Norm Macdonald is a certified comic genius, one whose credits include some very funny books, TV shows, podcasts, roast material, and that time he told Courtney Thorne-Smith her new Carrot Top movie should be called “Box Office Poison.” He’s also known for his occasional bursts of character work—his Burt Reynolds having a warm, Turd Ferguson-spouting place in many people’s hearts—a pursuit he engaged in once again earlier tonight, when he debuted his latest character, “Guy Who Kind Of Threatens To Violently Attack A Journalist He Doesn’t Like.”
And we’re not gonna lie: It’s pretty, uh, conceptual stuff, in terms of being a break from the material we’re mostly used to seeing Macdonald do—although it does seem to have a spiritual ancestor in the form of last year’s equally challenging “Guy Who Says A Lot Of Pretty Dumb Shit In Interviews About Louis CK.” The subject of this new obviously-just-a-character character’s anger, meanwhile, was online journalist Seth Simons, who attracted a fresh dose of faux-ire on Twitter last month after he helped draw attention to a video in which comedian Shane Gillis played a character of his own, “Guy Who Does Hacky Racist Material That Gets Him Fired From His New Job At SNL.” (That one was more of a performance piece.)
Simons is a popular target for the clearly fictitious characters created and played by a number of prominent comedians on social media; Michael Che’s character, “Guy Who Gets Bizarrely Defensive When Anyone Says Anything Bad About Colin Jost,” has frequently taken time out of his busy, non-existent day to mock him for his vile practice of reporting and pointing out the awful shit that other people (by which we mean, of course, other people’s characters) have actually said. Meanwhile, Macdonald’s character—which he’s been workshopping on, where else, Twitter—has been vocally supportive of Gillis’ outsider art in recent weeks; the main thesis of Macdonald’s own work appears to be to mock the idea that someone getting fired from a TV show is equivalent to having them murdered, or causing them to be “destroyed.”
Anyway, we’re just grateful to be able to bask in the satirical work of so many veteran talents—many of them, as it happens, former Saturday Night Live and Weekend Update stars—who have taken up this cause in recent years, and for their willingness to devote the latter days of their careers to lampooning the idea of comedians growing increasingly tribal, insular, and closed-minded as the years advance, solidifying into hermit crabs of resentment who interpret every request for adjustment or moderation as some kind of widespread and vicious attack on their right to say whatever they want. Truly, these guys (it’s almost always guys, weirdly) hold up a twisted mirror to our much more normal, less deeply depressing reality, where comedy heroes do not, Dark Knight-esque, inevitably live long enough to turn into the most crotchety kind of villain—even if we do wish someone would let marathon performance artist Dennis Miller know it’s probably time to come home.
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I love his work but he always seems like he’s 5 seconds from saying something hilarious or horribly offensive
oh no!
Yeah, thats called a “comedian”
:::::::: knock, knock, knock…………..knock, knock, knock:::::NM: Yeah, can I help you?FF: Mr. McDonald, I’m Frank Farmer with the Secret Service………………
I like how in your fictional scenario, even crusty conservative Norm is still really polite. You really captured his innate Canadianosity there, kudos and kudos again.
I laughed at the firefighter sketch, although the bit about Shane thinking he was using google is basically a ripoff of Homer Simpson’s “I thought the cop was a prostitute”, one of the show’s better lines from after their first decade.
A) Norm Macdonald is one of the funniest people alive.B) His targeting of Seth is bullshit.C) That sketch is truly awful and it’s weird that someone so funny would advocate for something so bad.D) This is not really anything and all this article is doing is magnifying something that would have been forgotten in a day.
a) this is a pop culture blog
b) this is pop culture
c) this is a pop culture blog
This isn’t pop culture.
According to galactic law, everything on Twitter is pop culture.
More like Poop Culture, amirite?!
But it is though.
Why, yes, it is. Norm Macdonald is a famous person. So whatever crap he spits, he does it from a platform that is granted to him by his celebrity. This idea that you can separate your personal life from your public life when you’re famous is, sadly, flawed, because no one’s gonna let you, not your followers and not your detractors. So you either abstain from certain topics knowing full well that you’re maybe not equipped in knowledge to pass judgment on them, abstain from social media completely (but who can do that when there’s “brand” to preserve) and sort of live your private life in the privacy of your own private home, or just run your mouth in a delusion that just cause you’re famous and your fans will support you, you somehow should insert yourself into any conversation you want without filter, yell, call people names, etc. That good old Normie chose the latter way is his own choice and responsibility, and by mere fact that this is him, a famous guy, courting controversy on twitter, this becomes pop culture news.And it is tiresome.
what you wrote is tiresome.
I feel bad for your attention span. Here, short enough for you?
“Right between your earlobes, darling. That’s where culture grows.”-Thomas Dolby
poop culture?
I’m having trouble following anything in this article.
I didn’t see any reason to even want to follow it.
