Comment by lelanthran | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lelanthran | Hacker News Reader

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> Isn't it funny that the least funny people always complain about their inability to make jokes anymore?

Maybe you really don't know, but John Cleese is considered extremely funny, and has been for decades: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/oct/10/john-cleese-...

Bill Burr is also widely regarded as a good comedian, making funny jokes: https://actorsareidiots.com/bill-burr-people-taking-offense-...

Dave Chappelle made a similar complaint (that he will not be changing his material to bend to some people's demands) and is also widely regarded as funny: https://www.npr.org/2021/10/25/1049113893/dave-chappelle-res...

How about someone who is not widely known, but still considered quite highly as a funny person? Here's what she literally said: "Jokes used to be accepted as jokes [...] Morality police now dictate what we can and can’t say. " - https://www.chortle.co.uk/correspondents/2023/02/10/52508/go...

Yup, the actual funny people are complaining that they can't make actual jokes anymore: https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/comedians-online-censorship-...

I feel you should think long and hard before making a statement as orthogonal to reality as "The least funny people complain about their inability to make jokes".

I think you're really missing the point, so I'm not going to go source my anecdote about regular people in a conversation about boys clubs in the office. I've summed it up quite thoroughly throughout this thread.

If we really want to talk about these actual comedians (who are all very funny in their own right), I would say that Bill Burr is a snowflake who had a bad set, Dave Chappelle should really learn to not make jokes at the expense of people who are currently facing severe systemic oppression, and John Cleese is an over-reacting octogenarian, far past his prime and aligning himself with an anti-vax fake news network; not the arbiter of truth you think he is.

They aren't coming across as particularly sympathetic to me, and the comedy scene will forget them if they're not able to adapt their material to a changing generation. Comedy is temporally bound and what is good comedy changes over time.

People find different things funny, so there should be a diversity of choice in comedy. I've been to sets that I personally didn't find funny, but the audience was locals with a different sense of humour than me and they loved it. It wasn't bad, just not my style, but it didn't operate at the expense of someone else. I've been to sets where the comedian on stage floundered and lashed out at the audience for being too sensitive, and the next comedian killed it without being 'sensitive' to the audience, just by being funny.

Here are some funny comedians that I've seen this year that managed to not be transphobic or align themselves with conspiracy theories about vaccinations:

- Arthur Simeon

- The Lucas Brothers

- Malik Elassal

- Alonzo Bodden

- Joyelle Nicole Johnson

- Fortune Feimster

- Steph Tolev

Plus a bunch of others that I can't remember off the top of my head. Check them out if you care to. I don't think any of them are complaining that they can't be funny anymore, they're doing just fine, and I think they're bringing fresh comedy to the scene.

In my opinion, if the old guard wants to show themselves out because they feel like they can't compete, they should feel free to.

But none of that matters: you said that unfunny people are the ones complaining that they can't make jokes anymore.

I refuted it, with actual evidence of funny people complaining that they can't make jokes anymore.

The fact that other funny people are not complaining is irrelevant, because that is not the claim you made.

if you wanna be precise, they said that the least funny people are the ones complaining;

because they can’t come up with material that isn’t at the expense of people facing systemic oppression

There are plenty of very funny comedians (with edgy acts, even!) that aren’t complaining about “cancel culture”. Check out Stavros Halkias maybe

> if you wanna be precise, they said that the least funny people are the ones complaining;

Exactly, which is at odds with reality; see the list of complainers who are extremely funny people.

eh, I think the funniest people are just out there touring and making jokes, not complaining about cancel culture

> none of that matters

I explicitly didn't intend to scope my brief comment about "the least funny people" to encapsulate the entirety of humanity and I don't care to discuss this pedantic claim that "well technically N>0; QED".

Most of the comment you're saying doesn't matter was just me talking about comedians because I like comedy. If you don't like comedy, don't continue the conversation. If you disagree with something I said in a human capacity, not a "prove me wrong" capacity, then say so. I'm not as invested in this "claim" as you are to disproving it, clearly.

> Dave Chappelle should really learn to not make jokes at the expense of people who are currently facing severe systemic oppression

Men trying to force their way into women's spaces on the basis of some imagined 'gender identity' aren't facing oppression, they are the ones doing the oppressing - lobbying for laws and policies to be changed to eradicate female-only spaces everywhere.

It's the same old invasive misogyny we see from men everywhere, except this time it's supposedly progressive.

I'm glad that comedians like Dave Chappelle are poking fun at the ridiculousness of this. Laughing at an oppressive ideology really does help to undermine it.

Oh shit I summoned the TERFs. With a 6 minute old account no less. Go away.

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