Of Shows and Men

In the year 1999 Comedy Central was on a rapidly rising trajectory.

Jon Stewart had just taken over The Daily Show.

South Park was exploding in popularity.

It was glorious.

If you were really lucky, you might even be able to catch Win Ben Stein's Money 4 times in the same day. And in that same year, the first host of Win Ben Stein's Money was set to premiere a new show. One that would catapult his career to untold heights. In 1999, Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla unleashed The Man Show upon the world.

It cannot be described so much as just experienced but if you have never seen it, The Man Show was basically a distillation of all the dumb ass male stereotypes of the 90s delivered through sketch comedy and interludes of Carolla and Kimmel providing wisdom and insight to the men of America. They chug beer. They are lazy. They make a ton of jokes about women. They "tell it like it is" (a feat most often performed by people who are actually stunningly full of shit). These two titans of manliness know what it takes to build things, pick up chicks, choose the best cigars, fix cars, and definitely could kick your grandpa's ass. And each episode ends with a variety of women jumping on trampolines in slow motion, because these guys fuck.

Now, I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to damn The Man Show. It genuinely was often trying to be a bit tongue in cheek with the casual misogyny and chest thumping but it was obviously stupid, and beyond derivative. And, it didn't hold my interest as much as playing Counter Strike or watching Stone Cold stun another sumbitch, so I didn't watch enough to become enamored with it. But I did watch it and I wasn't alone. And it turns out that The Man Show and its hosts were hugely impactful on the world of today.

The show had 4 hosts in its run. Doug Standhope (seasons 5-6) and Adam Carolla (seasons 1-4) get hit and missed here. Their influence pales in comparison to the other hosts of the show, despite how popular they may be in certain circles. Suffice to say, in the media arenas they operate in, they are pretty standard, and pretty much C-listers in the mainstream, with some internet notoriety. I honestly don't care to talk much about these guys here.

Of course Joe Rogan needs no introduction or analysis. Knowledge of his modern career in podcasting is ubiquitous among anyone that would read whatever drivel I spout out here, but it is kind of weird to know that he hosted the last 2 seasons of The Man Show alongside Doug Stanhope. Along with Fear Factor and UFC commentary, it's hard to imagine The Man Show tipped the scales tremendously for Rogan but I'm sure it didn't hurt. His involvement with the show definitely does make sense, in a stoner haze kind of way. You sort of expect that the universe just had to develop this way.

But Jimmy Kimmel is the host who is the prime subject of the week. His career really popped off because of The Man Show. Before that he shone a bit across from Ben Stein, but, frankly, that doesn't take much work; Ben Stein isn't known for being too lively outside of his 10 minute long "mad crushes" on women. The Man Show was Kimmel's chance to really show the world what his comedic vision was all about and its success helped him land his own night show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, which up until this week had been running since 2003. Some lowlights of Kimmel's tenure on The Man Show are:

• Following random women in Hollywood with a mic and camera and asking them if they want to have sex
• Dressing up as Karl Malone with full black face\
• Inventing a Pam Anderson mask for dogs in case they walk in while you are jacking off
• Fetishizing lesbians
• Really just fetishizing every woman

All of this and so much more. Hell, the first episode opens with Kimmel and Carolla at the Hoover Dam, promising to be a dam against the "tidal wave of feminization that is flooding this country. A dam to stop the river of estrogen that is drowning us in political correctness..."

Despite all of this, Kimmel faced little meaningful push back on his move into the main stream. The Man Show comes up here and there, when it is expedient for someone trying to score political points at the expense of a late night host (truly a lofty political endeavor). It's wild to think that through the height of right wing hysteria about Cancel Culture, with that baggage, Kimmel pretty much just had to say "I'm sorry" and just let his current work do the rest of the talking. You would think, if all their crying was founded on truth, that Kimmel would have been thrown out of ABC ass first into the street.

The reality is that to most people, after starting Jimmy Kimmel Live, he just seems to be a largely harmless, sometimes funny comedian who has platformed Democratic ideas or people, with a greater focus on Trump and his coterie of maladapted goofs as time has gone on.

And who could blame him for this shift in focus? Donny makes a point to be as loud as possible, as often as possible, in front of as many cameras as his handlers can arrange for, every day, all day (until its time to screech on Truth Social or watch TV in eager anticipation of a fresh glazing). He's prime material, ripe for attention, and he's the fucking President of the United States. Whatever one might say about Trump, no one can deny that he routinely does shit no other President would even imagine.