This norm guy sounds like a real jerk
Norm Macdonald is, indeed, a comedy genius…and I generally try to avoid his Twitter because of reasons like the above. He’s just kind of a mess and what he said is completely fucked up and unacceptable.Moving beyond Norm…there’s a very toxic, deeply interconnected relationship between some of the SNL critics on Twitter and the show itself. Even when there is no fresh controversy about the show, some, like Simons, who have a lot of disgust for the show (and in many cases have that disgust for valid reasons), will tweet fresh stuff about, say, Colin Jost’s love life (which he has kept entirely off the show, as far as I can remember, although obviously it’s still fair game – just strange to use in the context of condemning SNL), to keep the narrative going. Others will goad back and forth with Che through Twitter, continuing to talk about how terrible the show is and how terrible he is, yet still making references to current material, which means they are promoting the show as much as they are condemning it. There are people who are genuinely disgusted by SNL and there are people who sort of need the show to help their own identities or career goals, and they all end up blurring together in ways that at this point are just too exhausting to pick apart.
Well, shit. I guess he’s fired from Twitter now, too.
The worst part about Norm Macdonald getting fired from Twitter will be that his replacement is Colin Quinn, with his patented brand of flubbed punchlines, indifferently delivered.
For a guy who talks for a living, it’s baffling how Colin Quinn never met a sentence he couldn’t mangle.
And either equally baffling or straight up malevolent that they gave him the SNL job that requires the most contact with new names, geographical locations, and other words to butcher.
English is his second language. Technically he doesn’t have a first.
His stint on Weekend Update was incredibly frustrating – he wrote great jokes and delivered them HORRIBLY. Still, he was an improvement over MacDonald, who told the same three “jokes” over and over, week after week.
And killed every time. You either like him or you don’t, I guess. What bothers me is the people who used to love him all of a sudden deciding he was never funny because he’s a conservative. Not saying that’s you, necessarily. It’s just a weird sort of dishonest revisionism.
I absolutely loved Norm and still think he’s funny. Admittedly I’m less ‘woke’ than some posters here although I am pretty liberal and I don’t think Norm’s take on some things has been the best. But it doesn’t change the fact that his ‘art’ is still pretty damn good, and he had absolute moments of genius on SNL. I mean, I don’t think him stating his opinion in a country where we have freedom of a speech is a reason to dislike him instantly or ‘cancel’ him.
Yeah, I know what you’re talking about – honestly: I NEVER found him funny. The fact that he’s become sort of an obvious dick lately is, I admit, kinda gratifying to me as a NON-fan.
you know who disagrees with you….FRANK STALLONE.
GET OUT.
You are probably in the minority of folks who thought he was an improvement over Norm, you realize…
What I remember most about the tail end of his tenure on Update was the loud silence that followed his jokes. I get that he seems to be pretty popular with a fair number of people nowadays (especially the “political correctness is the scourge of the western world” crowd) – but I used to watch SNL regularly back then and when he got the boot from WU it seemed well overdue, as it was clear his jokes were not connecting with the studio audience.
Uh, that wasn’t Seth Simons that Che went after. That was another guy with a similar sounding first name. Close, though. This is literally the first line of the article you linked to: “In response to Uproxx writer Steven Hyden penning an article titled “Why Does Everyone (Still) Hate ‘SNL’s Colin Jost?,” Michael Che defended his “Saturday Night Live” co-star the only way he knows how: by accusing Hyden of bestiality.”
Btw, this whole article is kind of a mess and difficult to read/understand. You really ran with that whole “they’re playing characters!” thing to the point of incoherence.
To be fair, Hughes wanted to take this occasion to showcase a character of his we’ve sadly been acquainted with for the past few years, “Blogger Who’s Nowhere Near As Clever As He Thinks He Is, And Would Really Just Be Better Off Covering Entertainment News In A More Straightforward Fashion”.
I miss Sean O’Neal
We all do, my son
Logged on to say exactly this.
So does his coke dealer.(I didn’t type that. This new character of mine did.)
We all do.
To be fair, it’s O’Neal’s fault that every Newswire writer prioritizes snark over the actual news.
It’s not fair at all to blame a writer who left the company more than a year ago.
He set the tone.
The problem with the character “Blogger Who’s Nowhere Near As Clever As He Thinks He Is, And Would Really Just Be Better Off Covering Entertainment News In A More Straightforward Fashion” is that half of the writers for AV Club take turns playing the character, so it’s kind of become more of confusing performance piece than one identifiable character.
It’s the salty waitress of av club. I love it.
We can extend that to a lot of the corporate-owned blogosphere. Slate an Vox Media join in on the smug parties plenty too.
This
Buuuuuuurn
Sean O’Neal is rolling in his grave
Btw, this whole article is kind of a mess and difficult to read/understand. You really ran with that whole “they’re playing characters!” thing to the point of incoherence.God yes. That “just a character” schtick made it a complete chore to understand this “news”. Please don’t try that again.
Maybe Norm is trying to be the new @dril?
