Jon Stewart leaving The Daily Show

[JasonM]

The best reaction from Noah is just to sincerely apologize for his stupid and offensive actions and put that all behind him. Like RPS said, everyone has made stupid comments in their lives and there's no need for him to have no career because he made stupid jokes in the past.

[MDK]

I'm not offended by the Jewish jokes, he doesn't have to apologise to me. I'll be okay.

[RPS]

I'm not offended by the Jewish jokes, he doesn't have to apologise to me. I'll be okay.

Call me crazy, but I don't think Mr. Noah had any intentions on personally apologizing to you...

[MDK]

I'm not offended by the Jewish jokes, he doesn't have to apologise to me. I'll be okay.

Call me crazy, but I don't think Mr. Noah had any intentions on personally apologizing to you...

Well now I definitely want an apology

[gunnar hendershow]

You'd be amazed how many comedians have jokes like that as they find their footing, unfortunately for Noah his are on social media and not some vhs from a comedy club in Little Rock.

Granted I know Noah has been a name and a face for awhile in South Africa, which begs my next question. Are the comedic circumstances in South Africa different? Are there things people there aren't bothered by given their cultural history that we in more progressive countries are much more sensitive to?

[punky]

Most comedians only put up jokes on Twitter, especially the younger ones. This is where that line between actual persons views and jokes can get skewed. Buzzfeed could go on hundreds of other comedians Twitter feeds and find the same thing but then again, those guys aren't taking over a big show like TDS.

[livid]

Not only does he talk about it in his material but it only took me 5 seconds of Google to find out that his mother is Jewish. I'm not saying that necessarily absolves him of anything but the fact that that isn't even mentioned in the BuzzFeed story is lazy at best. Context is extremely important in comedy and ignoring any part of it will create a false sense of intent.

[zero]

Remind me to delete every post I've made here before I send my application to Comedy Central.

I know "but... it was a joke!" is pretty much over as an argument, but I've always felt actual comedians deserve a little more leniency there than random douchebags saying they're "joking" when they're actually very clearly making a threat or saying something shockingly hateful. Noah was working shit out as a young comedian trying to be edgy. Because he looked so "safe" by current standards and was relatively unknown when announced as the new host, these tweets come across as pretty shocking.

But imagine if Chris Rock was picked as the host of The Daily Show. Everyone would be all "oh cool, Chris Rock is hosting The Daily Show! Best comedian on earth, sharp mind, in touch with politics, great pick!" But Chris Rock has made countless jokes that would be considered misogynistic, racist, homophobic, etc. and many of them were just in his last stand-up special. But he's built the credibility that no one would even bother pointing them out.

Noah is handling the backlash rather poorly, but my patience is wearing thin with the circular firing squad that is progressive politics. Humor is supposed to be where we can tackle uncomfortable truths, mock the powerful, and even laugh at ourselves a little bit, but even saying that makes me sound like an asshole these days.

[Franklin_1]

Obviously some of those jokes were in poor taste, though I have to say, I thought the fear joke was more self deprecating than misogynistic Maybe I'm just reading it wrong.

[Your Mom]

I thought he was pretty good the few times I saw him on the show but man I don't know now. I am going to wait and see I guess

[gunnar hendershow]

Remind me to delete every post I've made here before I send my application to Comedy Central.

I know "but... it was a joke!" is pretty much over as an argument, but I've always felt actual comedians deserve a little more leniency there than random douchebags saying they're "joking" when they're actually very clearly making a threat or saying something shockingly hateful. Noah was working shit out as a young comedian trying to be edgy. Because he looked so "safe" by current standards and was relatively unknown when announced as the new host, these tweets come across as pretty shocking.

But imagine if Chris Rock was picked as the host of The Daily Show. Everyone would be all "oh cool, Chris Rock is hosting The Daily Show! Best comedian on earth, sharp mind, in touch with politics, great pick!" But Chris Rock has made countless jokes that would be considered misogynistic, racist, homophobic, etc. and many of them were just in his last stand-up special. But he's built the credibility that no one would even bother pointing them out.

