Good riddance. Colbert along with John Oliver and Jimmy Kimmel have become insufferable. They force you to ask do the Democrats ever do anything funny anymore because they certainly would never joke about it.
Does anyone remember when comedians were willing to make fun of the foibles of both parties? Now Colbert, Kimmel, and Oliver are so one sided they sound like scolds. Only Bill Maher, Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle are willing to take shots at both sides. They remain funny. The others not.
This seems incorrect? Watch any current Daily Show segment, they mock liberal politicians all the time. Even when they clearly do so from a liberal perspective ("This politician is out of touch and failing to achieve liberal aims"), they certainly don't refrain from calling Chuck Schumer or Joe Biden or any Democrat out for being ineffective and weak. The idea that liberal politicians are somehow sacred cows in all of liberal comedy seems obviously wrong.
I'd say the biggest difference between Stewart/Oliver and the people you mention is a drive to mock liberal voters, rather than politicians. There's a kind of overt cruelty to it that feels asymmetrical. Right-wing comedians like Gervais are eager to mock marginalized leftist communities (like trans people), but left-wing comedians don't spend an equivalent amount of time symmetrically mocking caricatures of Cletus the slack-jawed Alabama yokel.
In general, left-wing comedy tends to target the powerful (politicians) and right-wing comedy tends to target the weak (trans people, immigrants, racial minorities, etc.) This feels like the biggest practical difference between the two, far more than any pretensions towards 'Smugness' or whatever. You seriously think Greg Gutfeld and Ricky Gervais aren't smug people?
Kira: An interesting response. Where I think you err is in believing that trans people, racial minorities and immigrants are “weak” in the woke world we have recently lived in. The reverse is true and it is only slowly becoming more equal.
I think this is correct in a sense. Liberal culture really values giving protection to the weak, and takes status from people who are seen to actively attack weak and vulnerable minorities. It regards this as a kind of mitigating measure against individual abuse, where the only way to you protect the vulnerable is by exacting high social costs from even powerful people who try to target them.
I think conservatives often misread this though, and assume that because you can't costlessly make fun of trans people in liberal society, that trans people or immigrants are somehow "strong" in every other sense. The idea is that they're somehow ruling over and dominating all of liberal culture and enforcing their will. I think this largely isn't true of even woke liberalism, and the people with the most money and power and direct influence in liberal society still tend to be predominantly white and male normies rather than minorities. The most powerful opinion-setters I met in college weren't the immigrants or the trans people, it was white male professors who were eager to talk about how deferent they were towards the needs of immigrants and trans people.
This whole thing probably looks weird and confusing from the outside. I think a lot of conservatives get really frustrated by it, and we've seen a huge demand for Republican Wokeness that will culturally give the social protection to white men that minorities enjoy. But it's important to understand that the social capital minorities receive in liberal culture is actually very specific and very limited in scope. Minorities still tend to be predominantly poor and live pretty rough lives, on net. They're not the kings or the princes, more like the blind oracles in the temple. Given special deference and privileges from certain aspects of liberal society, but easily cast aside if things turn bad.
I think this is something that Richard missed. The three you mention and others have turned into such smug, moralizing scolds, with such perfect fidelity to the Bluesky daily talking points, that they turn off even many people whose politics are basically aligned with them. That is notably not true, for instance, of the people you mention and also some of the writers on SNL, who are still willing to ridicule Democrats, at least when the fruit hangs low enough.
Left or right, the people who are visibly playing scared, afraid of being canceled by their "side," are just not funny.
Professional comedy needs to be pretty clever to be worth engaging with. Else, why not just trade hacky jokes with your friends? I'm no Republican and Fox News is terrible, but Colbert and ilk stopped being clever enough to bother with. Colbert Report was great. Late Show with him was not. Plus, once you understand even Econ 101, it's pretty unfunny to listen to people as they reveal their complete ignorance.
If you look at many of the "culture war" issues that divide Republicans and Democrats, the partisan divide wasn't that great in the 1980s. Most Democrats disapproved of gay marriage; they supported border security; views on race weren't as partisan as they are today. Democrats had a sizeable conservative faction; the Rockefeller Republicans were liberal.