Not familiar with that. My comment was directed at the convoluted way the author presented the post, but as for the tweet, it sounds within the realm of Norm, just a tad extra sinister.
I mean, there are some parallels.
As someone with a learning disability, I find some comfort in this comment in that I was not the only one struggling to follow along. Reading this article made me feel like I was on a bus, riding on a crappy road, hitting potholes.
No worries, I don’t share that particular struggle, but I had to hit the comments to figure out what was even happening here. I got the general idea, but yikes.
Hyden famously wrote for this very website for many years. I would argue it’s where he made his name.
Don’t remind me of the good times.
The real idiotic thing here is that Che HAS been going after Simons, but the dreadful, smugly twee way this article is constructed made that almost impossible to discern.
I’d just like to second the “point of incoherence” line. This article is a genuinely terrible piece of writing. I would be embarrassed to show this to a friend or family member, much less an audience of strangers.
Yeah Hughes is a hack on his best day but this was truly confusing and weird to read. It’s also hilarious to hear him accuse others of tribalism given he dedicates himself 100% to woke clickbait.
Imagine reading this article and coming away with the take that Hughes is the problem here. In this thread: lots of mad Norm fans who know their idol’s behavior is indefensible so they shoot the messenger instead
Oh, recognitions, never change.
Or they just hate people like you. I’m sure that isn’t it though right?
Can’t it be both? I have no trouble recognizing Norm has some shitty takes on a lot of things, and this article was also unnecessarily dense and smarmy.
For what it’s worth I don’t care much for MacDonald either. I don’t think he’s particularly clever. He’s sort of a more successful Adam Corolla.
More successful Adam Corolla? Yes, and Leo DiCaprio is just a more successful Michael Madsen.
Your courage is inspiring.
“In this thread: lots of mad Norm fans who know their idol’s behavior is indefensible so they shoot the messenger instead”
Yeah, there’s clearly a lot of defending Norm here.
It can be a bunch of things at once! The messenger is awful, Norm should reel it in, cancel culture is fucking stupid! Hughes says nothing in this article if the blogger gloating because he cost a human their dream job- proof that it’s not done to protect people from… some comedian’s old material, but to make themselves feel more important than they actually are.
“Cancel culture” is not a real thing, it’s something made up by babies who don’t like being criticized for their shitty words and deeds. And I can’t made head or tail of your last sentence.
I disagree with your comment on cancel culture! However, I did read my last sentence… and yeah, not sure what was going on there… I think that the moment you reconsider your art for fear of losing your livelihood… that’s what I have a problem with. On the other hand I understand that I would lose my job if I said something horrid, even if it was just a joke that missed its mark. I want the artists I love to be able to explore and make mistakes fearlessly, and that is probably selfish and impossible. I don’t have the answer. I think people do get some sort of sick satisfaction from digging up old material and causing harm to someone’s career. I think that is cancel culture. You can’t say that the people, journalists, bloggists and the rest that pride themselves on calling out artists are all doing it for the right reasons.
I mean, we all reconsider our “art” for fear of our livelihood. You don’t go into work and tell your boss they’re a vile, soulless wild pig in human form and splatter him with blood. If someone feels the need to make hurtful, bigoted remarks as part of their “comedy”, they’re going to get criticism for it. That’s not “cancel culture”; it’s just the way the world works.And I don’t know why you would jump to the conclusion that people get a “sick satisfaction” for calling out comedians for racism, sexism and general vile behavior so much as they’re sick and tired of the group they belong to being insulted and treated like shit with no consequences for the perpetrators.
From what I read there was a great deal of post-termination gloating by the vigilante blogger in this specific case (and I also said the getting fired stuff). Beyond that, can you concede that there may be some people out there who do the “calling out” for the wrong reasons? I am totes on board with groups not being treated like shit, but ‘treated like shit’ is a pretty broad brush- what’s the line and who decides it? Is the line simply if any single person in the group finds it offensive? I am not trying to sound like a dick, I genuinely do not know and would love to find insight.
I mean I don’t see anything wrong with gloating over getting a racist fired. And I guess I’m not sure how it’s difficult to know if something is racist or otherwise offensive. If you’re not sure, Google is at your fingertips, it’s pretty easy to look around and find an explanation for any specific objection and then everyone can decide for themselves whether it’s deserving of criticism or not.
Okay, so on Google I’ve found people offended by the terms ‘white’, ‘sunset’, ‘foreplay’, ‘guesstimate’, ‘Cheerios’, ‘Paula Poundstone’, ‘Chocoholic’, ‘NPR’, and ‘Buddah’. Now, what, never say those?
Oh ok, you’re trolling. Congrats, you got me!
I was being sarcastic, but your answer is ‘Google it’? I’m trying to touch on the complications that this issue brings with it and you want it to be simple addition. It’s not.
Because you’re exaggerating the complications. Again, if you want to know what’s offensive to a certain group and why, learn about that group. Read the things they’ve written, learn the history behind them, try to understand their perspective. It’s not that hard. Hell, you should be doing that anyway, just to be an informed member of society.
