Comic Fury Webcomic Hosting - Is Daniel Tosh a Jerk or is America a Jerk?

Yall have probably heard of this ongoing debate:
How Much of a Douche is Daniel Tosh?

Right, that's not quite a link to the debate, that's a link to a blog that quotes another blog that supports one of my opinions on the debate.

HOWEVER [prepare for a slew of run-on-sentances] :

I think, the rape issue aside, this brings up a question that is not often considered: When comics, comedians, or anyone who uses a public forum throws out the line 'if you don't like it, don't watch it', at what point is that statement invalidated?

- Using the Tosh.0 example, the woman in question had never heard of Tosh.0 and was unfamiliar with his form of comedy. By throwing the generic response 'if you don't like it, don't watch it' at her, AFTER she has already watched it, when she clearly had not had any per-conceived notions of what she was about to watch, Daniel Tosh was standing up for his own rights to speak freely in a public forum. Simultaneously, he was denying her rights to observe things that she dislikes. [Alright that's a silly thing, but stay with me.]
- Assume he had placed a warning on the adverts for that specific performance at the Laugh Factory on that fateful day, explicitly stating "I AM DANIEL TOSH & YOU WILL PROBABLY BE OFFENDED BY SOMETHING I DO," and assume he still got people who were not already his oh-so-devoted fans to go see his show, and lo-and-behold someone was hurt or took offense to something he said or did. Would 'if you don't like it, you shouldn't have watched it' be a valid response? Prior to watching / hearing / ingesting / sniffing / fondling something, you will not know what your authentic reaction to said thing will be.
- SO. Unless all audience members are psychic, or unless those who use the 'if you don't like it, don't watch/ listen to/ ingest/ sniff/ fondle it' line are only speaking to those who are fully educated about the 'it' that they would be watching, I think we can assume that this line is NOT a defense of free-speech in a public forum but actually a defense of hubris, because someone who didn't know you doesn't like you.

Discuss.

Also, discuss the whole rape thing, if you want.

You are truly a woman of great words.

First off, none of that crap you brought up matters for the simple point that she interrupted the guy's performance. You don't do that no matter how much you dislike and disagree what you are seeing. People paid tickets for the show to see the guy perform, not you.

But Tosh's reaction and replied to the heckler was way out of line and frankly pretty horrible. So in the end Tosh is a jerk and hecklers are a jerk. America is a jerk too (and so in the rest of the world), but it has nothing really to do with this topic so I have no idea why it is in your title.


E: just so we are clear Tosh is the biggest jerk of them all and what he did was way way way worst then the heckler's actions.

Thanks, yo. I try to make my words like sweet honey pouring from a golden flower on a nice summer day, in space.

Two potential scenarios.
1. Let's say she politely went up to him after the show and voiced her disapproval. Reread previous argument as if nothing has changed aside from that.
2. Let's say she didn't, though. She heckled, he responded. She still had the free speech to be a jerk, and he also had the free speech to be a jerk. Hate to say it, but I'm arguing pro-heckler's rights. She also paid money to go to that show, and at a comedy show, even if you don't know shit about the performer, you should at least know that if you heckle, you will get heckled back. Same as if you are a performer, you should know that if you're on stage, you will probably get heckled [unusual that in this case it was a young woman; usually the age-to-heckle ratio is proportionate].
3. Let's say that this isn't even about Tosh anymore! Just hecklers and the heckled.

As for the title thing, I thought maybe people would click on this thread if I asked if America was a jerk.

No no no, that isn't how it works. Buying a ticket doesn't give you the right to heckle. That isn't how it works, that isn't how it is suppose to work, and that is just silly. Yeah she paid for a ticket, you who else paid for a ticket? The rest of the audience.

Oh yeah sure if you stand up comic you should expect a chance of heckling. Does that mean there should be any? No.

A stand up comedy performance is not a public forum.

I've got an opinion or two on the matter, but I've about burned myself out on this topic already so I'll give you the Reader's Digest version.

1.) Don't heckle comedians. Don't. Please don't. I'm not saying we don't have the right to stand up to people that are hurting us, or that Tosh shouldn't be called out for his bullshit or whatever whatever whatever what I'm saying is that when a significant portion of the crowd is enraptured by a man with a microphone, loudly calling that man out in front of his audience isn't going to end well. You don't necessarily need to pick your battles--you can fight whatever battles you want--but always think about how to fight them. Organized protests, big Tumblr hububs, all of that can get your message across. Heckling a comedian is, nine out of ten times, going to get you hurt more. Am I saying it was wrong to call him out? No, there was nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying that it was not smart if a person is looking to do anything but make the situation worse. Especially given that said comedian had just proved he was a tactless douche, so it's not like he was going to suddenly see the error of his ways in the middle of being cheered on and encouraged to be a tactless douche.