It was only in the 1990s that ideological sorting began to accelerate, with conservatives fleeing the Democrats and liberals fleeing the Republicans (see Kevin Philips).
In the beginning of the Bush presidency, 9/11 helped to obscure and disguise these deep divisions. By 2005, when the Colbert Report first aired, the honeymoon was over.
Comedy is tied to a crisis of authority and legitimacy. When you believe that the two parties are both legitimate (even if you prefer one over the other), you afford each one a degree of respect and decorum. As faith in democracy declines, humor becomes a weapon, and everything is fair game.
Fox News has existed far longer than political comedy hasn't been funny. Although Colbert was never *that* funny.
If someone never noticed the shift from clever (funny) satirization to ham-fisted insults or arguments, I question whether that person has a sense of humour at all.
Humour makes you laugh when it displays intelligence. It notices connections between things; it demonstrates an apprehension of nuances. Jon Stewart could make me laugh even if he was saying something objectively questionable: because just the idea of it was funny.
The Onion was putting out headlines to the effect of "Population Honestly Just Tired of this Trump Shit," and it left a hole so big that conservatives started trying to do comedy (the Bee is often unfunny in the same way but it did have a few good ones).
Let's look at a random Bee headline: "Israel botches genocide by sending millions in food aid to Gaza."
Apparently if you support Israel, this is going to be hilarious just because you agree with the point. I can make a comedy career off such an audience, feeding them Ben Shapiro monologues reframed as jokes.
I think part is that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert's intended comedy not just targetted liberals, but also a wide range of demographics. It was mildly funny to many liberals, but very funny to few. In contrast to the Colbert Report, which was the type of humour I think young men are more into. That switch made it seem to the young men on the internet that Colbert became unfunny, when really he shifted audiences
Colbert broadcasts from the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York and has a nine piece band. I’ve read different numbers on his headcount, but it seems to be around 200 people. And Colbert himself makes about $15 million a year. Expenses of around $110 million ad against revenue of $70 million seems plausible.
Gutfeld probably doesn’t have the revenue it should given its ratings, but it competes with Colbert in the ratings but has a staff of about 20 and a host who makes about $1 million a year.
Politicians must do new and novel things to generate new and novel political jokes. Unfortunately, politicians, like criminals, are one-trick ponies.
Election years probably make good political jokes possible because there is a new cast of politicians, each generating at least one novel thing that will generate a novel joke. Off years, not so many novel things to generate novel political jokes.
Maybe comedians should push for term limits to get new material more often.
The problem with this discourse is that the 2020 era liberals really were right when they said 'everything is political'.
You bring up your Christian faith in a stand-up set. Maybe this is not political to a rural church-goer, but it is absolutely political to a gay teen disowned by her Evangelical family, a militant atheist, or a member of the Taliban.
You bring up your mom in a standup set who maybe left your dad in her 50s because she realized she was gay. This might seem not very political to a standard 'Elite Human Capital' member, but it is very political to a pastor who thinks homosexuality is a sin, a practicing LDS member, or a conservative parent who knows their middle school aged boy likes finding stand-up comedy online and is afraid of him getting 'indoctrinated into the LGBT agenda'.
You bring up your kids a lot in a stand-up set. This might seem very unpolitical to a married parent of four, but it might seem more political to childfree people who celebrate having their tubes tied, stringent feminists, and hardcore manosphere guys ('the man raising the kids is emasculating!').
So on and so forth. The idea that Americans can all unite and find the same things funny implies that we all share a good amount of 'common ground'. But we do not share this common ground. A rural white American and a Dartmouth grad who works at McKinsey have as much common ground as that rural white American and a member of the Taliban. Consequently, we can no longer 'come together' and find the same things funny.
Gotta say that Vax Scene bit was absolutely terrifying, my equivalent of a Soviet child taking a closer look at his supermarket and realizing there's no food and it's all cardboard cutouts.