See, I try to make headway and you just shit on me. How about this: Thinking you can understand the human experience from the MULTITUDE of different perspectives on this god forsaken planet by studying them all (and, oh, its not that hard!) is in itself offensive and bullshit. What you are saying is akin to “I saw Roots and read Thurgood Marshall’s opinions, so now I understand the African-American experience!” or “I read Glass Castle and so I understand poor people!”. Empathy starts as a human to human effort on an individual level, and that is the essence of why it is complicated. I work to make sure I never assume I know or understand anything about anyone I don’t know. I’m not telling you anything new though, I’m just an uninformed member of society.
You keep making these disingenuous, overblown comparisons. You don’t have to “understand the African-American experience” to know which terms are offensive to black people and why. What do you get out of being this purposefully obtuse?
Don’t even try with recognitions, Randy. I can see you are trying to engage in a thoughtful discussion about this subject, but no matter how hard you try to put across a reasonable point of view, you will always be wrong and usually made to feel bad about it. Recog is the one and true arbiter of what is currently offensive to all groups of people.
Even more bizarre, Steve Hyden used to write for the A.V. Club!
Che has also gone after Simons, though. And was doing it this week, related to the Norm stuff.
Is that Famed A.V. Club alumnus Steve Hyden?
I also need to concur, holy shit I got a headache reading this and trying to follow the incoherent line of sarcasm logic.
i understand none of this articles concept….was this commentary wrapped in a burrito that was already a quesadilla? are these toppings that even go on a pizza? what the f did i just read? am i being told what to think network? is norm the kfc guy or not…where is my mind.
Look, it’s the lizard people as being in cahoots with Colonel Sanders to defeat the Illuminati who, obviously, are led by Norm MacDonald…Ah, the Simpsons. Now THIS I understand…
It’s almost as if this old William Hughes character is a really shitty writer that never has any clue what he’s talking about.
‘Btw, this whole article is kind of a mess and difficult to read/understand. You really ran with that whole “they’re playing characters!” thing to the point of incoherence’Thank you! I read this and got that we were supposed to share Hughes’ disdain for something but he never bothered to say what. Performative outrage is its own reward I guess
This article was written by a drunk Norm Macdonald.
I feek like that’s redundant for some reason
Remember when Norm MacDonald, a dude famous for reading news stories and pausing for laughter that never came, ranted about how much he hated Margaret Atwood, one of the greatest living novelists?I think about that one sometimes.
Remember when it was okay for people to have opinions, even if we personally found them odious?
Social media will be the death of all of us.
No, not really.
To be fair, Margaret Atwood is a hypocrite who caped for a sexual abuser
Yeah, you know guys…Jesus healed the sick and rose from the dead and all, but to be fair he spent his life reinforcing the patriarchy and exerting his privilege.
Recognitions is a trash person. Just ignore.
Actually it seems like he was falsely accused from what I’ve read on Twitter from people who know the story closely and he’s now suing his accuser and all the people who publicly called him a rapist. So Atwood might be on the right side of history on that one.
fAlSeLy aCcUsEdYes, suing the multiple people who accused you of harassment is a totally normal thing to do and not a tactic abusers use to silence their victims at all.
Erudite!
Sorry to burst your bubble but you should do some research on this. I know you’ve programmed your mind to only accept information that confirms your world view but in rare cases crazy shit happens. You think if he actually repeatedly aggressively raped this woman like she said he would sue her in court for defamation?? Also the incident was investigated by a former judge who found – guess what – the allegations weren’t founded. But keep believing in your fictitious universe where Atwood is evil and defended someone who is clearly a rapist.
Of course I do. It’s an incredibly common tactic of abusers to silence their victims. See Johnny Depp. Or Donald Trump. Yeah, investigated by a former judge who worked for the university. Totally impartial there, because an academic environment would never sweep allegations under the rug. It’s totally more likely that five women were just lying bitches who made it all up for funzies, right?
You putz, it was *one* woman. And a mob started loudly proclaiming he was a rapist and destroyed him. So he’s suing the mob and I hope he wins. You sound like a computer algorithm spitting out reasons for why he must be guilty even though you’ve literally never investigated the situation, have no context, and don’t even know the most basic facts about the case (ie ‘five woman’).
Then why is he suing so many other people who said the same thing? Never mind the fact that he was fired for sleeping with a student, so even under the highly unlikely possibility that he was falsely accused, it’s his own fault he lost his job anyway. You sound like a hysterical MRA who thinks women have nothing better to do than run around making up accusations against powerful men for lolz. Believe women. It costs you nothing.
He’s not suing a bunch of woman who said the same thing you moron. There’s one woman and the people being sued repeated her claim. I’ve read the notice of civil claim. Like I said, you don’t even know the basic facts but I’m the irrational one apparently.
Courageous to stand up to a feminist author with decades of influential work. When she finds out a basement-dwelling internet commenter took her down, she’ll have to recognize what a monster she always was.
No one cares what you think.
