‘Sibley Put’ is where Josh Sibley, real American hero, boldly and unabashedly dissects the hot-button issues of modern video gaming and its surrounding culture. Everything he says is to be taken as personally as possible, so get those brows ready for some serious-ass furrowing. You babies.
I feel pretty bad. I have a couple articles that I’m 99% done with, but I keep having to tweak them because minor things keep happening. If I made a game myself, it would be Duke Nukem Forever all over again. But something happened today that bumps right up against our gender equality episode we had awhile back, something that perfectly illustrates the points I was making about being all for gender equality and fighting the good fight, as long as that fight is on the up and up.
What happened was someone got offended at a comedy club and blogged about it, namely a Daniel Tosh show. You can read about the entire thing here, but for those who aren’t up for reading that, the story goes that a lady wandered into a comedy club which happened to have Daniel Tosh headlining. She, not knowing who Mr. Tosh was or what his act was about, paid for a ticket and attended. As the show went on, Tosh made a statement as part of his act about rape jokes always being funny, which this particular bloggess took umbrage with. She decided that the prudent, right thing to do would be to voice her displeasure, at which point both Tosh and the audience both turned the offensiveness up until she got so offended she left and complained to the manager. I found out about this whole thing when Patton Oswalt apologized to his friends over Facebook about all the people he offended. Apparently Patton and a bunch of other comedians fell squarely on the side of supporting Tosh. As for the guy himself, Tosh issued an apology.
You didn’t, turns out. More on that in a second.
There’s more to this story, but I have to stop here for a second. Here’s a quote from that blog post up there:
I did it because, even though being “disruptive” is against my nature, I felt that sitting there and saying nothing, or leaving quietly, would have been against my values as a person and as a woman.
What values would those have been? Being too rock stupid to understand the difference between a show on stage and a round-table discussion about beliefs? Does this self-righteous dingy broad go to a stage production of The Crucible and scream at the cast for portraying young women as opportunistic liars? Did she sit in a theater showing Showgirls and go “I AM UPSET WITH SEVERAL SCENES IN THIS” while people shush her? Is it part of her values to not give a damn about the money other people paid to see this show and might not care about her specific damage? They didn’t pay to hear your issues, lady; they paid to hear Daniel Tosh be offensive on stage, because that’s what he’s known for, and it’s not a goddamned city council meeting. If you don’t like the show you’re watching, you have one option open to you: Leave. Write a letter, complain afterwards, by all means never fail to stand up for what you think is right and what you believe in, as long as you’re not disrupting other people’s rights in doing so. Spoiler alert: People have a right to enjoy a show they paid for in peace, and performers have the right to do their job in peace. She has a great line “So I didnt appreciate Daniel Tosh (or anyone!) telling me I should find them funny”. Okay, that’s great, but apparently you *do* get to tell other people what they should find funny? This lady is the self appointed arbiter of funny for the nation now. I know this is hard to fathom here lady, but try to bear with me for a second: no one gives a shit what you think about each individual joke’s subject matter during the course of the show.
God, some of my pictures are old.
The other thing I want to say before I move on is what in the good fucking god did this woman think was going to happen? I don’t just mean about heckling, I mean at a comedy show? She knew who Dane Cook was, and even though she said that he “wasn’t her thing”, she went anyway. Dane Cook has an entire bit about how it is hilarious and awesome to call your unruly girlfriend a twat. Even disregarding that, good comedy is not safe. I don’t mean that comedy has to be offensive, or go for the shock, but it can’t be comfortable and expected. The core of comedy is the contrast between what people expect and what people don’t. You cannot wring your hands and worry if you’re going to offend people or not, because then you’re not going to be funny. There’s many, many different types of stand up alone, and that’s not even delving into sketch comedy, article-based comedy and all of that, but for the most part if you’re trying to connect with an audience on a comedic level, you’re talking about real life and how absurd it is, and at some point you’re going to poke someone in the eye. Anyone who’s passionate about art steps on toes constantly. In many ways, that’s the goddamned point of it.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (with lies) AAAAAAAAAAAA
As for the heckling, how did she think it was going to go down? Did she think that she was going to lead the entire crowd, Dead Poets Society style in booing him off the stage? Did she think that he was going to respond to her outburst like “Oh, I’m sorry, you’re right, my bad. What was I thinking, you guys”? I would have loved to see her try and pull this retarded garbage with Louis C.K. If Daniel Tosh made her cry out in injustice with his goofy, over the top offensiveness, good ol’ Louie would probably have made her shoot herself in the lobby in anguish. As if anyone who’s even sort of a professional doesn’t deal with worse hecklers every single day of their lives. Heckling someone at a comedy show is akin to asking someone to post a video of you on Youtube of that time you recorded yourself singing a shitty song, except halfway through you fuck up and then you fall out of your seat and shit your pants. It’s not going to end well for you, is what I’m saying.