The Trump era has been bad for political humor. The problem for me is making fun of Trump or his supporters seems like punching down. This is because of the way the Republican Party has changed from a party of wealthy elites to the party of the proles. Making fun of proles is not funny, not even their wealthy and powerful leader.
It seemed so different just one Republican ago. Bush and Cheney represented rich elites in a way that Trump doesn’t.
The people to mock today are the woke elite, but the talented comedians don’t want to target them. It’s a tough situation.
There is some truth to this, but you can laugh at the proles if you are clever about it. You can joke about anything if you are clever.
Earlier John Oliver stuff made fun of the bottom of society, but it was funny because he found really hokey stuff and it highlighted how you shouldn't burden unintelligent people with bad incentives.
This is a somewhat narrow view of comedy. Historically comedy has mocked the powerful. Aristophanes, Menander, Terrance, Plautus, Moliere, Johnson, Comedia Dell Arte, etc, etc. The examples in this newsletter are comedians attacking The Evil Orange One. All well and good but what about other powerful interests: big tech/pharma, MSM, the Democrats, finance, AI.
I think your use of “the Orange one” is a good demonstration of the point that comedy depends on beliefs about reality. When people talk like that, it’s a sign that they think criticisms of Trump are exagaratted or unhinged. To me, it’s not funny, because Trump is as bad as his worst critics allege, and the backlash to him hasn’t been nearly proportionate to his corruption and stupidity. You want more equal time given to mocking Democrats because you think they’re as bad or worse, but I think their personal and ethical flaws are 1/100th that of Trump so I don’t see the need.
You voted for him twice. This pendulum swinging isn’t credible and the use of vast exaggeration in your comment comes off as trolling, which you’ve previously said is reserved for twitter.
You need to pay closer attention. I said before the election that he attempted a coup that he should’ve been locked up for life for, he was the worst person in politics and all the scandals about him are real. I thought he was restrained so voted for him. But I was wrong about how hollowed out the GOP was as an independent force. I am not exaggerating in any way here.
I wrote on the traditions of comedy. Almost all of the playwrights I mentioned would call Trump The Evil Orange One since sarcasm and mockery were frequent techniques. The Braggart Soldier is one example. I was commenting that there is much less comedy focusing on other powerful interests: big tech/pharma, MSM, the Democrats, finance, AI.
They were attacking The Evil Orange when he was out of power 2021-2024. Not so much jokes about Joe Robinette. So yes, it is very much about punching down.
I don't think Jimmy Fallon is regarded a political (and many on the left dislike him because of that), but his schtick seems entirely possible (even if the general erosion of linear TV ratings applies to him as well). Conan O'Brien is thought of as weirder, but not more political.
> The type of comedy performed by John Oliver and Stephen Colbert would hardly make sense in a world without Fox News
Coincidentally, Fox News and The Daily Show both started in 1996.
I don't think it's surprising that people enjoy Colbert's show, but do they enjoy it as humor? Plenty of people enjoy reading you, but you're not funny. That's not meant to be an insult. You don't write a humor substack, even if you occasionally sprinkle in some chuckle-worthy comments. I don't think his show is really comedy anymore than Rachel Maddow's or Tucker Carlson's. That doesn't mean it's bad or his politics are bad or that he's bad, just that this conversation misclassifies him.
There is a market for comedians making political and cultural observations, but it's a less lucrative one. That's arguably what Joe Rogan's podcast is and it's one of the most successful. But Rogan's episodes don't cost six figures an hour. I think Colbert will land on his feet making a podcast that's able to turn a profit doing the same stuff he does now but with a much lower cost.
Edit: I browsed the show's subreddit to see what fans thought but most recent posts are about the cancellation. I did find one topic from 2024 that talked about the possibility of the show ending. While many people say they want the show to continue, no one says it's because they need the laughs.
Good riddance. Colbert along with John Oliver and Jimmy Kimmel have become insufferable. They force you to ask do the Democrats ever do anything funny anymore because they certainly would never joke about it.
Does anyone remember when comedians were willing to make fun of the foibles of both parties? Now Colbert, Kimmel, and Oliver are so one sided they sound like scolds. Only Bill Maher, Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle are willing to take shots at both sides. They remain funny. The others not.
