A few years ago I stumbled upon a Doug Stanhope video that alerted me to a strange little phenomenon that worries me to this day.
You see, the role of comedians above all is to notice all the strange things that societies do without their members even realizing, and present those oddities in quirky manner that makes the audience laugh.
And Doug is a master of that, he’s an unconventionally exceptional Comedian with a bravery that a few others have.
Personally, I always thought that he was going to be the last of the untamed.
Doug is in his fifties now, and I still believe he’s going to be the last comedian to ever speak his mind.
And now you must be wondering, what’s that video I was referring to? It’s this one:
To spare you the time of watching the video, Doug was making a case that it always used to be that the new generation was too deviant.
That the elders used to say things like: “These kids are out of control, they’re crazy!”
And that the newer generations always seemed over the top in the eyes of the previous ones.
But now, it seems like we’re going to be the first generation of elderly people complaining in the opposite fashion.
It seemed funny the first time I watched it, but now it seems like he was more right that he knew at the time.
Nowadays comedians don’t want to get anywhere near a university or community college. Today’s youth seem to be offended by everything and the simple idea of laughing at some trivial jokes seems like a travesty these days.
Someone, somewhere is always going to take offense at some silly joke and all hell is going to break loose.
Even The New York Times, one of the most well known newspapers in the world have now announced the end to cartoons and satires.
They say that the reason was that somebody made a cartoon of Netanyahu, but that sounds like a lame excuse. If that was the case, they would’ve just banned Netanyahu cartoons in future editions.
Not even The Guardian seem to believe that story as this is how they titled their editorial: The New York Times political cartoon ban is a sinister and dangerous over-reaction
At the end of the day it’s all about money and audience, and their market analysis might’ve helped them arrive to this drastic decision.
I guess that they realized that the old breed is dying out and that the new generation can’t take a joke anymore.
The worst of all is that I’m only in my thirties and I feel like I’m part of that dying breed as well.
Either way, we shall crack some jokes until the end.