At the end of the day, and as far as late night hosts go, he's a lot better than Jimmy Fallon, I'll definitely give Kimmel that. But as far as an arbiter of left wing ideas I'd say he is also, really just a bit better than Jimmy Fallon. He has promoted gun control, affordable healthcare, and basic rights for LGBTQ people, sure, but he definitely is not the crookedly charismatic, radicalizing figure that Republicans are trying to frame him as (seriously, if you can find anyone on this earth that could be radicalized by Jimmy Kimmel Live, shield the rest of society from this dangerous person).

Still, Republicans are riding high on the grief from Charlie Kirk's death, and after decades of complaining about censorship and cancel culture (which they have actually been proponents of since time immemorial) they punctuate their ongoing, stunning barrage of hypocrisy by securing the suspension of Kimmel's show.

The reasons for this suspension seem to differ depending on who you ask and when you ask them during their process of iterating over talking points to manufacture consent. The most popular quote as the dust has settled seems to be this:

"We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it."

This is just some weak shit. I mean, you have to be the softest person in the world to take offense to this. Beyond that, it is also factually correct.

In the wake of EVERY highly publicized act of political violence that happens in this country there is immediately a barrage of misinformation. And in the age of clout-chasing on the internet the best thing you can be is the first person to be right. Politicians and pundits are not at all immune to the compulsion to scramble to be the first with a quip that distills the moment. If anything they are slaves to it much of the time. Hot takes and sick burns are currency in the world wide web during the era of social media domination.

The idiocy and inhumanity of this environment is definitely abetted by Republicans.

In the wake of the assassination of Melissa Hortman and her husband, Republican Rep Derrick Van Orden couldn't even wait for the bodies to get cold before he was blaming Marxists.

The attack on Paul Pelosi was blamed on a supposed spat with a gay lover by Elon Musk, Republican Rep Clay Higgins, and Dinesh D'Souza.

These fucking dunces still peddle the idea that the Clintons killed Vince Foster.

And one can tell just by listening to Republicans in the wake of Kirk's death, they were absolutely doing everything they could to "characterize this kid... as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it." It doesn't matter which "side" of the political divide Tyler Robinson actually comes from (if any side really) when analyzing this quote. Republicans were literally doing that. It's just factually accurate. Deflection and misdirection is overtly a prime tool in their ongoing strategy of escalation, and being first is exceptionally important.

Alas, though, it seems Ben Shapiro was wrong in the end. Facts do care about feelings. And the feelings of aggrievement by Republicans are strong enough to change the facts.

The fact is that Republicans have politically profited from doing EVERYTHING they claim the Left does after a killing like this:

They disseminate misinformation
They mock and ridicule victims of violence on the "other side"
They use tragedy to advance their political agenda

The fact is that Charlie Kirk was a person content with sowing discord in our society by promoting the Great Replacement theory, and should not be a model for anyone's behavior. He was a racist, a misogynist, a xenophobe, and made his mark on the world by dividing people.

The fact is that if Trump's FCC chair Brendan Carr can push someone as banal as Kimmel off the air for this quote, then they can do it to literally anyone for any reason. And now that they have embraced cancel culture when it comes from the President, rather than from the masses of consumers, there is no doubt that they will keep doing this to anyone who doesn't adequately grieve the memory of Trumps fallen, and favorite, son.

And as a footnote, lest anyone suggest that I am celebrating Kirk's death, or that I think he deserved what happened, let me do something that I feel not nearly enough people on the perceived Left are doing: I'll describe what I feel like karmic justice would look like for Charlie Kirk.

I would have preferred Charlie Kirk live long enough, and have conversations with enough people in his so-called 'debates' on college campuses, that he would eventually get tired of that hack bullshit. That he would come to understand that it isn't the people who are superficially not like him that are the problem in the world. That instead the problems primarily emanate from an overprivileged class of narcissists that seek to perpetuate endless conflict among the "lower" classes to distract from their theft, both of capital and of meaning. I would want Kirk to feel shame for his part in it. To introspect and find within him the strength to critique the roots of either the fear or greed that likely drove him to say and do the things he is indisputably responsible for. And then, for the rest of his life, feel compelled to act to undo that harm, and create a better world for everyone, including his family.

That's what Charlie Kirk deserved.