Again, I don't see anything wrong with trying to put him in his place--he certainly needs it--I just wouldn't try to do it in the middle of his performance because ain't nothin' gon' get done that way. It's just throwing fuel on the fire. Though, I also understand how one might be, say, a little emotional in that situation, and I'm sure she wasn't exactly thinking things through with the clearest of insights. Long story short: heckling comedians is not usually a great idea. Especially when said comedians eat, sleep and breathe controversy.

2.) Tosh is a jerk and I think that's been long established by... well, his entire routine at pretty much anything. He's not good at being lewd and offensive, he relies on it. Unlike, say, George Carlin or Lewis Black who could elaborate a topic and present an intriguing point of view decorated with a number of really offensive statements, Daniel Tosh tends to go WHEE LOOK HOW MANY AWFUL THINGS I CAN SAY IN A SHORT SPAN OF TIME and that's kinda it. I won't get into why people like that, or I'll be here all day on numerous tangents. Long story short yes, he is some kind of rodent, I don't know which.

The truly offensive thing about Tosh is how unfunny he is.

But but but abortions/rape/spousal abuse! I'm casually mentioning things that are not usually taken lightly, isn't that the definition of comedy?!

Yeah I can't say I'm a fan, but that's a different topic entirely I'm sure.

I'm going to suggest Naked Mole Rat - he would totally want to show off his junk the whole time, all the time.

fuck daniel tosh.

Idk, people here say that you shouldn't heckle comedians, no matter what, but I disagree. If someone goes over the line, they deserve being called out on it. Think about kramer flipping his shit, should people just have taken that as well? How far are comedians allowed to go? I think if you say something offensive and bigoted enough, you deserve being called out on it. And from what I've heard, he did step over the line.

A lot of people seem to think that rape jokes are just a matter of the taste of people offended, but if you actually listen to what people complain about specifically you will see that the issue is more complicated than that: Rape jokes normalize rape. I'm not going to go into this too much because I'm not very eloquent about the subject, but you can find good literature and essays on it pretty easily.

And here's the other thing: Now it's become a thing. Had that woman just complained to him after the show quietly he would probably just have been like "sure whatever" and continued telling rape jokes.

IDK In my opinion, tosh is a jerk and anyone who says "it's just a joke, calm down" or "if you don't like it, don't read/watch/listen to it" is a jerk.

End of opinion.

I agree.
As much as I see Morgenstern's and Mr. Capp's points about inappropriate heckling, I think that this example is different from your every-day heckle because of the subject matter.

If she was heckling Tosh about his joke about grandma-sized undies [which may or may not have happened, I don't know], then yeah, what a bitch.
But she was heckling Tosh about RAPE.

Hey guys, Rape is a BIG DEAL.

And rape jokes are SENSITIVE MATERIAL.

And perhaps it was rude of her to interrupt him but had she not called him out publicly, there would now be no public media debate about the appropriateness of rape jokes, and how to deal with the sensitive topic of rape in every-day media.

She was not a heckler - she was an INSTIGATOR.

Oh, I don't give a shit about how rude heckling is. I just don't generally recommend it because the immediate battle is usually a losing one. By all means, I still would have taken it up with the show host/manager/whatever, and stirred up a shit storm on the internet like she did. But unless the intent of calling out the comedian mid-show is to try and make it a more enticing news story (which it did, but I doubt that was her original goal--she probably didn't imagine it blowing up like this), it usually just leads to hurt feelings (which is what happened at first--it put her in a more awkward, more uncomfortable situation where she felt even worse for a while).

For this story, there's a hundred or more stories of people who were offended by a rape/spousal abuse/miscarriage/whatever joke whose stories didn't become a Tumblr sensation and they were just left humiliated in front of a live audience. I'm not saying she was wrong to heckle him--and in this case, it worked out in her favor by helping to draw media attention to a bigger fiasco than it would have been. Just... normally it's not the best way to handle things. I don't know, maybe I just underestimate heckling power after reading a slew of... less successful stories.

I think the media response depends on
[a] how famous the person being heckled is
[b] the supposed vulnerability of the heckler
[c] the topic of the heckle
[d] the initial response of the heckler

Tosh is famous. Undeniably.

On a vulnerability scale, I'd place the girl at a 4 out of 10, with 1 being hella vulnerable, and 10 being The Incredible Hulk without any stopping power. This rating is composed from the following factors: - she hadn't heard of Tosh. - based on her age / location / etc description, she's probably a young 20-something female Liberal Arts student speaking out about rape in a Tosh audience. Maybe even a rape victim.

Topic of heckle was rape. HOT BUTTON ISSUE.

Response to heckle was 'go get raped', essentially. HOT BUTTON RESPONSE.