Like this, but way less cute
So at the end of the day what we have here is just a story of some lady who was blind to what the comedy scene is really like, and posted her negative experience on her blog. It’s not like she would have embellished her story in order to start a smear campaign against a comic that ruffled her feathers, right? I mean, if she lied about this, it would completely destroy her credibility about how utterly terrifying the whole ordeal was.
Except that’s exactly what she did.
That’s an article about the club owner’s side of the story, and it paints a very different picture. The routine didn’t go down as she stated. She did not “find it hard to process what was happening” and she did not “basically flee”. She sat through Tosh’s entire set, which got a standing ovation, and complained after the whole thing was over. Just about the only thing she was honest about was that she got free tickets, which she accepted. Of course, that didn’t stop her from lying through her opportunist little teeth and writing a sob-story smear campaign of a blog post which she ended with “reblog and spread the word”.
“I wonder how many blog hits I would get if I was basically the devil?”
I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect example of people who are technically cheerleaders of a good cause, but whose motivations and methods basically make them villains. You can’t just say “oh yes, I’m all about this” automatically, because people are constantly looking to use your genuine support to do underhanded, wrongheaded things. My Crucible joke up there is starting to look pretty apropos now, huh?
Good article, but you danced around your point a little too much. Although, I still really liked the article, and I agree with you.
PERSON OFFENDED BY COMEDY STOP RUINS SHOW FOR EVERYONE ELSE STOP BLOGS ABOUT IT ON THE INTERNET STOP COMEDIAN APOLOGIZES STOP RAPE JOKES STILL CONTROVERSIAL FULLSTOP
Josh, I’m going to restate your argument as I understand it:
1. Unnamed female audience member (UFAM) is offended by Daniel Tosh.
2. UFAM (or at least an unnamed blogger posting on her behalf) posts her version of events on tumblr.
3. The club owner offers a different version of the events and suggests Daniel Tosh did nothing wrong.
4. UFAM is therefore an opportunistic liar, and any point she hopes to make about the casual use of rape for humor is null and void.
Now I’m not going to debate the particulars of the incident itself, because frankly there is almost no reliable information as to what actually happened. The initial complaint was a secondary report from a blogger, and both the blogger and the UFAM are completely anonymous. As for the club owner, his refutation of these events are as follows: “Daniel came in, and he said, ‘Well it sounds like she’s been raped by five guys’ — something like that. I really didn’t hear properly.” I’m sorry, but that’s hardly damning evidence against the original story. Certainly there are inconsistencies, but one cannot say whose account actually carries more fact because there is a complete lack of corroborating evidence.
As for Daniel Tosh himself, he tweeted this: “all the out of context misquotes aside, I’d like to sincerely apologize.” At the end of that tweet, he linked to the original blog post. Now his statement would indicate that he disagrees with the portrayal of his words, but he offers no counter narrative as to exactly what was said. At the same time he also sincerely apologized, which, if we take him at his word, indicates he had some regret over what was actually said. But most importantly, he links to this blog on a twitter account with over 6 million followers. If it were a complete fabrication, why would he promote it?
Josh, you accuse the UFAM of starting a smear campaign, but how was this story brought to your attention? You saw a post by Patton Ostwalt, who likely became aware of the story through Daniel Tosh himself. Yes, the original blog post ended with “Please reblog and spread the word,” but Tosh’s own link gave this story a much wider audience (6 million followers) than a single amateur blog ever could.
Finally, I know you’re not a fan of the straw man fallacy, so let me focus on a different one. An argumentum ad hominem is the fallacy where you try to negate a claim by attacking a personal characteristic of the person making the claim. For instance, if a serial killer argued that it was absolutely wrong to kill, the actions the killer participated in would not be enough to negate the validity of his argument. In this case, you accuse the UFAM of being a liar. While her statements may indeed be misrepresentations of the facts of the story, it would not be enough to invalidate her larger claim that speaking of rape in a cavalier manner, even in a comedic context, is unacceptable.
So to sum up, you responded to an internet story based on hearsay and a ranting blog post that contains numerous misquotes and inaccuracies by creating a blog post with numerous misquotes and inaccuracies so you could rant about these uppity, lying women and their “opinions.” Therefore, I must conclude that you, Josh, are sweaty woman-hating Neanderthal mouth piece, whose own failures with the female gender has left your inadequate brain racked with unsubstantiated rage, and that you should be raped by 6 guys. BIG guys.
>I’m sorry, but that’s hardly damning evidence against the original story. Certainly there are inconsistencies, but one cannot say whose account actually carries more fact because there is a complete lack of corroborating evidence.
