MATT TAIBBI: Cancel Culture Takes a Big “L.”
How many employees walked out? Not one news organization put the real number in a headline, and only a few had the guts to even tweet that the actual protest was reduced in the end to the famed Arrested Development meme:
Even the op-ed wrapups couldn’t avoid sounding like parodies, with the Washington Post talking about the “crowd of dozens” gathered outside the company’s West Hollywood offices being evidence that the popularity of a comedian whose show already gained over 10 million views was colliding with a “growing movement to protect the rights of transgender people” (how a comedy set could be a violation of “the rights of transgender people” was not explained, of course).
Since they could only gin-up a tiny protest, the L.A. Times is working hard to cancel Vito Gesualdi, the Chappelle-supporting comedian whose “We Like Dave/Jokes Are Funny” sign was smashed by the protestors in front of Netflix HQ: Chappelle supporter ‘bristled at the idea of sharing his pronouns,’ Los Angeles Times reports.
He’s already pushed back against the Associated Press, which took a photo of a protester shaking a tambourine in his face and captioning it, “Comedian and videographer Vito Gesualdi screams profanities as he engages with peaceful protesters begging him to leave.” He wasn’t screaming profanities — the protesters were — and the AP finally issued a corrected caption, removing “profanities” (as well as “peaceful” from its description of the protesters).
Gesualdi has another story, this one about the Los Angeles Times’ coverage of the walkout. In this version, the reporter writes that Gesualdi “bristled at the idea of sharing his pronouns.” Get this:
As our sister-site Twitchy asks, “Are L.A. Times reporters really compelled now to ask everyone they interview their pronouns, or as people have said above, was this just a trap to make Gesualdi sound transphobic?”
My money’s on the latter, but forget pronouns: NPR goes full Blue-Anon on Chappelle: ‘Wait, Dave Chappelle Can Have White Privilege?’ Bill Maher Mocks ‘Woke’ Outrage Over Comic’s ‘Anti-Trans’ Netflix Show. “Maher eventually brought up an article from NPR about Chappelle that accused him of ‘using white privilege to excuse his homophobia and transphobia.’ ‘Wait, now Dave Chappelle can have white privilege?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘I’m really confused now.’ Join the club.”
UPDATE: Revealed: Activist who led Dave Chappelle/Netflix protest has history of racist tweets. A look into Ashlee Marie Preston’s “Twitter archives show that this advocacy does not appear to extend to all minorities, as Preston has had harsh words for those in the Asian and Latino/a communities over their appearance and behavior. Preston appears to take behavior from individual encounters with people who are Asian and use that to find reason to be prejudiced against the entire race. She wrote that ‘Asian hoes act like they wont get karate chopped in they muthaf*kn throat. What is this hoe staring at? Mind ya beeswax #B*tch.’”
(Updated and bumped.)