Yes, this heckle did cause the heckler immediate pain - but the long-term result of the heckle has probably been very fulfilling for her. I still can't really think of other heckles and interruptions that were not planned by social groups...except maybe this famous heckle that was unintentionally famous, and may have ended badly for the heckler [ no one knows] but did oodles for his cause in the end:



but in the end, HER [Toshgirl] heckle had the impact of a staged demonstration.

Though I will agree with your point [or what I believe is your point], that the GREAT MAJORITY of heckles are petty and ineffectual and are rooted in self-aggrandizement.

No.
That picture is not relevant to this situation. You don't get to compare that to this.

Also, you didn't need to bold and put rape in allcaps earlier, I think I know its bad.

But moving on, you really think she was doing something new? Believe it or not they have been a lot of heckles of this type, they are not all drunks making their own little jokes.
No you see, her heckle wasn't want brought this out in the public, and it isn't the biggest news story. It's Toshs horrible retort, where he told a joke (if you can call it a joke) where he was basically one step away from telling the audience to rape her. If there was a right time to heckle, it was when he was doing that.

But even then it would have kept on being ignore if the heckler hadn't posted this to tumblr. That is the action that actually sparked everything here. That was probably the best thing she did in this whole situation, next to getting the hell out of dodge after Tosh retaliated.

Sure, if she didn't heckle and caused Tosh's reaction the tumblr post wouldn't have attracted that much attention. But does that justified everything? No.

Tosh is a jerk. I don't even care about the whole heckling part or his response, because rape jokes are never funny.

Actually Mr. Capps, I threw in that picture to show that this is not new at all, and that people taking actions in public forums even when it's inappropriate is only noted when it's not conventionally done. Perhaps you are just unfamiliar with the incident at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Look it up. Not 100% relevant to Rape and Tosh, but relevant to the discussion, if you'd like it to be.

The question I am trying to raise has nothing to do with Daniel Tosh.

I could not give a flying fuck about Daniel Tosh - we've already determined that Tosh himself is a douchenozzle.
I could not give a flying fuck about this single situation about Daniel Tosh and some chick who was offended by Daniel Tosh - we've already determined that maybe they both went about things in less-than-appropriate ways.

What we are discussing are the implications of these actions.

I think your last line just about sums it up:



If she didn't heckle, no one would have said a thing. She [her friend, actually; she did not post a thing] would have been just another aggy responder who got ignored by the whole internet. Sometimes it takes a bold action to get noticed, EVEN IF THIS IS NOT YOUR INTENTION - even if your intention is to just be a self-righteous jerk who can't wait until after a performance to make a point. This woman [who I am not calling a self-righteous jerk, let it be stated] most likely did not intend any future actions to be taken and just wanted to [loudly and publicly and in an emotional fervor] tell tosh to eff off. However, she opened up panel for a national discussion.

No no no no no no no no no no.
Listen here, maybe its you who is not familiar with the incident at Tianamen Square. OK? Because that situation is nothing like this piece of celebrity gossip bullshit. You don't get to compare this to that, but if you want, I guess we can compare the two.

Most estimates of the number of deaths that took place during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 range from several hundreds to thousands. The protestors were calling for economic reform, freedom of the press, accountability from officials, and political liberalization. During all of this Tank Man step in front of a column of tanks and stop them before he was drag off. He was probably killed sometime afterwards.

The heckler shouted "rape jokes are never funny" and then got an earful of a rather nasty replied from Daniel Tosh. Afterwards she went home and posted her story on Tumblr.

You do not get to compare the two.

And stop with the public forum crap.

Oh my, THIS topic. How fun.

Should the woman have been heckling Tosh? Probably not, it's a little rude, but frankly that's the reality of being a stand-up comedian (a couple of my friends are professionals. I've learned comedians use that term pretty loosely) and how they respond is typically the test of a truly intelligent, funny comedian.

Daniel Tosh is not that.

Her heckle was barely even that, "Rape is never funny" is probably the WEAKEST heckle of all time, and handling it should have been pretty simple for a comedian who thinks he has the chops to challenge the offensive/humor barrier. I mean, of course, if you're going to take on THAT subject, you've got to be a really intelligent person with a solid grasp on human nature.

Oh, wait, no... no, I guess all you need to be doing is ripping off George Carlin and completely mangling the bit.

Really, the WORST part of all this are the people defending the douche along the lines of "other people have made rape jokes!" or "hecklers are asking for it!", many of them now citing the exact video I just linked as proof that he's NOT a bad person, comedian, and human being.

Sorry folks, but that's not how it works. Lets list off his offenses, by rank of severity:

1. He was stealing, and then mangling, whole lines from the act of a MUCH better comedian.
2. He considers "rape is never funny" a heckle, one he obviously didn't know how to respond to, which makes him a GIANT wuss.
3. He handles "hecklers" (again, any DECENT comedian would laugh at anyone weak enough to call it that) by telling them they need to be gang raped by the rest of the audience.
4. His entire career is built on simply spouting memes from 2004 and back, with not a SINGLE thing he does being original.

