So I think I've said this before, but I basically started my time on Portal of Evil defending 2*, and it's like, wow, backed the wrong horse on that one. After hanging out on one of the forums for aging PoEsters for a while, that came up and the response from one of the guys was a "oh, I always knew he was a Nazi" and I wish I'd called that guy out, because, while calling 2 a terrible person on the Internet eventually became correct, his politics (which, at the time, were those of an out gay man when pretending not to give a fuck, and anti-Bush when he pretended to) clearly not why he chosen as an exhibit or mocked there at all.
Of course, I'd say his failing is a massive inability to read the room; he made and defended transphobic jokes in the one "room" where his audience can reasonably be expected to have at least one transgender or at least non-binary person per show. I mean, I've been in a room where an open mic comedian made some off color gay jokes, realized the two people closest to the stage were in fact a lesbian couple, then warned me, next up not to do gay jokes**. It's not just that 2's transphobic; he's stupid about it.
Also, I mean, in his one attempt to go mainstream, he invited a bunch of furries to his show to get a big audience (which is pretty standard practice; if you think this is what I'm complaining about, you don't know comedy clubs). Then, he tried to hide this fact from the other comedians because he was afraid they'd make fun of them. Just setting aside that his being a furry was pretty much the only unique thing he had going for him, and he really needed to lean into that, and also setting aside this is making his "comedians are here to challenge their audience" rhetoric massively hypocritical, it's just a massive misunderstanding of how most comedian/audience relationships work. Because, if there's one thing comedians just love, it's a hostile crowd.
People talk about there being a rule in comedy that you "punch up, not down", but a rule just as real is "don't fucking punch the audience in front of you."
* I also tried to defend that Dracula furry webcomic, but even in those "bad old days" of PoE, the general response is "eh, it's really not that bad, just kind of weird".
** This wasn't much of a problem for me because I don't have any gay jokes.
So I think I've said this before, but I basically started my time on Portal of Evil defending 2*, and it's like, wow, backed the wrong horse on that one. After hanging out on one of the forums for aging PoEsters for a while, that came up and the response from one of the guys was a "oh, I always knew he was a Nazi" and I wish I'd called that guy out, because, while calling 2 a terrible person on the Internet eventually became correct, his politics (which, at the time, were those of an out gay man when pretending not to give a fuck, and anti-Bush when he pretended to) clearly not why he chosen as an exhibit or mocked there at all.
Of course, I'd say his failing is a massive inability to read the room; he made and defended transphobic jokes in the one "room" where his audience can reasonably be expected to have at least one transgender or at least non-binary person per show. I mean, I've been in a room where an open mic comedian made some off color gay jokes, realized the two people closest to the stage were in fact a lesbian couple, then warned me, next up not to do gay jokes**. It's not just that 2's transphobic; he's stupid about it.
Also, I mean, in his one attempt to go mainstream, he invited a bunch of furries to his show to get a big audience (which is pretty standard practice; if you think this is what I'm complaining about, you don't know comedy clubs). Then, he tried to hide this fact from the other comedians because he was afraid they'd make fun of them. Just setting aside that his being a furry was pretty much the only unique thing he had going for him, and he really needed to lean into that, and also setting aside this is making his "comedians are here to challenge their audience" rhetoric massively hypocritical, it's just a massive misunderstanding of how most comedian/audience relationships work. Because, if there's one thing comedians just love, it's a hostile crowd.
People talk about there being a rule in comedy that you "punch up, not down", but a rule just as real is "don't fucking punch the audience in front of you."
* I also tried to defend that Dracula furry webcomic, but even in those "bad old days" of PoE, the general response is "eh, it's really not that bad, just kind of weird".
** This wasn't much of a problem for me because I don't have any gay jokes.