This seems incorrect? Watch any current Daily Show segment, they mock liberal politicians all the time. Even when they clearly do so from a liberal perspective ("This politician is out of touch and failing to achieve liberal aims"), they certainly don't refrain from calling Chuck Schumer or Joe Biden or any Democrat out for being ineffective and weak. The idea that liberal politicians are somehow sacred cows in all of liberal comedy seems obviously wrong.
I'd say the biggest difference between Stewart/Oliver and the people you mention is a drive to mock liberal voters, rather than politicians. There's a kind of overt cruelty to it that feels asymmetrical. Right-wing comedians like Gervais are eager to mock marginalized leftist communities (like trans people), but left-wing comedians don't spend an equivalent amount of time symmetrically mocking caricatures of Cletus the slack-jawed Alabama yokel.
In general, left-wing comedy tends to target the powerful (politicians) and right-wing comedy tends to target the weak (trans people, immigrants, racial minorities, etc.) This feels like the biggest practical difference between the two, far more than any pretensions towards 'Smugness' or whatever. You seriously think Greg Gutfeld and Ricky Gervais aren't smug people?
Kira: An interesting response. Where I think you err is in believing that trans people, racial minorities and immigrants are “weak” in the woke world we have recently lived in. The reverse is true and it is only slowly becoming more equal.
I think this is correct in a sense. Liberal culture really values giving protection to the weak, and takes status from people who are seen to actively attack weak and vulnerable minorities. It regards this as a kind of mitigating measure against individual abuse, where the only way to you protect the vulnerable is by exacting high social costs from even powerful people who try to target them.
I think conservatives often misread this though, and assume that because you can't costlessly make fun of trans people in liberal society, that trans people or immigrants are somehow "strong" in every other sense. The idea is that they're somehow ruling over and dominating all of liberal culture and enforcing their will. I think this largely isn't true of even woke liberalism, and the people with the most money and power and direct influence in liberal society still tend to be predominantly white and male normies rather than minorities. The most powerful opinion-setters I met in college weren't the immigrants or the trans people, it was white male professors who were eager to talk about how deferent they were towards the needs of immigrants and trans people.
This whole thing probably looks weird and confusing from the outside. I think a lot of conservatives get really frustrated by it, and we've seen a huge demand for Republican Wokeness that will culturally give the social protection to white men that minorities enjoy. But it's important to understand that the social capital minorities receive in liberal culture is actually very specific and very limited in scope. Minorities still tend to be predominantly poor and live pretty rough lives, on net. They're not the kings or the princes, more like the blind oracles in the temple. Given special deference and privileges from certain aspects of liberal society, but easily cast aside if things turn bad.
I think this is something that Richard missed. The three you mention and others have turned into such smug, moralizing scolds, with such perfect fidelity to the Bluesky daily talking points, that they turn off even many people whose politics are basically aligned with them. That is notably not true, for instance, of the people you mention and also some of the writers on SNL, who are still willing to ridicule Democrats, at least when the fruit hangs low enough.
Left or right, the people who are visibly playing scared, afraid of being canceled by their "side," are just not funny.
You clearly did not read the article and just came down here to comment
Professional comedy needs to be pretty clever to be worth engaging with. Else, why not just trade hacky jokes with your friends? I'm no Republican and Fox News is terrible, but Colbert and ilk stopped being clever enough to bother with. Colbert Report was great. Late Show with him was not. Plus, once you understand even Econ 101, it's pretty unfunny to listen to people as they reveal their complete ignorance.
If you look at many of the "culture war" issues that divide Republicans and Democrats, the partisan divide wasn't that great in the 1980s. Most Democrats disapproved of gay marriage; they supported border security; views on race weren't as partisan as they are today. Democrats had a sizeable conservative faction; the Rockefeller Republicans were liberal.
It was only in the 1990s that ideological sorting began to accelerate, with conservatives fleeing the Democrats and liberals fleeing the Republicans (see Kevin Philips).
