What Happens When Everyone Gets Bored with the Scolds?
I knew he was launching his next tour. Not so much a comeback tour or an apology tour but a comedy tour. I am on his mailing list so I still get that sort of news.
He isn't coming to Vegas so it wasn't high on the list of pertinent news (more relevant info being things like Lake Mead drying up and the Nevada governor announcing that businesses could either require vaccination proof OR require masking and the Raiders organization immediately announced the former) but, as I couldn't quite sleep, I caught Meghan Daum's tweet:
Nothing like reading a review of a comedy show in which all but one sentence is about how terrible, unfunny and horrifically offensive the jokes are. The remaining sentence: "Every person around me was in hysterics over every single one of his bits."
She was referring to this review and, after reading it, it occurred to me that sending reviewer Katie Tamola to cover a sold out Louis C.K. concert at Madison Square Garden is a bit like hiring Sean Hannity to review a feminist poetry slam. She was not alone in the crowd of mostly ebullient fans of C.K.'s frequently brilliant comedy as there were a few others there who, like Katie, made sure that in a review of a stand up show to use lead ups like:
"The admitted sex predator performed..."
"The sex pest/comedian kicked off his comeback tour..."
"The disgraced comedian..."
"Just how many women have to come forward and say the same guy has pulled out his penis and masturbated in front of them in order to be believed?"
That'd be five. He's already confessed to it. He publicly and privately apologized. He went to France for four years and lost millions of dollars in the process. Who's not believing them?
Last night, I watched the Hulu documentary Untouchable about the rise of the legit sexual predator Harvey Weinstein. I wasn't shocked by much but I recommend it for those inclined to go for the throat of lesser demons with the same zeal as the big ones for a dash of perspective.
Weinstein was a monster. He was the Negan of the Hollywood class except his bat was his dick. He abused his position. He raped women in hotel rooms. He destroyed the careers of women who either said "no" or came out with accusations. Harvey was, through and through, a force of sexual malignancy.
He has earned no right to an easy redemption if redemption is, indeed, possible.
Same with Bill Cosby.
The difference between Louis C.K. and those two? They raped—multiple times—and were convicted of it. Louis exposed himself and was not because it wasn't a crime worth prosecuting. Instead, in the absence of breaking the law, he was bullied by a small but loud group of people with such enthusiasm for joyless scolding and moral policing (effectively the George Zimmermans of the Internet Neighborhood) that their ability to self reflect upon the world and see that they are not, in fact, the center of it escapes them.
And the rest of us are bored with them.
Mind you, we're not bored with people being held accountable for doing heinous malevolence upon others. We generally applaud when a Cuomo is forced to resign for systematically being a lonely guy and using his political power to intimidate, grope, and demean his subordinates. We're generally quite taken with the idea of punishing those who break the law. Matt Lauer? Fuck him.
We're bored out of our everliving skulls with the hysteria. The faux outrage has worn us right the fuck out. We're fed-up with Bob Dylan being accused of doing something in 1965 and moving on with life. We're nodding off every time we hear someone (usually young but not always) crying wolf every moment of every day:
TINY MOB: "There's a wolf!"
THE REST OF US: "That is a wolf. Let's get rid of it."
TINY MOB: "There's another wolf!"
THE REST OF US: "Um...that's a dog, I think."
TINY MOB: "WOLF! Over there!"
THE REST OF US: "Hey. Wait a sec. Looks like a squirrel to us."
TINY MOB: "FUCKING WOLF!"
THE REST OF US: "No. No. That's just Matt Damon."
That's what happens when the social capital of the Twitter-verse is accumulated through rage and the parade of victims. Eventually the rest of us don't care and then when a real predator pops up, we miss it because we can't be bothered with another squirrel.
That's why 'cancel culture' on both the Right and the Left is such a nothing-burger. It is fueled by our attention. And while you pine on about a stand up comedian selling out Madison Square Garden whom you think should be burned alive somewhere or simply accept your non-binding non-prison sentence, our attention is focused elsewhere.
