You.
Yes, I’m talking to you. You are ruining my fun, and I won’t apologize for being offensive or retract this statement.
Chris Rock will no longer perform at colleges, and his reasoning should caution every college student, as he’s rebuked us wholesale.
In an interview with New York Magazine, Rock said stand-up at colleges was “not as much fun as it used to be.” He explained how the audience, now a sea of cameras, can take any joke you make and pimp it out on social media, decrying the comedian as racist, sexist, transphobic or any other –oic/ist you can conjure.
What people fail to realize is standup is the only job where every kink in the act is worked out in a public forum. A comedian can’t know if a joke goes too far or will fail unless they can see the audience’s reaction for themselves.
Comedy is not a formulaic medium.
Not every joke is an attempt to make the spectators break out in “Kumbaya.” There are times when a certain anecdote is used to point out a strain of hypocrisy. Even better is when a performer is able to catch the audience off guard by saying something they may all be thinking but are too afraid of the repercussions in their daily life to say.
Stand-up comedy, like music festivals, is meant to be the only place in our hurried, production-value based existence where the shackles of what is morally right and wrong are relinquished and pure enjoyment is ascertained.
Good comedians exist on a cavalier island, allow you to take a peek and maybe even taste their sweet unencumbered fruit but then hastily shove you off. A good audience holds this trip in the highest honor, takes no souvenirs and allows others to make their own opinions on what they see or hear.
A constant barrage of negative news is but a click, tap or push notification away. In this ever expanding interconnected digital world, the ability to enjoy the best parts of it are welcome encouragements.
No longer is comedy a vast expanse of the same old stories told from the same old white male faces. This expanded cavalcade of fresh perspectives has enhanced the trade, allowing everyone a chance to see themselves under the big spotlight.
Aziz Ansari, Ron Funches and Hannibal Burress are of a new generation, breaking the mold on what is expected out of comedians of color. They are praised for their work and it is well-deserved.
Anthony Jeselnik, Joan Rivers (RIP) and others known for their more biting humor are dragged on social media for not being sensitive enough or not having the adequate demographic breakdown in the main characters of their sketches.
That is outright buffoonery.
If some feel they cannot enjoy entertainment without finding every turn of phrase as discriminatory, then go to a spoken word, slam poetry, consciousness raising, pow-wow.
Constant squawking pompous, annoying, no life, busy body, wet blankets may enjoy having no semblance of fun in their lives, but do not make me a company to your misery.
Garrett Hines is a 21-year-old political science senior from Monroe, Louisiana. You can reach him on Twitter @garrettH_TDR.