Stand up gay

As a standup comic, I am first and leading a fan of comedy. So, when white, cis-het, ignorant men like Matt Rife besmirch the craft with jokes about local violence, excessive crowd perform clips, and substanceless stage presence, I have no choice but to step in. I did not spend my childhood glued to my TV on Saturday nights and my late teen years getting sexually harassed – I mean, working – at a comedy club just for a bunch of losers to pronounce comedy dead by wokeness. Here’s a pro tip: If you hear a comic complaining about people creature “too woke” to howl at jokes these days, what they mean is they (or their ghost writer) are shit at writing jokes.

If the crowd work comedian siege on the internet wasn’t enough to radicalize you, perhaps the list of nominees for the very first Golden Globes stand-up specials category will. On this list is Ricky Gervais, who uses the “r” slur when referring to terminally ill children in his nominated special; Amy Schumer, proud Islamophobe and joke stealer; and Sarah Silverman, who recently got too high and defended genocide on Instagram (oo