That, coupled with Daniel saying there were inconsistencies in her story mean that it’s two to one against the lady. The lady has every reason to lie: The manager has none. Also, her story doesn’t add up. She says “I didn’t hear the rest of what he said about me.” In a small 280 person club? Yes she did. Also “The manager on duty quickly came out to speak with me, and she was profusely apologetic, and seemed genuinely sorry about what had happened, but of course we received no refund for our tickets, but instead a comped pair of tickets, although she admitted she understood if we never wanted to come back.” Why would the manager do this then make up a story publicly bashing her later? What does seem plausible is that the club manager is genuine, and this person is lying to get blog hits. This happens fairly often: Patton Oswalt recently had to deal with something similar himself.
> Now his statement would indicate that he disagrees with the portrayal of his words, but he offers no counter narrative as to exactly what was said.
Because he’s the star of a major show on Comedy Central, and it’s easier to give a one sentence apology than it is to get in a PR nightmare twitter war that he most assuredly will not be able to win, especially in front of 6 million people. 6 million people like, say, you, who will believe anything a woman says, provided sufficient drama is placed behind it.
>Josh, you accuse the UFAM of starting a smear campaign, but how was this story brought to your attention? You saw a post by Patton Ostwalt, who likely became aware of the story through Daniel Tosh himself.
Actually, some of his fans probably brought it to his attention. I don’t know, but you don’t either. As far as I know, Daniel and Patton are not “comedy buddies”. They don’t tour together, they don’t run in the same circles, they’re not of the same “comedy generation”.
>While her statements may indeed be misrepresentations of the facts of the story, it would not be enough to invalidate her larger claim that speaking of rape in a cavalier manner, even in a comedic context, is unacceptable.
I actually don’t believe so. If she is a liar, and in fact a liar about something that is supposed to be so sacrosanct to her, then absolutely nothing that comes out of her mouth should be listened to or heeded in any way. To quote They Might Be Giants, “can’t shake the devil’s hand and say you’re only kidding”. I also don’t believe the blanket statement of “speaking of *blank horrible thing* in a cavalier manner is unacceptable”, because I’ve heard tons of excellent stand up acts from masters of the form that use vile subject matter. Sorry, can’t limit people like that.
> by creating a blog post with numerous misquotes and inaccuracies
I did not misquote a single person.
>Therefore, I must conclude that you, Josh, are sweaty woman-hating Neanderthal mouth piece, whose own failures with the female gender has left your inadequate brain racked with unsubstantiated rage, and that you should be raped by 6 guys. BIG guys.
Since you are clearly willing to believe a sob story of the female gender immediately while disguising it as critical thinking, I can only conclude that you are a weak yes man hiding behind a facade of confidence, with no real opinion of his own. I would say that it is in fact YOU who deserves the gift of man rape, but… well, it’s not rape if it’s consensual, is it?
The manager absolutely does have motive to downplay an unfavorable event that occurred at his club. And it’s really he-said-she-said until we have video of the incident, so I did find it striking how quickly and vehemently you took to calling the woman a liar (among other things) without good evidence. Also, if a blog writer’s point about rape not being funny is suspect because of an alleged lie about the exact sequence of related events, then you lining this article up with the gender issues discussion and then using the term “dingy broad” makes your statements on the matter pretty suspect as well.
However, I do agree that she should not have gone into Tosh’s show without expecting offensive jokes, because Tosh’s persona intentionally says that kind of over-the-top stuff to make people uncomfortable. She’s certainly welcome to disagree about humor, and she should speak her mind if she finds a thing morally unacceptable. But as poorly has Tosh responded to the heckling, I agree that she did not dispense the heckling with very much sense.
I agree with Emily and Jay. This shouldn’t surprise anybody at all.
My advice would honestly be to just stop writing about gender issues or anything of a serious or sensitive nature until you can do so without coming across as dismissive, ignorant, arrogant, incurious, and poorly informed.
The cracked.com style of outrageous commentary and picture paragraph breaks works for things that basically Don’t Fucking Matter(tm) and not so much for complex issues requiring some level of objectivity and critical thought. It makes you look bad, and it makes JKP look like just another dumb-shit gamer blog full of articles consisting primarily of poorly thought out word-diarrhea and entitlement issues.
You can do better than this.
Shadra, why is there no critical thinking involved? Let’s be very clear about our motives here. You guys don’t think that this woman lied. You’re not disagreeing with me because you don’t think there’s enough evidence, you don’t think that this could go either way, you’re disagreeing with me because you think this woman’s telling the truth, and Tosh and this nightclub owner are liars. You think she’s telling the truth because deep down, you don’t believe that a woman would lie about something like this for attention, and for you to admit so would basically be like pulling the head off your favorite child. So you come to me and insult me, talking down to me, Like I just love bashing women. I have a feeling the simple two step process to me not being “dismissive, ignorant, arrogant, incurious, and poorly informed” would be A) Believing everything a woman says is automatically right and true, and B) sticking to a list of pre-approved topics, and never ever mentioning the list of banned topics ever.