Noah is handling the backlash rather poorly, but my patience is wearing thin with the circular firing squad that is progressive politics. Humor is supposed to be where we can tackle uncomfortable truths, mock the powerful, and even laugh at ourselves a little bit, but even saying that makes me sound like an asshole these days.

It's very much a mob mentality with this. People aren't looking for context, background, etc. They forget that a comedian's job is to make jokes and all of them have made jokes that have missed. If a guy with 2 million followers can have those jokes sitting around for years and have nobody in his native country complain then, well, that should tell you most of what you need to know. Maybe he's got that credibility where those jokes are deemed acceptable because of the voice telling them.

Fuck this country loved TV shows starring Tim Allen and Drew Carey and Bob Saget and have you seen their stand-up acts? They're fortunate they didn't come up in the days of social media.

[GoGo Yubari]

I've delved into his Twitter some more and mostly I think the conclusion I'm coming to is that he's really not funny on Twitter. But he is funny on The Daily Show and in the clips of his standup I've seen, which is what's actually relevant? Some of those tweets that were singled out were wretched, some were clearly being blown out of proportion (#BeatsByDreidel is more corny than antisemitic).

His statement on the whole thing was pretty fair (well, his second one. The first one he deleted was another joke that didn't really work).

[Pizza]

Fuck this country loved TV shows starring Tim Allen and Drew Carey and Bob Saget and have you seen their stand-up acts? They're fortunate they didn't come up in the days of social media.

They're also white, so they would have been fine. I'm not exactly cool with Noah's tweets, but there's a lot of people who seem extraordinarily happy he messed up.

He has 8000 tweets and maybe 20 were problematic. I was really disappointed by the uppercut tweet, a lot more than any of the supposedly anti-semitic ones, but maybe he was going for something that didn't come across on twitter. I watched his stand up thing on Netflix, and it was much better than his twitter account.

[GoGo Yubari]

I don't think race is the key factor (though it's probably a factor in some of the people who are dogpiling). Remember the Cancel Colbert stuff? The most important factor, I think, is that Trevor Noah is a relative unknown in the States who's suddenly having a spotlight shone on him, and he doesn't have the same kind of built-up goodwill that others have had or anyone really rushing to defend him in the same way. I think if it were some white kid the news cycle would have pretty much been the same.

[Franklin_1]

I really just don't get the commotion. Are some of the jokes in poor taste? Absolutely. Do I think he meant everything he said? I doubt he was really suggesting that man should assault a woman because she turned him down on a wedding proposal. Some of the jokes were funny, I'm sorry but that Bruce Jenner joke was funny. I know my LGBT friends would find that funny. I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't find it funny to be honest. I hate that everyone thinks they are a keyboard activist now that they've pushed a few people out of positions of power.

[TheSqauredCircleMessiah]

The best reaction from Noah is just to sincerely apologize for his stupid and offensive actions and put that all behind him. Like RPS said, everyone has made stupid comments in their lives and there's no need for him to have no career because he made stupid jokes in the past.

But the goal of the angry social media mob is to end people's careers and ruin their lives. Remember that PR consultant who made a dumb joke and got on a plane to South Africa and by the time she landed her life was ruined? The internet demands scalps.

[RPS]

I I know my LGBT friends would find that funny. I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't find it funny to be honest.

I don't find it funny at all, but I'm not overly offended by it. I think it treats being transgender as some sort of flippant choice, which is why people have a problem with it. All I do is a slight eye roll, hope the kid sincerely apologizes and moves on. But I'm also not the butt of the joke.

[Franklin_1]

http://news.yahoo.com/patton-oswalt-tweets-trevor-noah-controversy-135628719.html

Patton Oswalt came out in support of Trevor Noah.