Nah, but I see you paused two days after your comment for stars that never came.
I’ll never understand why so many comedians think that rightfully calling someone out for shitty hateful non-humor is the equivalent of imprisoning them as an enemy of the state.
I read this whole article and I don’t understand a bit of what this situation is about. This shit seems exhausting, I’ll be over here continuing to abstain from social media
Not sure social media can fairly be blamed for this article, which seems designed specifically to be insanely confusing.
Well it’s at least heartening to hear someone else say it’s insanely confusing
Thank you. This piece was written as if we’re all intimately familiar with all the backstory and weird feuds and so forth. I have no idea what that first Norm MacDonald tweet is supposed to mean and the article certainly didn’t explain it.
When you’re bored and want a laugh, copy and paste an article into Google Translate, translate it into another language, then into another, then back to English. The result will be more coherent than whatever this is.
Lol! I’m gunna try that at work
I think they’re trying to organize a party where we all meet at a bar to watch “Dirty Work” and old Celebrity Jeopardy skits.
I’m down!
Norm MacDonald is a shitty person, but this is a shitty article.
Look guys, I’m not gonna defend Norm on this one, but just… just come right out and actually criticise him, okay? Just say that he said some dumb shit if that’s what you want to say. You really don’t have to smother everything in layers of knowing snark and eye-rolling irony to the point where it’s incomprehensible.
You really don’t have to smother everything in layers of knowing snark and eye-rolling irony to the point where it’s incomprehensible.-The AV Club
And yet, I prefer this approach to, say, anything Jezabel puts out.
I think the writer is trying to layer on the (extremely confusing) irony here because Norm is truly a great comic that was beloved even 3 years ago, but has definitely slid into a Jordan Peterson-MAGA wormhole over the last few years and it’s genuinely disappointing.
Nah, that’s a bit of a stretch. I think you know it.
Jordan Peterson MAGA wormhole? Please remove Napa from your name. You’re too dumb and I don’t like seeing the name tarnished.
Get fucked dipshit.
And that’s a fair enough view, but they can just say that. The multiple layers of meta are unnecessary.
Norm’s always been a conservative. But he’s also just fucking with people. Norm MacDonald Has A Show’s Jane Fonda episode was the singularly best TV thing last year.
Indeed. Norm was never liberal. The crazy thing is, he’s still often very funny.
It’s almost like his politics bear no effect on his ability to be funny. Huh.
Yeah, I think we all get the conceit. It’s just a mess. We’re piling on, just join in already.
“Jordan Peterson-MAGA wormhole”Objectively untrue comment.
You seem intelligent.
Your opinion means very little to anyone.
Cool. You created an account to defend Norm on the Avclub. I wonder why this particular event spurred you into action.
Oh wow another objectively untrue thing you’re claiming. Shocking.
You literally had made no posts until this article, all to defend Norm. It’s objectively, laughably true with the receipts available with a click on your user name, Cleatus.
He really hasn’t, though, and that meme is annoying.
Holy shit you have got to be one of the stupidest people ive ever seen. If you thought Norm was a Jordan Peterson-Maga Supporter (What does that even mean those things are barely connected?) then I guess you should go back under the Queensboro Bridge where you belong. Just remember to bring your 15 bucks.
That’s pretty much the website.
Hey, I’ve got a cool idea! Let’s ignore the fact that Seth Simons went out of his way to delete a shitload of his own past tweets right after he decided to go through someone else’s in an overt attempt to ruin a career. That’s some top-notch journalism.That being said, Shane Gillis isn’t funny and Norm shouldn’t waste his brain on any of this nonsense.
Aaron Calvin forgot to delete his old own tweets after writing about the teenaged tweets of Carson King, resulting in his own firing. So I guess Simons has learned from Calvin’s mistake.
a guy at work told me how awesomely funny shane gillis is and that he never ever misses one of his podcasts. this is how i knew shane gillis was garbage.
Michael Che is on McDonald’s side it seems.
Did Seth Simmons actually attempt to be a stand-up comic, or did Norm Macdonald invent that? He seems to be suggesting that Simmons torpedoed Gillis’ career out of jealousy or something.
Not that it matters, ultimately, because either way Norm is continuing his unfortunate quest to prevent me from liking him.
Seth simmons is a wanna be stand up. That was not something norm made up.
Norm has engaged in no such quest because he doesn’t know you.Your own quest to prevent anyone from liking you is going swimmingly, however.
I’m almost as confused by the people in these comments who find this article difficult to read as I am confused about people who think Norm Macdonald is an amazing comedian. Come on, y’all, it’s not that confusing.Seriously though, I conceded ages ago that I don’t, and never will, ‘get’ Norm Macdonald. I believe people when they say he’s a good comedian, and I’d dismiss everything I’ve seen from him as just weak points of a strong comedian’s run… if it weren’t for the fact that the stuff I’ve seen is the content everyone holds up as his best. I must be missing something, because he just seems like a jerk.
