If you tell that knock-knock joke, you aren't getting laughs unless everyone else is high. Louis CK has been grinding out comedy for decades. He's had time off to think, to write new material, to realize the world has changed. He wrote lazy, hacky, angry, lazy stuff.
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Some people laughed. Some people thought it was funny. Some people laugh because other people laugh. Some people laughed because he's famous. Chris Rock has talked in interviews about how hard it is to work out new material in small clubs, because he's Chris Rock.
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People either laugh way too hard because he's Chris Rock or they get angry that it's not funnier, even though he's standing there with his phone in his hand, clearly working out new material. Funny is funny but laughs aren't always laughs.
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Finally, let's look at what comedy is. Comedy is anarchy, comedy is a way to upend the power structure. Comedy defies the rules. Black comics, Jewish comics could walk on to a stage and rule a theater full of white people long before they could hope to get a job in their offices.
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When you are a white man in America you are still, statistically, more likely to have money for retirement than a POC or a woman. You are more likely to have a job. You are more likely to have your health issues taken seriously. You are, still, the default human.
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So, if you are a white man and you're famous and you got caught abusing your power with women less powerful than yourself, for decades, how do you respond? At the risk of making people think about his junk, you either soften or you stiffen up.
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1. You reflect on who you are, what you did and you are willing to stand on stage peeling off the layers, which could be agonizing and hilarious. I don't do stand-up but the most success I have had on this godforsaken medium all year was telling an agonizing story about myself.
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@BreneBrown has written about shame, over and over again. The cure for shame is vulnerability. If CK had recognized his responsibility, his (yes, I see you rolling your eyes) privilege, he could be currently working out some electrifying, agonizing, hilarious material.Show this thread -
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2. Louis CK chose instead to lock out everything which reminded him of his culpability, using his anger at being discovered - ultimately, his anger with himself - as batting to block up any places he might grow or change.
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It's not that he's choosing to go alt-right; it's that the alt-right is filled with angry white men who are infuriated that they don't get a pass any more.
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