Jon's Ego (in print form!)

Aside from a silly joke or two, I’ve decided to stay out of the Great Daniel Tosh Debate of 2012 until now. While I hate Daniel Tosh’s comedy and feel that, considering his behavior in the past, it’s totally likely that the incident went down exactly as described, until I see video or something, I really don’t want to choose a side. He may be a douche but, even if there’s an infinitesimally small chance that context would shine brand new light on his comments, I’m not going to jump on this bandwagon. I mean, I can shit on him for that tummy touching thing (Remember that? That sure was shitty) all I want, but not this.

However, I kept seeing Jim Norton’s tweet getting retweeted and his argument, with all due respect, was so ridiculous that I had to do my part by shouting impotently into the Internet vacuum. Like you do.

Seriously, using American Psycho as an example of something that didn’t get condemned for its depictions of violence against women is like using Abraham Lincoln as an example of someone who didn’t get shot in the fucking head. It’s insane.

I’ve always admired the way the stand up community defends their own (whether or not they really deserve it). It’s really cool. That being said, tweets like Norton’s would come off as way too victim-y even if his example did work.

I mean, if any stand up really feels like their industry is being unfairly vilified and scrutinized here, I invite them to look at, say, the video game industry. Or how about, oh, I don’t know, maybe a little thing called THE PORN INDUSTRY?

I think, when in comes to the grand spectrum of censorship and interference, stand ups actually got off kind of light. It just doesn’t seem that way because it is, unlike other art forms, a solo sport.