I like how you expressed your opinion without being a total dickhead. I disagree, but I star you nonetheless for being cool about it.
Norm on twitter is a piece of shit. He blocked me for calling him out when he was threatening an author for daring to be anti-Trump.
good lord. i just got barred from commenting here over me trying to be ironic (and then clearly not being and actually offering praise) and this idiocy is what i read right after. fucking figures.
Yeah, the consensus here is pretty spot-on. I can’t make heads or tails out of the writer’s angle. It’s some sort of take down on Macdonald’s take down but it’s buried in so much noise that it’s impossible to parse. I don’t care if Norm’s politics seem like they skew vaguely conservative. He’s still funny. Dennis Miller’s supposedly the right-wing comedy guy but it has a whiff of desperate branding.
I suspect Miller went sneeringly right-wing because it was a way to reframe criticism of his “smug asshole references without a punchline” style of comedy as an attack on conservative values. And he’s parlayed that into jobs as the “funniest” person on networks with no comedians, so it’s kind of worked out for him.
MacDonald is (or was? I haven’t checked in recently) conservative in the way almost all old white guys who “don’t care for politics” are, but he was at least good at his day job.
Yeah, Norm has bit of a cranky old uncle about him. He’s not the uncle who gets banned from Thanksgiving for being a racist. He’s more like the good-natured uncle who starts talking weird politics while your mom shoots you a look across the table because she’s praying you don’t engage him. “Pass the gravy Uncle Norm!”
I think McDonald’s talent has always been more in delivery than content–see, for example, where he killed at a roast telling the hackiest jokes possible. I think that keeps him from entirely going the Miller/Victoria Jackson/Adam Corolla route; he’s never lost that sense of how to structure and say a joke so it lands, and even if you don’t share his politics he’s still funny.
Miller’s one of those people that shit his bed so hard on 9/11 that he lost his mind.See also, Ron Silver.
See also, Frank MillerDavid Mamet.Chris Hitchens.sadly, I could go on…
Interesting to note what all of those people have in common
They’re humorless scolds? Oh wait.
apart from “I used to like them, and now I don’t mind cancelling them because their post 9/11 work was terrible”, I honestly don’t know. What do you think they have in common?
People in the most privileged bracket in society are quick to target the most vulnerable populations when they feel threatened. In other words, they’re all straight white men.
So brave.
that’s a bit harsh on Hitch, and I don’t know if Mamet said anything anti-Islamic, but Miller, yeah, totally.
He went from well-informed centrist/pragmatist to kneejerk neocon. It happened to a lot of people after 9/11. The funniest thing was how people said that small-government conservatism was “destroyed forever” then, with the TEA Party only eight short years away.
It’s William Hughes. Be careful of criticizing him, though, or he’ll put you in Kinja jail.
Is that why I’m permanently grey? O’Neal would have ungreyed me. Possibly.
Is Hughes the Albert Burneko of AV Club?
If so, Hughes must be a thin-skinned mouth breathing turd.
This article reminds me of a supposedly true story where a while back, a lawyer sent a letter to his favorite MLB team, threatening to sue them if they didn’t start winning more. The team owner responded with a letter that basically said, “hey, wanted to let you know some asshole is sending me letters under your name.” That is a funny line because it is just one line. Trying to extend that sort of joke into a full article seems a bit strained.
Norm is a deeply flawed character and complex man but I’ll always love him! Why does everyone seem to ignore that Norm is a survivor of child abuse? I guess it makes it difficult for people to shit on him and call him a terrible person if they acknowledge it.
Past trauma is not an excuse for bad behavior unless it totally is.
In the tweet, Norm is comparing the other guy to the Joker, who is a killer. He’s saying Simons is a metaphorical killer like the JOker. He isn’t threatening to do the killing himself. I guess the “I can’t wait to meet you” is a bit creepy/threatening, but I’m not sure it rises to the level of “threatens to violently attack.”
But Norm personally insulting him to his face would be a similarly metaphorical murder.
Yeah… I bet you think “I know where you live” is a neutral statement of facts, void of intent, huh?
Finishing a message that has an hostile tone with “I cannot wait to meet you. And I will.” is 100% a threat. It could mean anything from “I’ll call you NAMES!” to “I’ll murder you in a backstreet”, but it’s quite obviously worded as a threat.
You know, I wish they could actually engage. I wish they could talk about actual merits of comedy when they’re defending it. I wish they told us what exactly is funny about it instead of going “LOOK AT THIS” as if it’s self-explanatory. Comedy is subjective, of course, but it’s definitely a subject to analysis. It has its rules, it can be taught, it’s an art. There’s a reason why comedy often doesn’t work, but some people will still enjoy it. I would love to discuss the art of comedy with Norm Macdonald. Instead all he and people like him do is yell, call people names and behave like a bully. Always a great way to reach an understanding. But who needs that. His fans will eat it up.
It has its rules, it can be taught, it’s an art.0/3I would love to discuss the art of comedy with Norm Macdonald.