In the beginning of the Bush presidency, 9/11 helped to obscure and disguise these deep divisions. By 2005, when the Colbert Report first aired, the honeymoon was over.
Comedy is tied to a crisis of authority and legitimacy. When you believe that the two parties are both legitimate (even if you prefer one over the other), you afford each one a degree of respect and decorum. As faith in democracy declines, humor becomes a weapon, and everything is fair game.
Fox News has existed far longer than political comedy hasn't been funny. Although Colbert was never *that* funny.
If someone never noticed the shift from clever (funny) satirization to ham-fisted insults or arguments, I question whether that person has a sense of humour at all.
Humour makes you laugh when it displays intelligence. It notices connections between things; it demonstrates an apprehension of nuances. Jon Stewart could make me laugh even if he was saying something objectively questionable: because just the idea of it was funny.
The Onion was putting out headlines to the effect of "Population Honestly Just Tired of this Trump Shit," and it left a hole so big that conservatives started trying to do comedy (the Bee is often unfunny in the same way but it did have a few good ones).
Let's look at a random Bee headline: "Israel botches genocide by sending millions in food aid to Gaza."
Apparently if you support Israel, this is going to be hilarious just because you agree with the point. I can make a comedy career off such an audience, feeding them Ben Shapiro monologues reframed as jokes.
I think part is that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert's intended comedy not just targetted liberals, but also a wide range of demographics. It was mildly funny to many liberals, but very funny to few. In contrast to the Colbert Report, which was the type of humour I think young men are more into. That switch made it seem to the young men on the internet that Colbert became unfunny, when really he shifted audiences
Well, Viacom’s shareholders certainly didn’t think losing $40 million a year was funny.
Colbert broadcasts from the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York and has a nine piece band. I’ve read different numbers on his headcount, but it seems to be around 200 people. And Colbert himself makes about $15 million a year. Expenses of around $110 million ad against revenue of $70 million seems plausible.
Gutfeld probably doesn’t have the revenue it should given its ratings, but it competes with Colbert in the ratings but has a staff of about 20 and a host who makes about $1 million a year.
I dunno. South Park makes viciously funny jokes about Trump and is doing great. Maybe Colbert just wasn't funny.
Politicians must do new and novel things to generate new and novel political jokes. Unfortunately, politicians, like criminals, are one-trick ponies.
Election years probably make good political jokes possible because there is a new cast of politicians, each generating at least one novel thing that will generate a novel joke. Off years, not so many novel things to generate novel political jokes.
Maybe comedians should push for term limits to get new material more often.
I stopped at "respect people of color and uplift women".
The problem with this discourse is that the 2020 era liberals really were right when they said 'everything is political'.
You bring up your Christian faith in a stand-up set. Maybe this is not political to a rural church-goer, but it is absolutely political to a gay teen disowned by her Evangelical family, a militant atheist, or a member of the Taliban.
You bring up your mom in a standup set who maybe left your dad in her 50s because she realized she was gay. This might seem not very political to a standard 'Elite Human Capital' member, but it is very political to a pastor who thinks homosexuality is a sin, a practicing LDS member, or a conservative parent who knows their middle school aged boy likes finding stand-up comedy online and is afraid of him getting 'indoctrinated into the LGBT agenda'.
You bring up your kids a lot in a stand-up set. This might seem very unpolitical to a married parent of four, but it might seem more political to childfree people who celebrate having their tubes tied, stringent feminists, and hardcore manosphere guys ('the man raising the kids is emasculating!').
So on and so forth. The idea that Americans can all unite and find the same things funny implies that we all share a good amount of 'common ground'. But we do not share this common ground. A rural white American and a Dartmouth grad who works at McKinsey have as much common ground as that rural white American and a member of the Taliban. Consequently, we can no longer 'come together' and find the same things funny.
Gotta say that Vax Scene bit was absolutely terrifying, my equivalent of a Soviet child taking a closer look at his supermarket and realizing there's no food and it's all cardboard cutouts.
Colbert’s show decline is not because it is political but because it’s completely one sided.
