians so unfunny?

Lack of humility.
Lack of humanity.

[Kankurette]

I've always assumed that its because they are shit comedians using "right wing" as a selling point because they can't get by on the strength of their comedy alone. There are probably plenty of actually funny right wing comedians who are funny enough that they never have to bring their politics into it to get attention.

You can see the same thing in some left wing comedians too tbh.

I'm trying to think of right-wing shows/comedians I find funny and the only one I can think of is South Park. At least the early episodes, it got a bit stale.

[Fry]

I'm trying to think of right-wing shows/comedians I find funny and the only one I can think of is South Park. At least the early episodes, it got a bit stale.

I think Norm Macdonald said he was right wing. He was pretty funny.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

I don't doubt someone could hold conservative/right-wing views and be very funny. Lots of comedy is apolitical. But I was just thinking about the episodes of South Park which feature right-wing politics (trans people aren't real, global warming isn't real) and Parker and Stone just look ignorant. "huhuhuh manbearpig, huhuhuh i identify as a dolphin".

[Kankurette]

I always preferred the weirder episodes like Scott Tenorman Must Die or the one with the gay dog.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

I always preferred the weirder episodes like Scott Tenorman Must Die or the one with the gay dog.

The ones where the kids are just being kids hold up the best. I love Marjorine, where the boys sincerely believe the girls' paper fortune teller is a "future telling device" and concoct a plan to fake Butters' death with no care of what that'll do to his parents.

[Utter Shit]

Any time someone makes a comment like this, they should be forced to give an example. There are zero examples of a comedian being cancelled for anything except the most egregiously horrible stuff (and far more examples of people doing slightly less objectionable stuff and not being cancelled), so the outcome will be either:

A) they can't give an example
B) they have to go on the record defending the indefensible, for example Dapper Laughs joking about raping individual women in his audience, or Kramer using the N word to attack a black guy in the audience.

You'd find out pretty quickly who actually believes in the principle of what they're saying and who is just waffling.