Norm would not enjoy this, but he’d end with telling you that you’re a “good guy.”
Is SNL a coke factory where everyone contributing must snort tons of coke and then turn into a douche? or whatever the kids snort these days.
I have no idea what I just read.
I like Norm MacDonald. His streaming show is charming if you haven’t sent it.I also think that THIS [gif pointing up to article] is what comedians are talking about when they bemoan how hard comedy has become in this modern age. Their complaint is not exactly “PC Culture” (as it is usually charicatured as.) The problem they’re complaining about is that people aren’t allowed to feel what they feel about something, because someone online has already told them how they’re “supposed to feel.” Cancel culture is herd mentality.
Also, no one on the new Saturday Night Live is fit to wash Norm MacDonald’s comedy ball sack.
Michael Che reminds me a lot of Norm (for better or worse). The main difference is that Norm was also a terrific sketch performer, whereas Che mostly sticks to Update and the occasional sketchwriting.
In today’s episode, area man bemoans someone for being criticized for threatening another man with violence in a public forum
Point to the threat.
Fry is the threat? That’s some esoteric shit right there.
Uh, zing?
The part where he says he WILL “find him.” Did you think he wanted to make a more nuanced and detailed complaint in a personal setting? Or are ya trolling?
Someone’s been watching too many Liam Neeson movies.
Someone is confirmed as trolling. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.
Or, alternatively, YOU could shut the fuck up?
Your argument is so strong you need to make up words that he did not actually say, but someone else is the troll. Got it.
Was that what that was?
The world would be a better place if you died in a fire. Truly
If a straight white male commits violence against another straight white male…is it really violence?
If we’re gonna do this, let’s be honest. There’s not a threat of violence there, only the promise of a face to face interaction. For the conflict-averse, I can see why that seems like violence, but it’s not.
Honestly, if Norm threatened me, I’d be super flattered. Then I’d fuck his shit up, of course.
“Norm Macdonald is a certified comic genius,…”*Snorts and spits out air*EVERY word of that is a lie.If Macdonald is a comic genius how come he hasn’t won the Mark Twain Prize for Humor?FUCK Norm Macdonald.Dirty Work was the worst movie in the history of cinema.
I think I hate AV Club now. Is it me? Am I the problem? Or did all the writers capable of anything more than pearl clutching snark, and pop culture references that are the equivalent of Steve Buscemi in a backwards baseball hat really go somewhere else?Quick someone say ‘stan’ five times fast in a mirror, and see if an AV Club writer appears to tell you which celebrity shouldn’t have spoken today.
I’ve been reading this site since the beginning. It’s not you. The dream is over. What can I say?
I’ve been here about 11 or 12 years now. Not since the beginning, but a good long while to read a website daily. I don’t know where to go that’s better, but I just find this site exhausting now. It used to be funny. It used to be clever. It used to be a reliable source for finding weird, interesting shit that would have otherwise escaped your radar. It doesn’t seem to be any of those things anymore.
It’s now an extreme left shithole like the rest of the gmg or go media or whatever websites. RIP
Yeah it really sucks.
No you’re right. These are not good writers or good people. This place used to be something.
I’m not gonna judge their goodness as people, but as writers…yeah.
SETH IS THAT RACIST WHO MADE RACIST POSTS ON TWITTER BEFORE OUTING ANOTHER RACISTNOT SURE WHY THIS BLOG IS SO CENTERED ON PROTECTING WHITE RACISTS LIKE SETH
I like how all of these “comedy bloggers”and people on Twitter like “Norm is being creepy” as if this is more creepy than someone getting on SNL and then digging through all of their shit trying to find something offensive so you can cancel them, get them fired, and make $75 for a poorly written article.
It is tho
No one anywhere cares what you think about anything.
Personally, I think it is way ore creepy that people want to publicly defend a guy who thinks racial slurs are jokes, but to each his own, I guess.
I can’t wait till the AV club and the rest of the hyper left media get all these horrible mean comics out so we can just have comedy that is nice and inclusive any never hurts anyones feelings and doesnt make anyone feel any way at all. Comedy will be truly great.
Get the facts, man. Comedy is only good when it’s not funny and involves sharing of personal trauma. Straight white men obviously need not apply.
Norm is a fucking scumbag idiot… and this article is extremely poorly written.
People who are pretending that this article is “hard to understand”; you guys aren’t slick. It’s really not that complicated and I know you wouldn’t be pretending to have this much trouble if it wasn’t about your fave acting in a completely indefensible manner. Also, Norm Macdonald has always been an asshole; also, comedians are bad and there should be no more comedians.
0/10 troll
We should also get rid of puppies and rainbows. Actually, why do we even allow laughter? Seems like it could hurt someone’s feelings or reinforce the patriarchy.
It’s written in a really obnoxious way, and even begins with a Tweet that is impossible to decipher without some context, which the article doesn’t give a shit about providing. I read three lines, went “oh, it’s one of those”, and stopped reading. And I don’t give a shit about Norm MacDonald. When literally everyone but you is saying something (ie “this article is obnoxiously written and needlessly confusing”), maybe consider it for a second instead of assuming it’s REALLY about whatever you decided it was.