Ask yourself something honestly: Did you read the first article, get to the end when she asked everyone to spread this and re-blog it and go “Whoah now, we don’t have all the answers! Two sides to every story after all” No, you completely took it at face value and would have badmouthed this guy until the end of your days had an opposing viewpoint not come up. How *dare* you say the word objectivity to me.
I’m not calling this woman a dingy broad and a liar because I’m a misogynist. I’m calling her a dingy broad and a liar because I think the evidence clearly shows that she is lying through her teeth and things like this happen, especially to comedians, *all the time*. If you have evidence otherwise, I would love to hear it. Otherwise, you’re basically going to have to admit that you’re biased purely on the subject’s gender and the subject matter. People lying to get attention on the internet is not a rare beast that’s only seen on full moons, you realize. Furthermore, since I do think she’s a liar, and especially since she’s lying about something like this, she deserves to be absolutely fucking pilloried, because she’s a villain.
PR kerfuffles like this can absolutely destroy someone’s career, and it’s downright villainous to do so simply because you heard something you didn’t like in an act and want attention.
Finally, I’ve seen comments regarding a lot of my articles devolving into personal attacks. Jay’s comments were especially uncalled for. I much prefer responding to deleting, but I will if he continues his adorable little act. Since it apparently needs to be mentioned, I guess I have to spell this out: This space is my blog, for my opinions. It is where I write about what I want to write about. You don’t get to go “You shouldn’t write about this” or “You sholdn’t say that”. I’m not here to make JKP “look good”. You are more than welcome to disagree with me, you’re more than welcome to state such disagreement in the comments, and you’re more than welcome to think I’m disgusting. You’re also more than welcome to never click on any article I write ever again. Since it is apparently not just me, but the opinions of the whole JKP crew that “sicken” you, perhaps you should stop coming here?
>The manager absolutely does have motive to downplay an unfavorable event that occurred at his club.
Except neither the manager (a she) or her establishment were portrayed unfavorably in the original article. It was all on Tosh. She had no reason to get involved whatsoever unless there was genuine falsehood being perpetrated. Considering it’s 2 words against one, and there’s no motive for Tosh side, sorry. Like I said, it doesn’t add up.
URGENT DISPATCH BREAKING NEWS STOP GETTING OFFENDED AT A COMEDY CLUB STILL STUPID STOP PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE FULLSTOP
No matter which version of the story you want to believe Daniel Tosh made a rape comment in a situation where one would expect a joke(in response to a heckler). Assuming it was a joke, then he now knows that it did not play well. If Daniel Tosh is a good comedian he’ll determine if it failed due to his on stage persona or if it failed because it wasn’t funny and he’ll either rework it and try again or he’ll abandon it. That’s how comedy works; try bits keep what works rework or scrap what doesn’t.
He seems to have tried apologizing, but his accuser is anonymous. He apologized via Twitter. What it lacks in verbosity it, IMO, more than makes up for in how freely available it is. 6 million of his fans saw him apologize and link to the most damning recounting of the incident. This will hurt his sales/ratings in the near future more than it could possibly help him. IMO, he has done well to try to right this misstep, but it doesn’t like many of his detractors will be satisfied until he understand how serious rape is. Only way I can see that happening is for him to be raped. Think Heidi, Jen, Emily and Snowelle would mind if the JKP guys volunteered to be his 5 guys? It could be a really funny video.
There isn’t enough evidence on either side beyond: a) someone got upset at Tosh’s show and wrote about it. And b) Tosh apologized for his actions. So I can’t call this woman a liar. Could she be lying to get attention? Sure. But I’m not going to be dismissive of her because OTHER women cry wolf at times.
That said, I don’t think rape jokes are funny. So even if he said it in any sort of joking manner, rape happens far more than a lot of us would like to think, and flippant comments on it ignite pain/fear/sadness, things a skilled comedian should be able to avoid/bring people through and find the humor in them. Sure comedians make jokes about really awful things, but I’ll bet you don’t find a survivor of the Holocaust / 9-11 in your audience, but the chances of a rape/attempted rape victim are I think 1 in 5 women. A lot higher of chances to bring back something painful if the comedian isn’t skilled enough.
I’m glad he apologized, although it should’ve been more sincere, and if she blew it out of proportion? So what. Maybe more comedians will stray away from that subject. Or just get better at comedy.
This is hilarious. It’s a shame that yall don’t write articles anymore, because they were always fantastic.