The Trump era has been bad for political humor. The problem for me is making fun of Trump or his supporters seems like punching down. This is because of the way the Republican Party has changed from a party of wealthy elites to the party of the proles. Making fun of proles is not funny, not even their wealthy and powerful leader.
It seemed so different just one Republican ago. Bush and Cheney represented rich elites in a way that Trump doesn’t.
The people to mock today are the woke elite, but the talented comedians don’t want to target them. It’s a tough situation.
Just stop caring about "punching down" or "punching up". Punch in the direction of being funny.
Republican Party is still full of wealthy elites you imbecile, except they’ve been losing college educated voters for a while now.
There is some truth to this, but you can laugh at the proles if you are clever about it. You can joke about anything if you are clever.
Earlier John Oliver stuff made fun of the bottom of society, but it was funny because he found really hokey stuff and it highlighted how you shouldn't burden unintelligent people with bad incentives.
This is a somewhat narrow view of comedy. Historically comedy has mocked the powerful. Aristophanes, Menander, Terrance, Plautus, Moliere, Johnson, Comedia Dell Arte, etc, etc. The examples in this newsletter are comedians attacking The Evil Orange One. All well and good but what about other powerful interests: big tech/pharma, MSM, the Democrats, finance, AI.
I think your use of “the Orange one” is a good demonstration of the point that comedy depends on beliefs about reality. When people talk like that, it’s a sign that they think criticisms of Trump are exagaratted or unhinged. To me, it’s not funny, because Trump is as bad as his worst critics allege, and the backlash to him hasn’t been nearly proportionate to his corruption and stupidity. You want more equal time given to mocking Democrats because you think they’re as bad or worse, but I think their personal and ethical flaws are 1/100th that of Trump so I don’t see the need.
You voted for him twice. This pendulum swinging isn’t credible and the use of vast exaggeration in your comment comes off as trolling, which you’ve previously said is reserved for twitter.
You need to pay closer attention. I said before the election that he attempted a coup that he should’ve been locked up for life for, he was the worst person in politics and all the scandals about him are real. I thought he was restrained so voted for him. But I was wrong about how hollowed out the GOP was as an independent force. I am not exaggerating in any way here.
I wrote on the traditions of comedy. Almost all of the playwrights I mentioned would call Trump The Evil Orange One since sarcasm and mockery were frequent techniques. The Braggart Soldier is one example. I was commenting that there is much less comedy focusing on other powerful interests: big tech/pharma, MSM, the Democrats, finance, AI.
They were attacking The Evil Orange when he was out of power 2021-2024. Not so much jokes about Joe Robinette. So yes, it is very much about punching down.
You’re the retard who forgot that tech, finance and other industries shifted right and helped put Trump in office.
I don't think Jimmy Fallon is regarded a political (and many on the left dislike him because of that), but his schtick seems entirely possible (even if the general erosion of linear TV ratings applies to him as well). Conan O'Brien is thought of as weirder, but not more political.
> The type of comedy performed by John Oliver and Stephen Colbert would hardly make sense in a world without Fox News
Coincidentally, Fox News and The Daily Show both started in 1996.
I don't think it's surprising that people enjoy Colbert's show, but do they enjoy it as humor? Plenty of people enjoy reading you, but you're not funny. That's not meant to be an insult. You don't write a humor substack, even if you occasionally sprinkle in some chuckle-worthy comments. I don't think his show is really comedy anymore than Rachel Maddow's or Tucker Carlson's. That doesn't mean it's bad or his politics are bad or that he's bad, just that this conversation misclassifies him.
There is a market for comedians making political and cultural observations, but it's a less lucrative one. That's arguably what Joe Rogan's podcast is and it's one of the most successful. But Rogan's episodes don't cost six figures an hour. I think Colbert will land on his feet making a podcast that's able to turn a profit doing the same stuff he does now but with a much lower cost.
Edit: I browsed the show's subreddit to see what fans thought but most recent posts are about the cancellation. I did find one topic from 2024 that talked about the possibility of the show ending. While many people say they want the show to continue, no one says it's because they need the laughs.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LateShow/comments/1gkt9n7/will_stephen_retire_in_the_next_few_years/