THIS is the proper order of his douchery!

If you honestly think that he's in any way not COMPLETELY in the wrong, from the very nature of his bit to the resolution of the talked-about situation, you're either trying to be the "edgy" type by blindly defending someone nigh unanimously considered a talentless ass or, frankly, you're a pretty reprehensible person who should reevaluate their personal code of ethics. Rape jokes and freedom of speech aren't the problem here, nobody I've seen (nobody worth taking seriously, anyway) has tried to say he shouldn't be ALLOWED to make the joke he was ruining, that's simply not the problem here (and if you think it is, you're missing the point). Freedom of speech allows you to say whatever you want without fear of imprisonment, it does NOT excuse your from the consequences of what you say. The woman posting about the situation is a consequence. The rage the bullshit he pulls in a comedy club because there are no cameras and he thinks he can get away with it caused, that's a consequence.

I really loathe people who use that line as a get-out-of-bullshit-free card.

He did this to himself, and then followed it up with a backhanded apology over Twitter, in which he made it clear he wasn't actually sorry but was being forced to say so. Yeah, see, I used to follow him because on occasion I got some nostalgic humor out of his tweets. That didn't change because he made a rape joke, it changed because of how BAD the joke was, and how he responded to anyone telling him he isn't funny.

Daniel Tosh is the adult version of that grade-school kid who sneaks porn into class, eats bugs for attention, stabs the kids sitting in front of him with pencils to make them yelp and get in trouble, and then doesn't feel bad about what he did, only that he got caught. That's who we're discussing.

Sounds like a champ.

Oh, and another thing...

You do not get to tell someone how they make their point, even if they make it in a really stupid manner.

You DO, however, get to tell them they're saying something stupid. At least they didn't go all Godwin's Law on us.

I'm super glad you read the entirety of my previous response to you, where you can see that I'm actually only talking about that public forum crap, and not at all conflating speaking at a comedy club to protesting the government - I'm talking about how the actions of an individual can be viewed by the public after the media witnesses the event. ::thumbs up::



Best point so far. Tosh could have just ignored the entire thing.

No, Tosh. It would not be funny. It is not funny to gangrape someone because they didn't think you were funny.


It would be funny if five guys raped Hitler. That, I think that's okay. Rape is okay if it's happening to Hitler. I don't think I'm being controversial when I say that. I don't think it's unreasonable to give a free pass to rape Hitler.

But just to be on the safe side, let's say the rapists are clowns. A bunch of clowns raping Hitler at a comedy club, halfway through a Daniel Tosh stand-up bit would be the only legitimately funny thing that audience would remember.


There could be cartoon sound-effects going on at the time. Maybe they all pulled up in a little van while carnival music was playing:

~Doo-doo-doodoodoodoo-doo-doo-doooo-doo.~


"ACH! MEIN BUTT!!"


=========


Daniel Tosh is incapable of being funny on his own. He needs youtube videos to do all of the heavy-lifting, and then thinks that because people are laughing at something next to him, it must mean he's funny. He's one of those fish that eats parasites off of sharks, feeding off of the scraps because it's not strong enough to catch its own food. And then when people call him out for being an unfunny waste of life, he tells them he's "edgy" and that they should be raped.


Anyone who confuses Daniel Tosh for a comedian is a drooling idiot.

Tumblr's spilling out over the rest of the interwebs!

Daniel Tosh is a giant douche, and the woman who tried to argue with him in the middle of his performance was unprepared to fight a comedian. If you're going to fight a comedian on his own turf, you need to be just as clever or even more so, even if you're fighting a subject that's so obviously wrong. But regardless, Tosh made jokes that were horribly inappropriate and really should have known better, and I'm glad that his really off-color jokes are brought into the spotlight.

'Murica can be a bigass jerk. No doubt.

On the subject of rape and rape culture, I'm not exactly sure where I stand on it. Because yes, rape is a terrible awful thing, but so is racism, yet racist jokes are highly prevalent and most people get a good laugh out of them. Why is it okay to make racist jokes yet rape jokes should be off the table? I don't think all rape jokes normalize rape, just as not all racist jokes make people racist. I think the issue with a lot of rape jokes out there is that they make fun of the rape victim, which cements the arcane & cruel idea that the people who are raped are at fault.

Rape jokes are tricky territory and there's a problem with a large chunk of existing rape jokes. But if all rape jokes should be banned, so should all racist jokes, all religious jokes, all political jokes, and any other off-color offensive-to-someone joke. Either everything's on the table or none are, and additionally, people should have the right to protest against what they want.