You’ve probably been updating your Things To Be Offended About spreadsheet for too long to remember that most people get through their days without thinking that way at all.
Big fan of people making threats on twitter, eh? Or are you just so pissed from that last argument you lost that you jumped in with some dumb shit without even reading.
Each part of that is funny, though doubtlessly for unintended reasons.
You’re the one who jumped in here with ad hominem attacks bud. Only you know the real reason, I just guessed.
How the fuck did you convince anyone to pay you to be a writer?
I thought this was funny, and pretty clear. My two cents.
I think I get what this article is trying to do and articulate. But, it stands out as being one of the most poorly written things I’ve read on this site.
This article’s central conceit was unsuccessful.
Can someone edit this article so it makes sense?
Can someone explain this to me like I’m a child because I’ve read this article and some of the things on twitter and I can’t understand any of it. What does sasimons original photo mean? What made Norm so angry about it? I’m only 39 so I feel like I should have some clue but maybe I’m officially old and none of this kind of stuff will ever make sense again.
Look af this old over here. (I’m 38 and I know what you mean)
What do you mean, “almost always guys”? Can you name a woman who has done this?
Women are perfect and incorruptible, it’s true
Remember that time sarah silverman wote blackface?
Yeah Sarah Silverman recently
Roseanne.Unless she’s transitioned, and no one bothered to tell me.
I logged in just to add my name to the chorus of people telling you this article is a mess. I read through it three times trying to understand it, and actually thought about copying it into Word to see if replacing all the “just a character”s with actual names would make it coherent. Then I thought if I did that, I’d be putting more effort into making the article understandable than you did, and unlike you, I’m not getting paid.
Seriously, I’m not the kind of person who leaves snarky replies on internet posts, but this gave me a headache. Please, AV Club, learn from this.
Neat article, Mr. Hughes!Ungrey me?
I stopped following him when I realized 90 percent of his tweets were about golf. And, looks like the other 10 percent doesn’t matter either.
Masking a critical column in irony really just makes the message diluted. I THINK you’re down on MacDonald and where he’s going lately, but there was way too much snark to see it clearly.
I hate that limp dick losers like you have platforms to spout off on people with actual talent nowadays
“Y’all ****** are the worst motherfuckers I’ve ever tried to entertain in my FUCKING LIFE.”-Dave Chappelle
Lot of Comedy Defenders in these comments, who are braver than the troops and definitely have good relationships with women.
William Hughes seems like kind of an asshole pretending to be smart and above it all for writing this crap.William, you’re not on the level of the people you presume to criticize with you’re politically correct bullshit. Grow up. We don’t have to conform or agree with anybody or any agenda.
Hey Billy! Evidently enough time has passed that the commenters have made something clear to you:Your intent to utilise the entirety of your talent and effort to create a work of comedic journalism has resulted in 100% of your readers being completely confused about whatever the fuck you were trying to say. You have also bummed everyone here out with your example of epic failure of comedic writing, even moreso than every other piece you have ever written.
I know that this bit of self-evident truth already stings and may leave you depressed or anxious about continuing on with your profession now that you know you have absolutely no talent for it, so let me give you some advice on how to move past this:Take two weeks off from writing professionally. Then…
Quit forever.I don’t know what field you actually have any talent for, but based on 100% of the examples I’ve seen of your work, I can suggest this. Think of whatever field is the opposite of professional writer and try starting there.Always lookin’ out for ya’, Billy!
You’re the worst kind of person, you’re the kind of person who laughs at nothing, you’re the kind of person who would heckle a comedian because you’re literally the one person who didn’t find a joke funny, I hope that you never go to a comedy show, or any live show that is meant to be humorous, because you’re such an awful human being that you will suck all of the fun out of it simply with your presence, learn to take jokes and understand comedy if you intend to write about it, to put it bluntly. You’re a real jerk, and I hate your guts.
I agree he should not “kind of” threaten journalists. The most important thing America needs to hear right now is clear, unambiguous statements that pseudo-journalists like Seth Simons or William Hughes should be attacked with bricks until dead. No quotes around it, no snark: those people can and should be subject to extralegal killings. Or, in the kind of phrasing that readers here pretend to find clever and entertaining, they should try out new characters along the lines of “Guy Who Dies Screaming While Being Pelted With Bricks While Everyone Laughs and Enjoys His Suffering.”
Lame, hysterical, self-righteous people like this writer and anyone who regularly peruses the AV Club have ruined American culture.
Shane Gillis did not do anything racist. Just the opposite. He was making fun of those that falsely accuse others of racism just to score points with the left, ironically, not unlike you’re doing here. Nobody is buying what you’re selling, Hughes.
Norm is correct.
I’m working on a character called “guy who has a hard time reading this article and finds he grows a little happier in life each time he gets incrementally closer to being done with avclub”